When Only the Best Will Do…

Welcome to a special holiday leftovers edition. Either you are still getting together with friends and relatives for another Christmas go-around or you are thinking up ways to spend all of the shopping gift cards you received as gifts. Either way, shopping is the common theme and, coincidentally, the topic this week (had to break for Christmas). Research from Adobe recently found that consumers are not so geared towards mobile shopping apps and prefer to simply browse the mobile web for shopping reviews, comparisons and product research. What does that mean? Website competition for who can be the most helpful in making a purchase or gift purchase decision. One is a new comparison engine called FindTheBest.com, which Jennifer Van Grove discusses further in “New Comparison Engine Helps You Make Decisions on Products and Services” http://on.mash.to/e2gB1i. This search engine is a lot like the sites for flight information that combine everything on one page. On this site you can search for the best product or service and filter results based on the criteria you have in mind. Another, called Justbuythisone.com, visits the other extreme and simplifies your search so that you are just choosing between a few items. Currently they only focus on electrical items from TVs to toasters, but are looking to expand to fashion and financial services. More about Justbuythisone.com, which launches in January 2011, can be found in Emma Hall’s “Overwhelmed U.K. Online Shoppers Can Justbuythisone” http://bit.ly/ihgV0a.

You may be wondering which site is the best of the two and which one will be more helpful? My prediction is that shoppers are looking for something in between. The first has too many choices, perhaps even when filtered, and the second too few (although they are aiming to include a way for shoppers to search through more options if just a few is not enough). An article titled “What Shoppers Want From Retail Apps” http://bit.ly/gBBzOu suggests that current mobile shopping apps do not fit the consumer need yet either. According to this research, shoppers claim they would be more interested in apps where they can get money-off coupons, view current in-store specials, get driving directions to the nearest location, be alerted when a specific item is in stock, buy the product online, read user reviews, be alerted when stores receive items similar to previous purchases and list and total past store purchases. The way we shop and the way we shop for gifts is definitely changing. What if Facebook had something where you could sign into your profile on any retailer site and view your friends browsing history, wish lists and previous online purchases? This may be the direction we are headed. According to Geoffrey A. Fowler and Vauhini Vara’s “Using ‘Likes’ for Gift Ideas” http://on.wsj.com/gCicQs, sites like Amazon.com and Etsy.com are making gift recommendations based off of preferences and comments on friends’ Facebook profiles. Amazon allows users to sign into their Facebook profiles on the Amazon site and, with permission, access friends’ profile information and use it to suggest gifts. Perhaps someday people will no longer have to call and request that something be put on hold either. It could all be done online with just a first name, pick-up date, and a few clicks. The moral of this story is that some of this technology is still very new, but it is interesting to watch it develop and will be fascinating to see where it is headed.

Better SEO Means Knowing Your Audience Better

Search engine optimization is a fascinating tool, perhaps one of the most important tools. It all forms an important cycle, one which a brand cannot afford to miss out on because it is integral to its success. This goes back to an earlier post of mine called “Social Media: The Spread of Ideologies.” It is so important to strike a chord with the mavens and connectors of this world. To review, mavens are those who accumulate knowledge and connectors are those who know a lot of people. In the social and online realm, connectors are those influential people whose ideas are retweeted, linked to and commented on frequently. When that happens enough, a topic just may have a chance at making a notable list, this year’s being Mashable’s “How the World Googled in 2010″ http://on.mash.to/htVqna. For example, on this year’s list things that gained traction or emerged as front-runners were Chatroulette, iPad, Justin Bieber, Twitter, Facebook, iPhone 4, Nokia 5530, HTC EVO 4G, Nokia N900, Haiti, Turkish sports club Besiktas, Chile “earthquake,” Lady Gaga and Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Things that fell by the wayside: swine flu, Stephanie Meyer’s novel (and accompanying movie with the same title) Twilight, New Moon, Susan Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire, “Myspace layouts,” and Michael Jackson. Interesting what trends emerge when you give people a superfluous amount of communication channels to choose from each day (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, blogs, forums, the list goes on) and monitor the outcome.

Lauren Dungan confirms that these channels do affect SEO, specifically Facebook and Twitter, in her Social Times article “Facebook and Twitter Affect SEO, Confirmed by Google and Bing” http://bit.ly/gk5bHF. Both search engines have specific social media search results pages which, although separate from regular search results, are becoming integrated with traditional search results. Additionally, Google uses ‘Author Authority’ and Bing ‘Social Authority’ to determine page rankings. These calculations are measurements of how influential an author is, for example, on Twitter. Essentially the more your links are shared and your updates are retweeted, the higher your page ranking. The higher your page ranking is the more success you have, and the more success you have the more you can know about your audience. Laurie Sullivan’s “Search Data, Baby, and Where to Find It” http://bit.ly/hw2gsX discusses how the ‘persona’ of the person using your search keyword can be determined through using a combination of Google Trends overlayed with census data. Thus the larger your sample pool is the more complete your audience analysis is, it is as simple as that. The more you know about your audience the better, because you can more accurately personalize your messages and target them. When you think about it these are topics that people tend to discuss separately, and yet they are extremely interrelated and build upon one another in a continuous cycle. The keys to success are at your fingertips…in this case literally.

Battle of the Geo’s

Geolocation has been a popular trend this year, with Gowalla, Foursquare and Facebook Places all vying for the ultimate mainstream popularity title. So who looks poised to become the ultimate go-to service? Let’s review. Recently Gowalla designed specific stamps and badges for those who check-in at Disney parks across the country http://rww.to/9FFc6A. While this may seem like a way for it to gain acceptance and traction it is more likely that children and adults alike would be more preoccupied with the attractions and less so with their phones. Foursquare’s major claim to fame is it’s ‘mayor’ title awarded to those who check in most often. While there are great discounts and perks that go along with this title, every geolocation service contracts with sponsors who offer discounts and deals of some kind to those who check in at their location. Facebook Place seems most likely to take the title and here are a few reasons why.

1) Facebook Places is an extension of an already popular service, Facebook, which already has several million users. Facebook has already achieved mainstream status and is already an established platform. Foursquare and Gowalla are still relatively new and in the establishing phase, as they do not have the same user base. It is much easier and more attractive for users to join up with a service they already use then to add-on something new that they are not familiar with yet.

2) Facebook already has the necessary privacy controls in place. They have recently tightened their privacy controls to the point where they rival other services. You can make it look like you are not even on Facebook, hence it is possible to only share your location updates with friends and to control if someone tagging you at a location is allowed or not allowed.

3) Facebook Places does not need Twitter to update with, as it has its own status update service built-in. Foursquare and Gowalla use Twitter.

4) Facebook Places is connected to Facebook and Facebook is never down or unavailable. Because Foursquare and Gowalla use Twitter they are at a disadvantage. Twitter can easily exceed capacity. Ever seen that blue whale acknowledging Twitter has exceeded capacity? I have. Frequently.

Essentially,  it comes down to simplicity, availability and convenience. These are key and they are the reason that Facebook Places holds this title.

The Art of Social Giving…Cause Marketing Style

With so many ways to give this holiday season, and so many advertisers clamoring for attention, an alternative kind of giving often blends into the background. That alternative kind of giving is what is known in the advertising world as cause marketing. This year more than ever, cause marketing is clamoring to be heard above the din by connecting with its donors in new ways. One way involves a unique venture by a co-founder of Facebook, who seeks to index charities via a website and make them more accessible to donors. As Google indexed knowledge so is Jumo attempting to index charities and revolutionize the way people donate. Jenna Wortham http://nyti.ms/gj37Pz points out that he is in fact capitalizing on an underserved niche, as only 6% of 300 billion donated to charities in 2009 was donated online. Sure there are other sites that attempt to do the same, such as Global Giving, but Jumo takes it a step further. Perhaps an extension or upgrade of the Causes Facebook application, Jumo attempts to utilize the principles of Facebook to deepen donors ties with causes and unite donors by giving them a means to post about their donation and therefore inspire others to donate. Interesting concept, although there are always those who choose to remain anonymous (which in this case would defeat the purpose of this particular site). Adding to this movement of socializing cause marketing and donations are Geoff Livingston’s ”5 New Creative Social Good Campaigns for the Holiday Season” http://on.mash.to/eyuagy.

First there was Black Friday and Cyber Monday, now there’s Small Business Saturday and Green Gift Monday. Small Business Saturday is blossoming this year from its American Express roots to arrive on a Facebook platform with media support (Mayor Michael Bloomberg helped launch this year’s effort). American Express matched fan page ‘Likes’ with a $1 donations to Girls, Inc., partnered with Facebook to give 10,000 small businesses $100 worth of social advertising services, and supported a Twitter contest via promoted tweets offering $100 giveaways. The Nature Conservancy, proponents of Green Gift Monday, invited people to submit tips and tricks to make the holidays greener via Facebook and Twitter. Additionally they appealed to bloggers and other interested parties to spread the word through social channels, particularly on Cyber Monday, all to encourage people to purchase green gifts on Cyber Monday. Next is Yahoo, whose ‘How Good Grows’ initiative sounds like the social version of the movie “Pay It Forward.” The premise being that Yahoo provides $100 seed money to encourage acts of kindness by 400 internal and external influencers, who then reflect this in their status updates on Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter to encourage more acts of kindness. Even the Salvation Army is getting in on the action, continuing their Online Red Kettle program with the addition of mobile texting donations and an iPhone app. Last but not least, Kevin Bacon’s Six Degrees partners with Choose Haiti to show how purchasing H.E.L.P Bracelets made by Haitians helps fund job creation. All of these are intriguing, but how measurable are they and have they made a dent in increasing online donations? Now that is an ROI report I would be interested to read. If anything, cause marketing is venturing into social territory and its expansion could be a very good thing.