All posts tagged Social Media

Email marketing on ice at Ben & Jerry’s

by Simon on July 8, 2010 in E-Mail, Social Media with 6 Comments

Speculation over the past 18 months has been rife that email marketing is dead. Dead is probably far too harsh a term, but I think most progressive digital marketeers would agree that the sooner bad email marketing dies the better! By bad I mean, un-targeted, badly designed, sliced-up image-laiden email messages that can only be summarised as e-mail fail.

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Are you the next Mayor of your local Starbucks?

by Simon on May 17, 2010 in Social Media, Web Thoughts with No comments

Mashable today covered a story that users of location-based social networking tool Foursquare could qualify for discounts at Starbucks. Social-media savvy customers simply need to regularly check-in at their favourite Starbucks. If you are the person that checks-in most at a particular venue then Foursquare rewards you by making you the Mayor of that location. Starbucks is one of the most pro-active brands in the social media space and is rewarding it’s Starbucks Mayors with a discount voucher for a Frappuccino.

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10 Ways to Deal With a Social Media Explosion

by Simon on March 28, 2010 in Social Media, Web Thoughts with No comments

What is the best way of preparing or repairing your brands reputation when big news breaks online? From a secretive new Apple product launch to a damning piece of negative press, once it appears online, its only a matter of time before the waves start to hit the social media shores.

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5 Things to Avoid During a Social Media Explosion

by Simon on March 27, 2010 in Social Media, Web Thoughts with 1 Comment

The spotlight turned back on to social media management recently following the way that Nestle handled the ‘social media explosion’ that occurred on their Facebook Page. Greenpeace created a video about Nestle’s use of palm oil in Kit Kat’s and how it directly endangered the lives of orangutans. This video quickly went viral after it was removed from YouTube and the main focal point for the public’s rage was the Nestle Facebook Page.

Below are 5 things to avoid doing when the going gets tough.

1. Moderation

Don’t delete peoples comments, unless they are totally irrelevant or break the terms of use of the environment you are in. On Facebook there is a Report function that might be advisable to call upon rather than deleting a comment. The removal of comments is both frustrating (for posters) and confusing (for readers).

2. Composure

Remain calm and collected, don’t rise to any comments that are obviously posted to generate a reaction. Never reply in anger.

3. Change

Resist the urge to edit or tweak your original statement, treat a post in social media like you would a blog and use strike-throughs and updates to modify a message.

4. Haste

The immediate reaction to a social media onslaught on your Facebook Page or Blog is to quickly reply to each comment or query. The danger here is that the quality of your message will be effected. Slow down and where possible compose responses that meet the needs of a number of commenter’s into a single reply.

5. Abandon Ship

I’ve seen on more than one occasion a brand’s Facebook Page that has been abandoned after an explosion. If the situation is not managed well the community of ‘fans’ that remain may be very jaded and any communication that the brand communicates might be met with negativity. The only way to resolve this would be to back track and clearly address the root cause of the original problem and hopefully move forward from there.

I hope you’ve found these 5 pieces of advice useful and it would be great to have any additional words of wisdom added in the comments below…

Facebook Mail to rule the webmail world?

by Simon on February 6, 2010 in E-Mail, Social Media with No comments

When was the last time you logged into your Hotmail account? Not recently I would imagine…Facebook’s latest project is looking to make your Hotmail holiday a permanent thing.

TechCrunch has released details of a project codenamed ‘Titan’ that may well change the face of e-mail marketing. Facebook are planning to launch a full functional email solution much akin to Gmail or Hotmail in the coming months. So what will it include?

  • Access from the walled garden of Facebook or via POP/IMAP (Outlook/Express/Live Mail can be used to read your email.)
  • A unique @facebook.com email address. Probably based on your Vanity URL

The quick win could be for Facebook to utilise it’s Microsoft connections and base their email solution on Hotmail, but knowing Facebook they are going to develop this themselves.

If they do develop something unique to themselves from the ground-up then we could have a whole new email client to deal with – more testing of e-mail rendering and spam scoring is guaranteed…

So where does this fit in the webmail landscape? I think Gmail has a hardcore, committed following that love the labelling, organisation and simplicity of the conversation based layout. The big threat ironically could be to Microsoft and it’s Hotmail solution. This has become a spam filled webmail system that people are using as a rubbish bin for unwanted email. If a new solution was introduced that offered better spam control, a great user-interface and was hosted on a website you visited almost daily then I think the winner is clear to see.

This project is one that all digital marketers will have to watch closely.

Read more about this at AllFacebook in their 5 Features Facebook Should Add To Their New Email Product

Friday Five – Michael Jackson Edition 03/07/2009

by Simon on July 3, 2009 in Web Thoughts with No comments

The sad passing of music legend Michael Jackson saw some very interesting online impacts from traffic surges on social media sites, through to chart topping sales of digital downloads. As the dust begins to settle a number of sites have looked at the impact it had online:

  • Social media gurus FreshNetworks look at the rise of Flash Mobs to celebrate the life and music of MJ. Some great YouTube clips on there.

  • Times Online highlights the power of Twitter for real-time news (Every article like this must make Google cringe).

  • Twitter and Facebook had massive usage increases as the news spread, the Tech Blog at the LA Times looks at the numbers.

  • The LA Times looks back at how gossip website TMZ stole the limelight from TV news channels all over the world.

  • TechCrunch reports that the web as a whole struggled to deliver information as everyone rushed online to get the news.

Friday Focus: Facebook Pages

by Simon on April 24, 2009 in Social Media, Web Thoughts with No comments

If you are involved with a brand, business, band or think you’re in a line of business where you might have ‘fans’ then setting up a page on Facebook can be a very rewarding adventure. As a first step into social media it’s potentially a great way to develop an online community, but don’t assume that if you build it they will come. Once the Page is ready to go live you will need to use your full armoury of marketing channels to put up signposts to your fantastically polished Page.

Please also be aware that developing content and keeping on top of your fans questions and queries can become a full-time job, build in management and review time in your work schedule. There are some great resources below that make essential reading before you click the ‘Publish’ button…

Facebook’s very own guide – giving you background information, how to prepare and a step-by-step guide.

A handy 10 page Facebook Pages PDF (updated March 2009) also from the Facebook team that gives you an extra level of information, from Page publishing through to looking at user statistics.

Following Facebook’s recent overhaul Mashable pulled together a superb Guide for Social Media Marketers – highlighting the opportunities and challenges of setting up your first Facebook Page.

Mashable is a superb social media resource and their 5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page post really supported that position.

If you are seeking inspiration Peter Kim setup a very useful Wiki packed full of social media examples. Sort by type, find Facebook Pages and there are some good examples there.

Probably the best way of researching is to dive into Facebook itself and search for brands, most of the big boys have pages, with varying examples of how to and how not to setup a Fan Page on Facebook – Skittles, Maltesers and Innocent all offer good, simple examples.