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January 13, 2012 #CommsChat with James Whatley on engagement currency, 16 January

For #CommsChat on Monday 16 January, we’re delighted to welcome James Whatley on board. We’re going to be thinking about engagement currency – a subject of a recent post over at James’ blog: http://whatleydude.com/2012/01/engagement-currency/

Engagement currency stems from thinking about how brands can build engagement with various communities through social objects – such as Heineken’s recent experiment with QR codes at the Open’er Music Festival. But Heineken’s QR codes weren’t really a success, because the company used a technological process for a technological end, rather than capturing what festival-goers were already using to communicate with one another. Engagement currency also draws on the ideas of Free Energy, which you can have a look at here: http://www.slideshare.net/andywhitlock/free-energy

For an hour on Monday, we’re going to explore how brands can get people talking using objects of currency – whether it’s flags for festival-goers, laptop stickers for bloggers, or anything else. Topics for Monday night will include:

• How can we define engagement currency?
• What brands do we think are currently using this kind of strategy – and doing it well?
• Do we agree that Heineken could have done better here, and how?
• QR codes as a medium for engagement – do they work? Has anyone cracked it?
• In which other communities could this strategic line work?

#CommsChat will last an hour, from 8-9pm Monday (UK time). Take part right here on the CommsChat site, or by tagging your tweets with #CommsChat. A transcript will go up on Tuesday morning.

James Whatley has just left word of mouth marketing agency, 1000heads. After two years of building award-winning social media and community campaigns for multiple different clients around the globe, he’s joining Ogilvy PR on Jan 23rd as senior associate director, 360 influence. Which means that for #commschat, he’s technically unemployed!

You can follow him, @whatleydude, and read his blog http://whatleydude.com.

: #CommsChat, engagement currency, January