MTV’s public health campaign encourages young people to get routinely checked for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The Associated Press reports, “MTV says the idea is to remove the stigma attached to getting checked out for STDs.”
While this is a nice idea in theory and I applaud MTV for fully integrating mobile into their campaign outreach, I think most people, no matter how much they typically share via Foursquare, are unlikely to publicly broadcast their appointment for STD screenings.
This Foursquare partnership would be more successful if it was linked to MTV’s political campaign, “Rock the Vote” which encourages young people to register to vote and make their voices heard. If they offered a badge for checking in to a voting location, I think the response would be tremendous.
What do you think? Can MTV leverage Foursquare for such a person declaration?
This week Facebook announced the launch of a new feature – Facebook Places. Much like the mobile application Foursquare, Facebook Places will let you “check in” to your current location via Facebook on your smart phone. It will display your location updates to all of your Facebook friends.
You may find yourself asking – doesn’t this same application already exist with Foursquare, Gowalla and others? Why yes, yes it does. However, the Facebook Places application is also going to allow your friends to check you in to places, whether you like it or not.
Of course you can alter your Facebook privacy settings to disable the ability for other users to check you in, but the Facebook default settings will indeed allow your friends to check you in.
Facebook Places does allow businesses to “claim” their venue and provide updates to users who check in via the application (exactly like Foursquare).
While it may seem Facebook is simply duplicating an application that already exists by another provider, what the real concern is here is how Facebook is increasingly making moves to become a one-stop-shop for online and mobile activities.
For example, more people upload photos to Facebook than competing photos services like Kodak Gallery, Snapfish or Shutterfly. Facebook also has the Marketplace application which aims to compete with Craigslist. Businesses now consider their Facebook fan page as vital, if not more, than their company website. The addition of Facebook Places is another intentional move to gobble up competing online players.
Can Facebook extinguish enough competitors to ultimately become the singular destination for online and mobile sharing? What do you think?
If you’re a foodie, you have a login for restaurant reservation website OpenTable. If you’re gadget savvy, you may also have their mobile app on your smartphone. The popular reservation service has seen great success thus far in 2010, confirmed by their recently quarterly earnings announcement.
In a post by Erick Schonfeld of TechCruch, he reports “OpenTable is installed in 14,128 restaurants and seated 15.6 million diners last quarter, up 27 percent and 52 percent, respectively.” Not only is OpenTable becoming the go-to source for reservations, but users are also raising their level of engagement with the site.
Schonfeld wrote, “Those diners have now written more than 7 million restaurant reviews. As a point of comparison, Yelp has a total of 12 million reviews across all local businesses, and CEO Jeremy Stoppleman considers the those reviews to be Yelp’s single most important competitive advantage.”
Digest that for a second. Yelp, which reviews all types of businesses, not just restaurants, has 12 million reviews, and OpenTable, which exclusively provides restaurant information has 7 million?
OpenTable clearly understands the value of creating a site users want to spend time on, not just log in and log out. By allowing customers to write reviews of their dining experiences the site becomes about something more than just reserving your table.
Additionally, OpenTable is hopping on the “group buying” bandwagon and offering a new weekly special they are calling “Spotlight.” This will operate the same way Groupon, LivingSocial and BuyWithMe do, and offer specials like “$25 dollars for $50 dollars worth of food at Grill 23.”
As RaceTalk commented in a post last week, the group buying concept entices customers to try places they normally wouldn’t because they are being offered a discounted price (recession, anyone?). Additionally, the sites incorporate social media channels allowing users to post their purchase on Facebook, Twitter and more. Some sites also offer referral bonuses to customers who bring in new users.
Should OpenTable decide to incorporate social media sharing on their site and explore referral bonuses, the company’s growth potential is exponential. OpenTable is paying attention to emerging trends and adapting quickly.
Social Media Michelin awards OpenTable three stars!
We’ve been talking a lot about Facebook this week. The site hit 500 million users on Wednesday and has become a sheer force in our digitally obsessed society. Earlier this spring Facebook made the “Like” button universally available across the world wide web, not just on their own site. Brands and businesses have incorporated the “Like” functionality into their own websites to visually demonstrate customer support. While there was a great deal of buzz about the expanded reach of the “Like” button, there has also been a storm brewing around the concept of a “Dislike” button.
I for one would like to see Facebook add a “Dislike” button. If I can express my support for something so easily, why can’t I express my opposition or distaste? There are nearly 3.2 million people that agree with me who belong to a Facebook group called “Dislike Button.”
There are a few obvious reasons why Facebook has held off: first, there is potential for bullying and hurtful use of the proposed “dislike” button. While I would like to think Facebook users are capable of using the “dislike” button wisely, I am sure there are users that would be abusive.
A second reason is highlighted in a new column by Mashable founder and CEO Pete Cashmore for CNN. In his most recent column, Cashmore explains that the “dislike” button opens door for users to negatively impact the brands and businesses that use Facebook for marketing and promotions. He writes:
“Facebook will never add a Dislike button because it would damage the company’s relationships with brands, businesses and web publishers — these groups are essential for building both web traffic and ad revenue.”
While Cashmore makes a strong point that Facebook does not want to alienate the primary source of its revenue, Facebook has also been known to respond to strong user feedback.
Who do you think will win this debate? Are you on team Like or Dislike?
In a recent blog post, Socialnomics author Erik Qualman shared updated figures on Twitter’s presence in the online search game. Twitter has officially edged out Yahoo! and Bing in number of monthly searches. See graphic below:
At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Twitter founder Biz Stone shared that Twitter now has over 800 million search queries per day, which is a 33% increase from the last time he shared search figures in April (2010).
On his blog, Qualman writes, “We have indicated all along that Twitter & Facebook would be bigger search competition for Google than Yahoo and Bing. The fact that this is coming to fruition so soon is astounding. Social search and social commerce are becoming reality and it’s a great thing to see. Keep in mind we haven’t even mention YouTube and its social search activity.”
To the people who say social media is a fad, or that these sites are unimportant for business I say, think again. Consumers are searching for your products and services on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and if you are not there, they will find another provider.
Last night Racepoint Group hosted an event about social media and its return on investment (ROI). As social media continues to become a larger focal point in public relations and marketing campaigns, it’s critical to understand how to articulate it’s value to clients.
Last night’s event centered around a panel discussion with three social media experts: Larry Weber, Chairman of Racepoint Group, Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics and Mike Volpe, VP of Inbound Marketing for HubSpot.
After Larry Weber’s opening remarks, Qualman shared how he first dipped his toe into the digital space by sending a company-wide email instead of the standard hard copy memo. View his story here:
Volpe was up next and shared with the group the origins of his marketing career and the way tracking and reporting on ROI is evolving. Watch him provide tips here:
The evening was full of tremendous ideas and recommendations. The five big takeaways from the panel were:
1) Social media is not about technology. It’s about human interaction. It’s about sharing information and making connections. People who are intimidated by the technology aspect of engaging in social media should not view the applications as a hurdle. It’s simply the current mechanism to maintain relationships and reach out to new people.
2) When it comes to tracking social media, its important to focus not only on the quantitative (number of followers, number of re-postings) but also the qualitative. We need to take into account engagement and tone. Qualman said, “If social media is so trackable, we should just have robots running things. The human element is necessary here.”
3) Everyone and anyone can be a content creator, a publisher, a media property. As we shift away from traditional print and broadcast media, both we and our clients have the opportunity to get innovative and create and distribute our own content. Additionally, content creation should not be isolated to the PR and marketing staff. Volpe shared that, “50% of HubSpot employees have written posts for the HubSpot blog.”
4) Although much of PR and marketing is based in the written word, we need to start thinking more visually. We need to tell stories through pictures and videos. We need to make our content more authentic and dynamic.
5) On a personal level, Volpe stated, “The new resume is what comes up in Google when I type in your name.” As digital and social media continue to play an increasingly vital role in our PR and marketing efforts, we too have a digital and social persona, and that is now what employers are most interested in.
Thank you to Erik Qualman and Mike Volpe for joining us at Racepoint Group last night and providing such pragmatic, realistic, useful and inspiring guidance on the social media ROI frontier. Be sure to follow @equalman and @mvolpe on Twitter for real time updates on their social media adventures. You can also view all the live commentary during the event with the #smroi hashtag here.
According to Russell Adams’ post for the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog, Conde Nast is working with Activate to launch the iPad application in the fourth quarter. Adams writes, “Though Gourmet Live is free to download, people who surpass a certain threshold of usage will be prompted to sign up for a membership.” Sounds a bit like a magazine subscription, no? Just the way you can access a magazine’s website and peruse the content for free, but they save the best content for the pages of the magazine; a reward to their loyal subscribers.
Conde Nast already has iPad applications for three of its magazines – GQ, Vanity Fair and Wired – with plans to launch apps for Glamour and The New Yorker as well. Could it be that print magazines will soon be a thing of the past? Will your beach reading now be exclusive to your mobile device?
Conde Nast’s Chief Executive Chuck Townsend isn’t exactly denying it. He told the Wall Street Journal, “The future of Conde Nast is a consumer marketing machine.” I find this statement particularly compelling. Rather than positioning Conde Nast as a publishing house, Townsend is shifting the company’s direction to focus in a more targeted manner at reaching consumers exactly where they are – on their mobile device.
Check out a preview of the Gourmet Live iPad application below:
Shankman started HARO as a Facebook group in 2007 and the following grew so large he took the concept to the web in March 2008 at www.helpareporter.com.
HARO has been acquired by Vocus, Inc. one of HARO’s largest and most loyal advertisers. According the video below of Shankman and Vocus representative, Bill Wagner, nothing about the service will change. HARO will still be free. Shankman will still write up front notes about where is in the world and what he’s up to.
The only thing that will change is that HARO will now grow in new ways, with these additional resources. One example, Vocus plans to expand HARO to other countries.
HARO is a perfect case study of an entrepreneurial idea come to life. Shankman saw a need and created a service. The service grew in popularity and reach and became a direct competitor to long time paid service ProfNet (read RaceTalk’s post about how they could have merged, but didn’t). Now, HARO has been acquired (a major win for Shankman) providing the service with fresh momentum.
Shankman is also employing a critical PR necessity: transparency. As soon as the acquisition was final, Shankman took to the blog not only providing a written update, but a video message. HARO supporters heard the news directly from him, as it happened. This is key in building customer loyalty and trust, which is the cornerstone of a strong brand.
As long time subscribers to HARO, we look forward to being a part of what’s next for this growing service.
The Sysomos research report entitled “Inside Blog Demographics,” found that the average blogger is age 21 – 35. This particular age demographic represents 53% of the total blogging population.
Given mommy blogger mania, you might think the majority of bloggers are female. Or possibly if you follow numerous technology and gadget blogs, you might think men dominate the blog scene. Well, you’d be right on both counts. According to this report, bloggers are 50.9% female and 49.1% male. Almost a dead even split.
I think the statistics that surprised me most were the location demographics. Only 29.2% of bloggers are located in the United States. Does that seem low to anyone else?
Amongst the 29.2% of American bloggers, the largest percentage hail from California (14.1%), with New York coming in second at 7.1%. No surprise there.
You can view the full country by country break down below:
Did you realize the average blogger was a recent college grad in CA or NY?
Social media site Mashable recently posted an infographic with some odd Facebook statistics. While normally one might gloss over this, the graphic actually contained some pretty useful information for marketers looking to leverage Facebook to reach their target audience.
Noteworthy stats include:
• Of the 400 million people that log into their Facebook account each month, 50% of them log in daily
• 70% of Facebook users live outside the United States
• Women aged 55 and up are the fastest growing Facebook demographic in America
Lesson learned? Facebook is a daily part of the lives of people around the globe, specifically our moms. Kidding. Sort of.
In all seriousness, this data offers shining, golden opportunities for marketers to reach demographics via Facebook they may not have realized were present.
Check out the infographic below. Any other stats you find surprising?
This morning the Associated Press reported that MTV has partnered with Foursquare to offer a special badge to users who check in to health clinics via the mobile application. The new Foursquare badge is part of MTV’s “GYT: Get Yourself Tested” campaign.
