CokeTag and My Thoughts
Full Disclosure: The Coca-Cola Company is a client of The Advance Guard and we are currently working with them around the CokeTag initiative. I'm going to be honest that when I first saw the CokeTag application my reaction was along the lines of "nice and easy to use, but it would be better if it wasn't only on Facebook."
It is never fun when you first see something new from a potential client and that is what you say. But, when asked for an opinion on something I always speak from the heart. The best part is that they were ready for that and explained to me that Facebook was just the beginning.
CokeTag went live as a beta starting on Facebook in conjunction with promoting their we8 Artists and there are plans to expand through the OpenSocial network and then perhaps beyond. You can read more about this on the CokeTag announcement page.
I was happy to hear this because any time you can manage content from one place and it expands out to update everywhere is a good thing. Simplicity in keeping data updated across the web is a feature I'm always looking for more of.
I've added a CokeTag to my personal profile (as shown here) and you can also add them to any Facebook Page as well. That for me is where I see this being really useful.
As a music junkie and indie music supporter, I love any time a new tool comes out that helps an artist get more exposure.
If an artist or band has a Facebook Fan page they could create a CokeTag and fill it with links to their concert calendar, links to buy their music, podcasts that have played their tunes, band blog, fan pages, photos or anything else they could think of. THEN any fan could grab that CokeTag and put it on their personal profile to show their support for the band. That is the part I love.
It is similar to hanging a band poster up on your bedroom wall, except now it can be updated by the band whenever they have new information they want to promote. That final piece is where the power is in my opinion.
I find myself tweaking mine on a regular basis to figure out which links to put in. I think I might have finally got it, but I'm not sure.
If you come up with a creative use for a CokeTag let me know about it so I can check it out. I've already seen it used to share details about a wedding which is certainly an angle I hadn't thought of.