Pure Thinking

Success = Social Sharing

Forget about measuring success based on circulation numbers, today's news organizations are using online social sharing metrics as a barometer of success. Are their articles turning up on Digg and Reddit? Is Twitter buzzing about the latest breaking news story posted by one of their reporters? Based on this information, news organizations are changing subject matter, story length and even writing styles to encourage readers to share it with their online networks. This enlightening infographic from Flowtown and Backtype says it all. 

-Shannon

Blowing the Vuvuzela on Facebook's overlooked contest rules

As your company gears up to start giving away branded Vuvuzelas on Facebook, you may want to pause and think of a few things:

1)    Do you really want to provide fans of your company with an “instrument” that could cause the local drug store to sell out of earplugs?

2)    Have you read the official Facebook guidelines for running a promotion?

A client recently asked us to research and report back on the current state of rules and regulations for contests held on Facebook.  Updated in November of 2009 and again in December of that year, these rules and regulations outline some practices and procedures that even corporations like Lands’ End and Papa John’s fail to fully comply with.

Here are a few examples of the Do’s and Dont’s according to the official Facebook guidelines page. 

(Full set of guidelines can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php)

    “You cannot: Condition entry in the promotion upon a user providing content on Facebook, such as making a post on a profile or Page, status comment or photo upload.

    You can: Use a third party application to condition entry to the promotion upon a user providing content.   For example, you may administer a photo contest whereby a user uploads a photo through a third-party application to enter the contest.

    You cannot: Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by becoming a fan of your Page.

    You can: Only allow fans of your Page to access the tab that contains the third-party application for the promotion.

    You cannot: Notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.

    You can: Collect an address or email through the third-party application for the promotion in order to contact the winner by email or standard mail.

    You cannot: Instruct people (in the rules or elsewhere) to sign up for a Facebook account before they enter the promotion.

    You can: Instruct users to visit the third-party application to enter the promotion (as described in Section 3.4(i)). Since users must have a Facebook account in order to access an application on the Facebook Platform, if you give this instruction, they will be prompted to sign up for a Facebook account if they do not already have one.”

So far, I have yet to run across any instances of Facebook acting strongly to enforce these guidelines, and I have a feeling that as long as major companies are using Facebook to promote product or contests, Facebook will simply have these on file as a way to please the legal dept. and keep themselves in the clear in case of any mishaps.

However, these rules are good to know, and may lead more and more companies to hold the actual contest on an external website, using Facebook only as a means to promote.

What are your thoughts?  Are these rules good or bad for Facebook?  Are they hurting smaller companies who can’t afford the cost of building a Facebook app?  Let us know in the comments.

--

Geoff

Twitter.com/savestheclash

Success Or Failure. Time For A Mid Year Review.

Every month I review my personal objectives and business objectives. I try to write them so they are very measurable. I see what is working, what is not working, and make some changes. In July I do an even more detailed review of the last 6 months to see where I have succeeded and where I may have tried too hard in an area that maybe the goal was too high, or not specific enough, and try something different.

The same can be done with your marketing plan. What's been working over the last 6 months to help you reach your goals? These goals may be number of new leads for your sales team, number of articles written about your company or product in traditional media, number of bloggers posting positive things about you, number of new fans on Facebook, active community on your social media, etc.

Maybe you bought a booth at a trade show at an event that you knew had many potential customers attending. But the people manning the booth complained that nobody stopped by the booth. Were there ways to get people to the booth? Email and direct mail to prospects before the event? Maybe you had the wrong people at the booth that didn't know enough about the product. Or they sat down the whole time and made attendees feel uneasy to "interrupt" them. 

Did you stop sending your monthly email newsletter because you started a Facebook page but found that updating the Facebook page only once a month wasn't quite as effective as a monthly email newsletter? This happens! Have you checked out some companies Facebook or twitter accounts and nothing has been posted for a month? 

Do you wonder why you don't get any "good press" after sending press release after press release on PR Web and don't see any traction? Or are you actively working on a pubic relations communications strategy to actively work with key writers about engaging stories about your company?

Plan your goals, review your goals, and make changes when necessary. Don't try to fit that square peg in a round hole. Review and update your goals to make the rest of the year much more successful.

John Meyer

@johndmeyer

Oh say, can you see

Whether you missed out on the fireworks because a rainstorm (like we did), or you just don't want the magic of the 4th to end, here's a collection from this year's Macy's celebration to help overcome the back-to-work blues.

How much would you pay for an iPhone 4?

June 24, 2010 marked yet another fantastic product launch from the master of technology, Apple. The greatly anticipated (as all new Apple products are) iPhone 4 made its way to the US and the UK and consumers stood in line for ridiculous amounts of time to own one. And then it made its way across the the Pacific.

As I learned about in my International Marketing class, gray market goods are those that are the real deal product but are being sold through markets that are not necessarily “allowed” yet. But when your product is as in demand as Apple’s is, people just can’t get their hands on them fast enough. But that begs the question “How much am I really willing to pay for iPhone 4?”

iPhone 4s are selling in Hong Kong, China, and other Asian countries for the bargain price of $1,135 all the way up to a reasonable $3,096. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I could ever want it THAT bad. (But then again, I use a BlackBerry and own a Dell PC, so what do I know about the love of Apple?!)

-Courtney

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2010/06/30/apples-iphone-4-reaches-the-gray-market/?KEYWORDS=apple+gray+market