My country wants to be your friend
I live in a friendly country, yes we might have fudged that Icesave thing and grounded all air traffic for a few days, but compared to other countries on the Inter-nets, Iceland is the friendliest.
http://icelandwantstobeyourfriend.com might not be the friendliest of URLs, but I love everything else about it. Having the actual country represent itself as a quirky old soul discovering the inter-nets, engaging in conversation and answering back really appeals to me. The tone of voice and content is just bloody spot on if you ask me.
This is not your average social media flair campaign with a clear marketing message. Much rather a full on engaging experience for all those who accept and become friends with this island I call home.
Slowly but surely it has built a 52K strong Facebook page with some hearty quotes from friends of Iceland addressing it in the first person. Recent examples:
Also, Iceland being the old island and all, is pretty hands on when it comes to social media. You will find it on Tumblr, Vimeo, Twitter, Flickr and wherever the conversation is happening. It even has a Get Satisfaction page.
One of my eureka moments in social media was when I stumbled upon the facebook page for Iceland and was so impressed that I posted it on twitter and facebook. Soon after I got a rather sturdy email from Valgeir, who seems to be the mentor of Iceland online asking me to please remove my posts as the focus was on recruiting friends that did not actually live on the island. I of course obliged learning an important lesson in community building and focus. Since then I have had tremendous respect for all things that originate from under the wings of Takk Takk.
Let me conclude this with a video of an Icelandic knitting man