OTHER NETWORKS AND SOCIAL APPLICATIONS YOU MAY KNOW
We could fi ll an encyclopedia with all the large and small social-media
sites and networks. Many platforms that were yesterday ’ s media darling
and are still massive by any measure have slipped out of the spotlight and
lost market share to their rivals. Remember Friendster? Even MySpace,
which at about 100 million users ranks third among the social networks, has
taken on the aura of an also-ran (although the platform is showing signs of
new life lately). But even second-tier platforms offer millions of devoted
users. Third-tier platforms, if they serve a well-defi ned demographic or
special interest that ’ s important to your business, should also play a role in
your social-media program. Most of these platforms are looking for reve-
nue sources, so there ’ s a wide variety of advertising opportunities to test.
Warning: Don ’ t spread yourself too thin. You ’ re better off doing an
excellent job on the few leading networks than dabbling ineffectively in
every little network you can think of.
1. Flickr
If you serve a visual market, try uploading your images to Flickr, the
Yahoo-owned photo-sharing site. Of course, Flickr is a must for photogra-
phers and other visual artists, as well as models—it ’ s a great place for an
online portfolio, and the network of millions could be a promising audi-
ence. Travel businesses and tourism bureaus should be uploading sumptu-
ous photos of their destinations. Fashion companies like Urban Outfi tters
have been active on the site for a long time.
There ’ s very little statistical or case-study evidence on the effectiveness
of Flickr for business, but it costs nothing to get on, upload a number ofimages, join several groups focused on your market or area of specialty,
friend others, and see where it goes. One happy side effect of joining Flickr
could be that your images start ranking for certain image-related searches
on Google.
Beware, though: Although Flickr has fi lters and policies in place to try to
keep pornographic and inappropriate content under wraps, it is evidently a
big portion of what goes on at Flickr, and it can emerge somewhat without
warning when you are connecting with new people and groups on the site.
Explore Chicago has a photo pool on Flickr of more than 11,000 images
of the city, its people, and its happenings.
Urban Outfi tters has been using Flickr for years for posting and spreading
images of its clothes, models, and customers wearing UO and to otherwise
support its brand image. While the UO Flickr group is a loosely organized
assemblage of professional and amateur photographers, as well as ordinary
customers, the administrator ’ s guidelines are clear: “Please post only UO
store design/window dressing, items purchased from the store, posing in
UO clothing, catalogs/advertising campaigns, and photo shoots.”
The Nikon Digital Learning Center on Flickr is a great example of perfect
alignment between a brand, its audience, and the social-media platform.
Here, Nikon connects on the world ’ s biggest photo-sharing service with the
world ’ s passionate photographers. Its primary purpose is not to sell cameras,
but to share information, build a user community, and promote image shar-
ing around the emerging art and science of digital photography.
Unlike most Flickr communities, where user comments focus solely on
the images, Nikon ’ s community supports many active discussions on top-
ics like “Has anybody used an aftermarket fl ash like Nissin on a d90?” By
providing a home for conversations like these, Nikon makes itself a leader
and a trusted brand in the space, helps enlarge the market for serious digi-
tal photography—and eventually, indirectly, boosts its business.
2. Foursquare
Especially if you operate bricks-and-mortar retail locations, local search
results served up on mobile devices are your most exciting and fastest-devel-
oping opportunity. And like everything else, local search is getting social.
Foursquare is a popular mobile app that lets users “check into” physi-
cal locations like hotels, restaurants, and even doctors ’offi ces. Users can
search Foursquare for local businesses within a given radius of their
location. Built into the application are social-networking elements called
friend fi nder and social city guide.
Thanks to these social-media features, whether she ’ s in a hair salon, an
autobody shop, or a diner, a Foursquare user can post status updates
about the place, which are broadcast across Foursquare and also inte-
grated with her Twitter or Facebook feed. Similar to Yelp or TripAdvisor,
she can share her ratings and reviews of the business, ask questions about
it, and see whether other members of their social network recommend
the place.
Foursquare incentivizes individual users to explore their surroundings
and post their fi ndings for all to share and it uses what it calls “game
mechanics” (including the awarding of virtual “mayor” titles!) to incentiv-
ize people: “Our users earn points, win mayorships, and unlock badges for
trying new places and revisiting old favorites.”
“One of the main reasons it ’ s gaining so much buzz is because those
who ‘check in’ to places can instantly share these updates on Twitter and
Facebook,” says Chad Capellman of the Boston-based agency Genuine
Interactive. “This, in turn, means literally millions of people are receiving
these updates. The latest numbers, extrapolated by Mashable, show that
the service is approaching one million check-ins per day.”
In turn, business owners can use Foursquare to reach their mobile cus-
tomers by offering Foursquare discounts and prizes. The application offers
owners “venue analytics,” like how often their business profi le or their
specials are accessed.
Establishing a presence on Foursquare is free and easy, and the benefi ts
are likely to grow along with the importance of smartphones and PDFs in
our daily lives. Capellman offers step-by-step advice on how businesses
can get the most out of Foursquare:
1. Claim your business location and verify you ’ re the owner.
2. Describe the benefi ts of your business (e.g., free parking, vegetarian
menu, Spanish-speaking . . .) in the form of tags.
3. Write additional content about your business (descriptions of your services,
customer-service philosophy, etc.) in the form of tips. Reviews of your
business submitted by Foursquare users will also appear among your tips.
4. Get connected to other users. “Search all of the businesses within a
mile or two of your practice, and make friend connections with people
who have checked into those businesses,” advises Capellman. “In my
own experience and in conversations with others, people seem more
likely to reciprocate connections through Foursquare than they would
through LinkedIn, Facebook, or even Twitter.
3. Groupon
Groupon is a new group-buying concept, focused on local retail stores
and attractions. Groupon members are offered big discounts—but only if
a minimum number of other members sign on too.
Gap ’ s 50%-discount offered on the Groupon in August 2010 rang up a
reported $11 million in sales, and in the process demonstrated some best
practices for e-commerce in this new, more social Web 2.0 era.
According to Groupon spokesperson Julie Mossler, the Gap offer was the
most successful Groupon promotion to date, ringing up as many as 532
transactions per minute during its busiest periods Thursday morning.
was so intense that Groupon had to manage the load by directing visitors to
alternate landing pages in order to avert a server crash.
What I fi nd impressive about the Gap campaign is the sheer number of
coordinated moving parts cross-promoting a single offer:
• 15 million Gap and Groupon e-mail subscribers receive the offer, start-
ing at midnight and in staggered fashion throughout the day
• The offer is tweeted to the 180,000+ followers of Twitter ’ s @earlybird
promoted tweet stream
• Gap tweets the offer to its 30,000+ followers
• Groupon manually tweets and Facebook posts on its pages dedicated to
each of the 85 geographical markets where Gap ’ s offer is valid
• Gap posts the offer to its 606,000 fans on Facebook
• Groupon ’ s 1,500 affi liate partners post Gap ’ s offer on their Web sites
• A sponsored post appears above the fold on Digg
All in all, it was a big win for Gap, and impressive evidence of how
online promotion and social shopping, courtesy of Groupon, can drive
sales to bricks-and-mortar stores.
“Our customers had been asking us to feature a national retailer, and the
Gap deal was a perfect fi t for Back-To-School and even pre-holiday shop-
ping,” Mossler explained. “Gap even has stores where Groupon hasn ’ t
launched yet; so, it ’ s a perfect way to reach new and existing Groupon fans
with a deal they won ’ t fi nd anywhere else.” 5
4. iLike
iLike is a “social music discovery service” that was bought by MySpace
in 2009. With more than 60 million users, it ’ s a destination in itself, but more
importantly it ’ s the leading music application on Facebook, Google, Orkut,
hi5, and Bebo. If you ’ re a musician, iLike is a great distribution channel. If
you serve a market that is into music, you can add interest to your Web site
or your social-media pages by integrating with iLike ’ s developer tools.
5. Meetup.org
Meetup is the world ’ s biggest online network devoted to helping people
organize in-person get-togethers of local community groups.
Since I think the bridge between online social media and offl ine action
is powerful.
No comments:
Post a Comment