Tagplay puts ‘the Social’ into corporate websites

Sesselja Vilhjalmsdottir, the founder of Tagplay, integrates social content into your website to create a lively feel.

This article was originally posted on Startup Iceland.

I first met Sesselja Vilhjalmsdottir, the founder of Tagplay, when she was doing her documentary called the Startup Kids. What really impressed me was how Sesselja and her friend, Vala Halldorsdottir, had bootstrapped and created a campaign on Kickstarter, raising $25k to get this documentary to life. It was an inspiring project. They interviewed
many youngsters who were starting up companies in Europe, and in Silicon Valley. The documentary was a  resounding success. They have distributed the content to a number of countries, and it was very well received in Iceland. I knew that both of the founders of Startup Kids; the documentary, would be going places. Vala joined  QuizUp, and Sesselja has started a new company called Tagplay.

Tagplay solves a very interesting problem that is yet to become mainstream. Most of our websites are quite static – other than a couple of image carousels, there is not much happening when someone comes to the website. As more and more companies are starting to rely on social media like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook to build their brand, they are losing the integration between their domain, i.e their website, and their social presence. I think what Tagplay is trying to do is very clever; they are integrating the social content into your website so when someone visits your website, it is more lively, and also, shows the culture and the happenings at the company. I think this is an important problem that needs a solution, and I am glad that Sesselja is working to solve this.

Bringing life to traditional websites
We are fundamentally undergoing a transition with regard to how we present ourselves in every channel we have in front of us. I think the age of everyone becoming a freelancer is upon us; however, very few of us see it. I think it is going to become increasingly important for companies to show that what they are doing is important, and how their employees are living outside of the company life also says a lot about the company. Tagplay provides a means for companies to bring the life of their stakeholders into their brand. Of course, Tagplay allows you to control what gets shown on the website. I think the really cool thing is that it automates the task of integrating social feeds or even hashtags to be easily shown on any website.

Since a lot of what Tagplay does is automated, they provide an API access that allows anyone to build more sophisticated services to websites. Large advertising agencies really need to consider tools like Tagplay, as it would really enhance and solve a big problem for a number of their clients. Building a brand is not an easy task; no longer is your brand what you say it is. Your brand is what your customers say it is, and they define it in social media. Bringing that level of engagement into your companys’ domain really takes the whole brand-building exercise all the way.

I have always felt that in the age of social media, very few companies have cleverly leveraged it to build a strong brand presence — tools and services like Tagplay can really enhance that experience. I am pretty sure that there are a  number of competing services for something like what Tagplay does, but what is interesting is that Tagplay has started from Iceland, where they have been able to get in front all the local advertising agencies and build a strong presence and product.

The polishing has been done, and now I am sure Sesselja is on the way to conquer the world. Only last week, I saw that Tagplay made it to the #1 slot on Product Hunt; not an easy feat, but I was not surprised.