According to mashable.com article, Why Do People Follow Brands? “On Twitter, Facebook, and dozens of other social sites, normal consumers often choose to keep tabs on the brands they love.”
“In fact, many brands have highly optimized their marketing and PR strategies to accommodate that behavior, even going to far as to do one-to-one CRM (that’s customer or consumer relationship management) through avenues such as Facebook and Twitter.”
“As social CRM specialists Get Satisfaction found, many consumers who follow brands online are only in it for the perks. Around 40% of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter users in a recent study said they followed brands to get access to discounts and special deals.”
Here is a recent article written by New York Times reporter, Miguel Helft, about the “intended” anonymity of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive and creator of Facebook, has, on more than one occasion, said that, “Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” However, Zuckerberg must have thought his preachings were only relevant to his personal life, instead of his professional career as well. This is proven by Facebook trying to hide their identity while wrongfully persuading members of the media to write condemning reports and stories about Google’s newest social media craze, Social Circle. All may be fair in love and war, but not in the work place.
Facebook, it seems, doesn’t always practice what it preaches.
For years, Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, has extolled the virtue of transparency, and he built Facebook accordingly. The social network requires people to use their real identity in large part because Mr. Zuckerberg says he believes that people behave better — and society will be better — if they cannot cloak their words or actions in anonymity.
“Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity,” Mr. Zuckerberg has said.
Now, Facebook is being taken to task for trying to conceal its own identity as it sought to coax reporters and technology experts to write critical stories about the privacy implications of a search feature, Social Circle, from its rival, Google.
The plan backfired after The Daily Beast revealed late Wednesday that Facebook, whose own privacy practices have long been criticized, was behind the effort. It didn’t help that some of the technology experts who were encouraged to criticize Google dismissed the privacy concerns around Social Circle as misplaced.
“Doing this anonymously is an obvious contradiction of Facebook’s oft-stated values,” said David Kirkpatrick, the author of “The Facebook Effect,” a book about the company. “It feels hypocritical.”
According to an article from http://news.cnet.com, Facebook launched its social-buying program today. Facebook Deals offers members local deals they can buy and also share with their friends on the network. The test launched in Austin, Atlanta, Dallas, San Diego and San Francisco, but may be expanded to include other cities.
Facebook announced this evening it is ready to begin testing its new local deals offering–the social-networking giant’s effort to cash in on the feverish interest in social buying.
Users in the five test cities will be able to learn about offerings through e-mail and notifications, by clicking on the Deals tab on their Facebook home page, and through their News Feed when friends like or buy a deal.
Facebook is working with a passel of other deals sites in the venture, including Opentable, Gilt City, Tippr, PopSugar City, Plum District, ReachLocal, Zozi, Home Run, KGB Deals, aDealio, and ViaGoGo.
With 500 million members, Facebook brings a sizable user base in its challenge for dominance in the deals market, which brought in $873 million in revenue last year and could bring in $3.93 billion by 2015, according to a projection from consulting firm BIA/Kelsey.
Chief among those competitors is Groupon, which has been riding meteoric growth with half-price massages, discounted restaurant meals, and travel bargains. Chicago-based Groupon, with 60 million users and more than 39 million deals sold in its two years in business, is expected to beef up its muscle with an initial public offering later this year.
The World Cup doesn’t start for another 10 days, but it’s already blowing up the Web, particularly in the UK.
According to the trend-watching analysts at Hitwise, at least 20% of all searches in the UK last week contained the words “world cup.” Altogether, the World Cup was the subject of around 25,000 individual search terms.
In web search terms, this interest from searchers is nothing short of explosive.
The fashion industry is ever changing, each season spawning different trends, fads and faux paus. Social media is now putting a new spin on the already rapidly moving industry.
Until recently, the only consumer-industry interaction has been at the checkout counter or rare red carpet event. With social media booming, we see a new breed of consumer. Taking to the blogs, vlogs and tweets, consumers voice their various trend-tips, style-suggestions and fashion-feedback.
Social media offers fashion brand-loyalists a place to network with each other as well as with the industry itself. No longer does the industry have to depend on alternate trend-spotting sources and risky production decisions, they have a free real-time source of certainty through social media content. Social media now links the consumer directly to the industry.
How will this further change the industry? Due to the rapid response capability of consumers, one can predict an even faster rate of market changes. In the fashion industry, they say one minute you’re hot, the next you’re not. Now, thanks to social media, hot just became cold as consumers trend-in and trend-out through social media content. The fashion industry will now need to adapt to an already ever-changing market. (more…)
Jennings Social Media Marketing in Kansas City, Mo. recently released its second case study video within a series of social media videos focused on measurable results. The second video, with 180° Urban Design & Architecture in Kansas City, features the evolution of 180°’s blog into an online news community.
Posted By: Valerie Jennings
We’ve seen professional athletes, high-profile celebrities, and the average Joe all open up to the world of Twitter and social media. According to the following blog from Mashable, the CEO of Google has joined the Twitter fold as well.
Google’s CEO Joins Twitter and Follows … Heidi Montag? At this point, not many new high- profile sign-ups to Twitter are worth reporting, sans perhaps the guy that invented the Internet and Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Twitter nemesis Facebook. But according to reports, another Twitter rival’s CEO — Eric Schmidt of Google — has joined the service. (Read More)
The World Cup doesn’t start for another 10 days, but it’s already blowing up the Web, particularly in the UK.
