When you talk about success of one platform and more importantly hear how every Tom, Dick and Harry is nibbling advantage off it, the bigger names tend to speed up their activity on the same. Facebook therefore is no exception. We have seen how big brands are using social networks to their advantage, leveraging the massive population they pull towards them. Examples would include brands like Adidas, Nike, Motorola, Microsoft with its Bing, just to name a few.
According to the stats from the latest report, well over 75% of online retailers utilize the social network. Those numbers are for the retailers in the US only but this just shows how rapidly the social networks have influenced each. While the online retailers have always have had a Web presence with their own portals, the migration towards utilizing these networks for massive or to put it more correctly the viral marketing. That percentage is only about those who are very active on these sites. Those that aren’t are planning to step into the social scene and devising strategies. i recently came across a startup in Stealth mode in Pakistan that is only postponing its launch because it is unable to devise a proper social media strategy.
Wow! Facebook is heading over to location based features and will be introducing these in the coming month. This would enable users to add their location with friends on the social network, letting your network know where you are. These features would also enable the developer community to leverage users sharing their location and design related activities and apps for more location centered user experience.
I know many would be pissed and create a havoc on why is the social network using their location to design apps as bait. But cry as you may, the social network had already included that in their Terms of Service, when the TOS created a lot of controversy last year. Whether you enjoy these new features or not, you have already agreed to let the social network use these, if you happen to be using the social network.
What’s the best way to boost the number of fans on your fan page? Exploit their desires, something which many have done out and about on Facebook. The latest to surface is the scam that says it will give you Apple’s latest gadget, the iPad for free only if you are to register your information as well as the cell phone number on the destination site.
Of course the deal is worth falling for the bait. I mean especially those die hard Apple fans who would do anything to sniff the tiniest bit of news or just a touch on the Apple devices, would readily have fallen prey to it. The worst part is that you are requested to provide the cell phone numbers of your friends on the site as well and you end up being charged $10 a week. To be honest these scams only succeed in fishing the less aware of users and one reason why we make sure that such scams are covered immediately so that the maximum users are aware of it.
Well you might be too far to attend Metallica’s concert in Israel at half a price thanks to Facebook and even more as they might not be held in your city, but complain not! At least Jay-Z fans who are spread across the globe. The artist has made up a deal with Absolut Vodka to bring his fans a latest documentary titled; NY-Z.
Wow. First they had chewing gums to help you quit smoking, then came sessions to help you with that followed by electronic cigarettes. Well this year there is a new way to quit smoking as the world celebrates the No Smoking Day. Some smart folks out there have created an app for the largest social network, Facebook.
The idea is to get all the smokers challenge each other and friends alike to quit smoking where success will be rewarded and a lot of boos for failure. Sounds interesting, especially the idea of Wall of Shame, which puts the photos of smokers who find nooks and corners to continue with their habit and fool others. Again, the app will be pretty viral as March 10, the day for No-Smoking approaches and I really commend the group for making the effort. I have always thought that doing so all by yourself is pretty tough, but if you have the motivation from others like you and all smokers try to quit this habit in a group, actually find it much easier to reduce their tobacco intake.
Now this one definitely pulls the value of Metallica’s concert down but it has got their fans thanking Facebook. Apparently the fans of the band in Israel used Facebook to launch a campaign to boycott the soaring prices for their concert scheduled for May 22, 2010. The actual price of the ticket was put at $159, but the power of the crowd has got it to half the price to around $80.
This was obvious, the band which people actually worship when it comes to metal genre is visiting the state after their last tour in 1999. Now would you ever think of missing that just because you can’t pay the price. The group started off with 600 followers and in less than 4 days has amassed over 6,000 users. Now this definitely is a good news for the fans in Israel as well as for the tour, given that the cost is now halved, it means that more people will be making it to the concert. Jam packed to be precise is what it should be and will make it worth the campaign.
Now when your fans increase from 1 to 5 it isn’t worth talking about anything but if a single step of yours pushes you from 100,000 to 500,000, it’s worth every word I write. Microsoft has surged overnight from having 100,000 followers to 500,000. What was their magic spell? Give those Farmville addicts currency in exchange of becoming a fan of Bing on its Facebook fan page.
The killer idea was that they enticed users to join in without actually having to leave their game and become fans of Bing. The trouble is who exactly is becoming a fan there? I mean you can have all sorts of people joining in for a bribe of the ever important Facebook Credits or some worthless virtual currency. The purpose here was primarily to make Bing the default search engine choice when it comes to finding tips for the game. How stupid. I mean wouldn’t it be easier for users to figure those out on blogs or with the friends who are busy engaged in the game as well?
Pictures should be visible, especially when photography enthusiasts make so much efforts to capture the most inspiring moments and users want to see them bigger. Well yesterday the social network did make the move and pushed the image resolution to 720 pixels. Now we are talking more detail!
While it is great to have a fan page for almost every new idea on Facebook or Twitter accounts, it might get very stupid if there different ones for different faces of the same idea. Think of it, if Nokia had different fan pages for its different mobile phones. Or Apple had the same for the MacBooks, iPhone and the iPod. The major trouble would have been the issue with keeping a check on all data which was spread on to so many sites/pages. Today the team at American Idol had some senses knocked into it as they centralized all contestants into one Official account for all.
As of now, American Idol’s season 9 would have one single account on Twitter [@AI9Contestants] and one page on Facebook [AI9 Contestants]. The move is justified, primarily because it’s going to bring all the thrill and news about the new season at one place, instead of having all the noise polluting streams of users and fans. To be honest it kills the purpose of competition as it becomes more individual. With This in place one can actually be updated about every contestant’s activity on one page or through one single account. This would keep the spirit of the competition alive and will be much easier to monitor by the the team.
The social network is really heading on to maximize its growing influence. The social networks now wants to make sure that you end up using the Facebook mobile version if you do leave the social network on the Web. Well the social network has been used far and wide the many smartphone devices like the iPhone, Android phones, etc but it hasn’t really been able to give a great experience. I only enjoyed using Facebook on the Nokia N97 [you can read the phone’s review here].
As of now the login page now has a huge mobile phone image and the link takes you to a new page where you are provided many options to ease using Facebook via mobile devices. The release provides you with the ease of updating your Facebook status via text messages, you already had this option but the social network has made these option more prominent now. Other than that you also have the options like having a customized email for the social network that you can use to upload videos, photos, etc to your Facebook profile. Once you are signed up and click on the link to have an upload email, the social network would generate you one which you can use to share content right from your email client.
