Twibbon is a free Twitter tool that allows you to put a ribbon on your profile pic. Billed as “the easiest way to promote your cause on Twitter,” Twibbon was created earlier this year by Edinburgh-based Storm Ideas.

A few stats

25,300+ Twibbon causes created to date

838,300+ Twibbon supporters to date

90,000+ Breast Cancer Awareness Month Twibbons on Twitter/Facebook profile pics in Oct

50,000+ visitors to Twibbon.com on World AIDS Day (1st Dec)

Whether you consider this activism or merely ‘slactivism’, Twibbon is officially a social media darling, having just won several awards including the Econsultancy Innovation in Social Media Award.

I recently spoke with Dan Moss, Marketing Executive for Storm ID – Storm Ideas’ parent company – about the Twibbon tool, how it’s being used by nonprofit organisations and how the tool might be expanded and customised for charities (hint: charities apply here!).

Amy McGeever: First off, a big congrats on winning the Econsultancy Innovation in Social Media Award. How does winning the award feel and what does it mean for Twibbon and Storm Ideas?

Dan Moss: Thanks very much. We were really happy to win that award, because we were up against household names like Virgin Atlantic and Channel 4. To have a really prestigious panel of judges describe your product as “genius” is an incredibly encouraging thing to hear. Hopefully it opens more doors, makes influential people more aware of the service, and shows our partners, clients and peers that we are at the top of our game.

Amy: So tell me a little about Twibbon. What was the inspiration for the tool?

Dan: Twibbon was the result of a late-night takeaway, a few drinks and a good idea. My colleagues, Storm Ideas co-founders Bob Thomson and Jonathan Joyce, had been mulling over the underexploited real estate of the profile picture in social networking culture and how it could be employed to more effective ends. There was also a distinct sense, in this ‘real-time’ age that Twitter is such a big part of, that setting up a campaign and lending support could be so much quicker, easier and enduring than it was possible online at the time. That was really the beginning of Twibbon.

Amy: What was the turnaround time for you to develop and release the tool?

Dan: I think, after talking extensively through the concept, Bob worked through the night to get the first release of Twibbon live by the next morning. It was much more stripped down than the current site is now, with no information on Trends, no Leagues [for supporting sports teams], no categories to browse through. Even without all that functionality, it was still hugely popular with around 40,000 users in the first week. From day one, we’ve tried to make quick releases rather than procrastinate and try and achieve perfection.

Amy: What’s been the uptake from charities, political organisations and protest movements since you’ve started?

Dan: There are so many not-for-profit organisations and informal movements on Twibbon; in fact they account for over 40% of total Twibbons. The first major movement that sent Twibbon into overdrive was started in Indonesia and was called ‘#indonesiaunite’, in response to the Jakarta bombings earlier this year. Both ‘#Twibbon’ and ‘#indonesiaunite’ became trending topics on Twitter and around 20,000 users went on to overlay that logo.

Since then, things have just gotten bigger and bigger. Over 90,000 Twitter and Facebook users overlaid pink ribbons in their profile pictures for Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, while World AIDS Day saw more than 50,000 users visit Twibbon.com in one day. Here’s a related Twibbon blog post from when Breast Cancer Awareness Support was at 70,000.

Amy: How has the Twibbon tool developed since it was first released, and what’s next in the product road map?

Dan: The real development has been on the analytics and campaign management front. When we first created Twibbon, a user could create a cause and put it out there to the world and that was that. Now, users can turn their causes on or off and every user can track how many people have worn the Twibbon in the past week, month or since it was created.

We’ve also introduced a very helpful positioning tool so you can choose where you put your Twibbon in your profile picture on Facebook and Twitter. This means that users can potentially support a larger number of causes, although for aesthetic purposes, most users still limit themselves to one or two at a time. There’s still so much to be done, and we’re working with users of the service to implement the features that our community wants to see.

Amy: Are charities asking how they can charge for a Twibbon as way to fundraise?

Dan: We are aware that lots of organisations would like the destinations to have donation buttons, or provide links where users can offer further support for causes they care about, and that’s certainly something we’re looking at doing in the near future, as part of a pro-account package, if there aren’t too many obstacles. It’s on a to-do list that seems to get bigger every day!

There is clearly a potential relationship between raising awareness and raising actual funds, although it’s not always strikingly clear how that relationship works. With Twibbon, you can suggest in the cause description that users visit a website to donate or, alternatively, use your Twitter or Facebook account to do the legwork while your Twibbon attracts users to those communication channels.

Amy: Do you have any case study info you can share on how charities or political organisations are using Twibbon? I’m wondering about proof of impact – either on awareness levels raised, funds raised or advocacy goal achieved – as a result of Twibbons, or with the help of Twibbons.

Dan: In terms of evidence of use, the great thing about Twibbon is that anyone can check those in-depth details, from the number of people wearing their Twibbon to the average number of supporters of users supporting a particular cause; if anyone needs persuading that it works as a campaigning tool, all they need to do is get online and have a browse in the ‘causes’ section of the website, and they’ll see just how many people are getting on board.

With regards to how charities and organisations use Twibbons and execute campaigns, I think it depends entirely on an organisation’s aims. For instance, if it’s a political protest, then breaking through the digital barrier to mainstream news is an end in itself. When the British people reacted to some controversial derogatory comparisons between the American health system and the NHS, the Twibbon and hashtag ‘#welovethenhs’ trended for days, making headlines in The Telegraph, Huffington Post, The Guardian. The subject was also talked about on BBC radio services and the Twibbon worn by the likes of Sarah Brown of Downing Street, Nick Clegg, Ed Balls and a host of other influential people on both sides of the Atlantic.

The Breast Cancer Awareness Twibbon was seen by roughly 16 million users in October, through Twitter streams and feeds. Getting that kind of exposure for free, and through the people we trust most, our peers, has got to be seen as valuable and far superior to more expensive forms of advertising that can’t engage in the same way.

Amy: Which charities or nonprofit organisations do you think are using Twibbons in the most effective way, and why?

Dan: One sure fire way to pick up support on Twibbon is to create a really good design. Unsurprisingly, a lot of charity designs focus on ribbons, which can be great if instantly recognisable, but if not, runs the risk of being lost in the 25,000 causes already circulating Twibbon. The BBC Bullyproof campaign is neat because it goes that extra mile to appeal aesthetically to users.

Equally, getting celebrities on board can make or break a campaign. Increasingly, Twitter is becoming more celeb-focused, so when Paris Hilton and Stephen Fry are seen wearing World AIDS Day Twibbons by their millions of followers, you can bet those causes are going to be well supported.

Help for Heroes prompted Vernon Kay [radio DJ and TV presenter] and Will Carling [former England rugby captain] to wear their Twibbon, and they have used the service as a great way of increasing their follower count and of identifying supporters for their important cause. Help for Heroes now have over 35,500 supporters.

Amy: How are you going to make any money out of this? Can you say anything about the business model for Twibbon?

For a while now, our objective has been to build Twibbon into the fabric of social networking and the wider internet experience. We’re achieving that really well with the deep functionality that no other free campaigning tool on the web offers.

At the moment we’re working with brands to create customised destinations, because the service does offer a great solution to the problem of online community engagement that seems to be the Holy Grail for companies at the moment.

We have been working on official destinations for The X Factor and I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here, and they’ve been such successes that we’ve subsequently been commissioned to invigorate the social media drive for Dancing On Ice.

For these destinations, we have allowed for multiple Twibbons on one page, branding that leads back to their own websites, auto-tweet customisation and among other features.

We also offer to tweet and blog about these customised destinations to more than 300,000 followers of the @Twibbon Twitter account and strategic consultancy on how best to achieve their aims, whether it be more followers on Twitter or more eyeballs on their monetising video content. Basically, we make sure that their campaign is a success and achieves its goals.

Amy: And would you see doing this kind of collaboration with a charity?

Dan: Yes, definitely. We know that this kind of destination would work for not-for-profit organisations as well. We’re just waiting – or rather, actively searching! – for an organisation to partner with us and reap the benefits of this premium customisation service. We could use just such an opportunity to develop a donation button or help them achieve their aims some other way.

Dan Moss can be reached at dan [at] stormid [dot] com.