Freegle Affiliated Group Name and Logo Guidelines

These guidelines were adopted by the Board at their meeting of 29th October 2014.

A. Things to consider in general when 'naming' a group

• Group names should be consistent to avoid confusion for members of the public. They should ideally have the same format across all platforms (Yahoo, FD, Facebook, Twitter, etc).
• Group names based on a town rather than area tend to do better.
• More than one way of describing a location should be avoided where possible.
• Local acronyms, that are meaningless to most people, should be avoided.
• Acronyms should be checked carefully before naming and avoided, e.g. Freegle Friendly Support (F.F.S)
• The naming format for specialist groups should be the same as standard groups

B. Examples of best practice for group names across different platforms

Example area/town name = Blue River

Example Group Name = Freegle

(When existing groups move to Freegle, the group name may be something else already e.g. GreenCycle. It is preferable though for new groups to be named Freegle as this helps to raise our public profile everywhere)

1. Yahoo

Yahoo Group Name = Yahoo URL

(The Yahoo group ‘owner’ email address is automatically generated from the Yahoo group URL)

Suggested format: “Area-Name-GroupName” eg “Blue-River-Freegle”

(The hyphens are used for search engine optimisation) http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Blue-River-Freegle

The Yahoo owner email address would be Blue-River-Freegle-owner@yahoogroups.com

The actual name displayed alongside this on the Yahoo page would be Blue River Freegle

2. Facebook (FB) Page Name and Facebook (FB) URL

A space between words is needed for the page name for FB search optimisation.

FB Page Name suggested format: “Area Name Group Name” e.g: “Blue River Freegle”

This what the FB page should called when it is first set up.

Once the FB group has been “liked” 25 times a username can be chosen to give a better URL – this is good to have for publicity purposes and can be words with no spaces.

FB Username (URL) suggested format: “AreaNameGroupName” e.g: “BlueRiverFreegle” - the URL would be: www.facebook.com/BlueRiverFreegle [note: FB search will recognise “BlueRiverFreegle” if it’s typed in with or without the capitals]

3. Twitter

A space between words is needed for the profile name so that it is searchable on Twitter.

Twitter profile name suggested format: “Area Name Group Name” e.g: “Blue River Freegle” (Profile names are limited to 20 characters only)

Twitter handle/tag: these are limited to 15 characters and all one word – creativity may be needed! eg “BluRiverFreegle”

The “Area Name” and “Freegle” (or other group name) should be put in the biography section of the profile.

The ilovefreegle URL should be used as the website link in that section of the profile.

The logo designed by the media team should be used rather than the default picture as a photo.

4. Message Maker

The link to the Message Maker follows the Yahoo group name and any shortlinks that are set up. Multiple shortlinks make sense if the group name covers two plausible areas, eg. North Down and Ards Peninsula Greencycle:

http://mm.ilovefreegle.org/NorthDown-ArdsPeninsula_Greencycle

http://mm.frgl.it/NorthDown-ArdsPeninsula_Greencycle

http://mm.frgl.it/NorthDownAndArdsPeninsula

http://mm.frgl.it/NorthDown

http://mm.frgl.it/Ards

http://mm.frgl.it/ArdsPeninsula

http://freegle.in/Ards

etc.

5. ilovefreegle Mapping

Suggested format “Area Name Group Name” so that they show up in logical order eg “Blue River Freegle

6. Email addresses

Yahoo will have same name format stemming from the Yahoo group name (as above - Blue-River-Freegle-owner@yahoogroups.com)

If a different account is going to be used to create an address for a new group (eg. Gmail): Suggested format : “AreaNameGroupName@’ e.g: BlueRiverFreegle@gmail.com

Yahoo owner emails will need to be redirected to the different account and it is advisable to keep the same contact address across all platforms.

7. Freegle Shortlink

Suggested format: Freegle.in/AreaName, Freegle.it/AreaName e.g. Freegle.in/BlueRiver

Freegle.it/BlueRiver

C. Logos

The Graphics Team will provide a set of logos for use on Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter and promotional material at the start up of groups.

1. Standard Groups

Suggested format: Text inside the Freegle Heart - Area Name or area name at the top, group name at the bottom. Both capitalised and uncapitalised area names can be used, but freegle should always be lowercase for branding purposes.

2. Specialist groups

Suggested format: the format used for the Sussex Disability Aids Group can be used for other groups: “freegle disability aids” inside the heart and “AreaName” underneath.

Links:

• Previous Freegle UK document - Group Affiliation Team -_Naming_New_Groups
• Amendments : in line with Document Approval Policy
• Glossary