From the category archives:

Social Media Marketing

Group Buying – Power and Popularity

by Alex on June 17, 2010

The phenomenon known as ‘group buying’ is not all that new, but is quickly gaining popularity – not only among deal-hungry consumers, but among businesses looking for a lot of instantaneous exposure.
For those of you who haven’t heard, group buying is a deal between companies and a group of consumers. The company cuts the consumers a really good deal, in exchange for:

the sheer volume of business from the group of consumers

the exposure, both through the consumers themselves and the word-of-mouth buzz if the experience was good

The method for setting up such a deal is through a broker of the service itself. These companies operate by signing companies up to offer a deal to their subscribers, and then taking a cut of the deal to make a profit. Enter the core of the group buying phenomenon: the group buying website.

Group buying websites (such as Groupon, featured in my post earlier this week) were started in big, social media savvy cities with a city-wide scope. Since then, they have spread to nearly every urban centre in North America and Europe. Not only that, the trend shows no sign of slowing down or becoming yesterday’s fad. In fact, the coupon conoisseur has a range of options, with many cities represented by multiple deal-brokering group buying websites.

Here are a few players in what has become a very saturated market. Deal lovers should have more than their fill of discounts after signing up for a few of these services:

Groupon
Citydeal (operated in Europe; subsequently bought out by Groupon)
Shnoop
Grooster
CheapToday
LivingSocial
Tippr
OfferMint
DealOn
Offermatic
8Coupons
StealTheDeal

The group buying concept has proven to be so popular with consumers that there is even a website where you can sell your unused coupons – CoupRecoup.com claims to be the Craigslist of Groupons, so consumers can buy coupons that are sold out, or that they didn’t purchase before the deadline.

Group buying sites are here to stay – particularly with the young, newly-affluent professional urban crowd. Part of the success of the concept is the willingness of businesses to offer deals in exchange for large-scale exposure. Knowing that the population segments they are going to reach are actively looking for interesting venues, these businesses offer great deals that they hope will generate regular customers, as well as a lot of word-of-mouth advertising. Young urbanites in turn love the selection of hip, new places to choose from, and purchase coupons. As more and more of this demographic continues to sign up, the draw for young or little-known businesses becomes even greater, and selling a coupon becomes a more integral part of their advertising strategy – and so on, and so forth.

In short, if you’re a city-dweller looking for fun – look no further than group-bought coupons; if you’re a small business owner looking for cheap exposure, group coupons should be part of your marketing strategy.

Tweet This Post Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Delicious This Post Digg This Post Ping This Post Reddit This Post Stumble This Post

{ 0 comments }

“Like”-ing those Facebook Plugins?

by Alex on May 1, 2010

Unless your internet has been down for the past week, you should be aware of Facebook’s latest move toward internet dominance: the Facebook Plugin.

The premise is simple: A website has a piece of code on its site that will display a Facebook box. When you are logged into Facebook, this frame will use your social network to show you relevant things your social network think and feels, that is related to the website you’re visiting.

For example, say you’re looking at the website of a new restaurant you want to try out. On the page, you see the Facebook Plugin – and 8 of your friends have Liked it. Will this influence your likelihood of going to the restaurant (or buying a product or service online)? Facebook seems to think so. Put in the Facebook Team’s own words.

Rather than seeing popular stories, products or reviews from people you don’t know, you’ll now see content that matters to you the most–from your friends–displayed prominently.

This definitely registers as an attempt to one-up Google – how better to customize someone’s online experience than by tailoring it around their social network?

While Facebook Plugins may be a great way to customize your internet browsing experience, there are many people who ‘dislike’ this new development. More than a few Facebook users – and some politicians, security officials, etc – are worried about the implications for personal privacy. Facebook has rushed to dispel these worries, citing that only people you’re already friends with – who can already see what you’re doing through Facebook, anyway – will be able to see what sites you like. This may be true, but displaying it on a website makes the information more easily available. Furthermore, critics worry, there is no telling what additional information may be displayed as Facebook continues to develop its plugins.

Privacy issues aside, the ultimate litmus test for Facebook Plugins is whether or not people find them to be genuinely useful. If you’re using a service or buying a product you’ve never used before, does it make you more comfortable knowing your friends have tried it and liked it? If you’re thinking of heading to a bar and you see that only certain members of your social circle recommend it – will this be useful in deciding whether or not to go? Facebook thinks so. And time will tell if legions of online consumers think so, too.

Tweet This Post Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Delicious This Post Digg This Post Ping This Post Reddit This Post Stumble This Post

{ 0 comments }

Most Important Lesson of 2009

by Adam Killam on January 8, 2010

Knowing your market inside out and backwards is the number one skill of business success. Period.

Tweet This Post Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Delicious This Post Digg This Post Ping This Post Reddit This Post Stumble This Post

{ 0 comments }

Social Media Marketing Case Studies: 3 more!

by Adam Killam on July 17, 2009

I just came across a nice slideshow presentation from Blog World that was posted on slideshare.com.

Also, be sure to check out these 3 social media marketing case studies from Ford, Coke and Dell.

Have a look and have a great weekend!

Social Media Case Studies – Blogworld

View more documents from Rohit Bhargava.

Tweet This Post Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Delicious This Post Digg This Post Ping This Post Reddit This Post Stumble This Post

{ 1 comment }

3 Big Brand Social Media Case Studies

by Adam Killam on July 16, 2009

Recently, while giving a presentation on social media marketing to a local Vancouver company the question was asked about big brands using social media marketing and what results they have been seeing. This was a smack my forhead with my palm type moment where I was thinking “Of course a case study would have been a good idea to bring.

In response to that moment I did a quick search on Google and came up with a few case studies that will help those of you interested in learning about what the big boys are doing in regards to Twitter, Facebook and social media in general.

I particularly like Dell’s story because they got off to a rocky start with their foray into blogging and were able to recover and then create some big wins with their Idea Storm site (run on the Salesforce.com Ideas platform which I recommend checking out). If you’ve read “What Would Google Do?” then you know what I’m talking about.

Here are the Case Studies:

Comments welcome as always and don’t forget to Tweet This!

UPDATE: I posted presentation on July 17th from Blog World that covers three more social media marketing case studies. Enjoy!

Tweet This Post Plurk This Post Buzz This Post Delicious This Post Digg This Post Ping This Post Reddit This Post Stumble This Post