Post tagged "Show Me The Money"
Coffee Company Blends E-Commerce With Marketing On Facebook
Few companies so far have tried turning their brand pages on Facebook into online storefronts. Facebook pages been used almost exclusively as marketing tools — to build brand awareness generally, or to help drive traffic for specific promotions or special deals offline or on their main sites. But not to actually sell stuff directly.
Taking that rare step is Equator Estate Coffees & Teas, which is launching an online store on its Facebook page allowing fans to buy artisanal coffees without leaving the site.
“Social media is rapidly becoming a critically important vehicle for talking with our customers. Now, with our new …more…
12 Practical Ways to Use Twitter in Business
Twitter has been receiving an enormous amount of coverage in the mainstream press. My 82-year old mother-in-law recently asked me why all of the news anchors on her favorite morning show kept talking about this Twitter thing, and what is it anyway? Yet most business professionals, marketers and media people still don’t have a lot of personal exposure to Twitter, so many of them are scratching their heads and wondering what all the commotion is about. Unlike …more…
iWidgets Raises $4.1 Million: Cool App; What's the Bus Model?
TechCrunch and others report this week that a San Francisco-based start up, iWidgets, has raised $4.1 million in Series A funding from Opus Capital and University Venture Fund. Eyebrows are raised: in this climate, what does it take t get funded? Not surprisingly, there’s a social media component. The company lets anyone …more…
The Future of Site Registration and Lead Generation Programs
Google Friend Connect, Facebook Connect and MySpaceID all offer ways for publishers to incorporate third-party logins and networking features on their site. The downside, of course, is that publishers lose some control over all of the data that they get when visitors register with them directly. But the upside for users – and for sites that figure out how to incorporate these features – are so high that publishers need to pay attention and start experimenting with these systems today. …more…
BusinessWeek's Business Exchange
In August, The New York Times broke the news about BusinessWeek’s plans to launch Business Exchange. The article described the new product as a mashup between Wikipedia, digg and LinkedIn, with vertical topics suggested by users, links to content from across the web, and an unspecified set of social networking features. The plans represent a “significant loosening of control” for a traditional media property–but not too loose: new topics require editorial approval, and the editors reserve the right to remove objectionable content. Users have profiles which, interestingly, can be imported from their LinkedIn accounts, …more…
Imagine the Potential: How Can You Friend Your Customers with Facebook Connect?
Razorfish, the large interactive agency owned by Microsoft (but operated independently) has released an interesting slide deck in which they imagine the potential of Facebook Connect to power recommendation engines …more…
Media6Degrees Claims to Harness the Social Graph for Advertisers
A new start-up claims to be in a position to turn lead into gold using “the emerging field of” social media. “$1 Spent With Media6Degrees Client Generates $7 in Transactional Revenue,” blares the headline of the press release announcing the “Commercial Launch Based on the Strength of Beta Tests” for this company, which provides very little information beyond the names of a star-studded management team, team of investors …more…
Show me the Business Model: IDC Swings but Misses
IDC released a new report, U.S. Consumer Online Attitudes Survey Results Part III, that “examines [Social Networking Services] audience reach compared to mainstream services, such as Google and Yahoo!, the demographics of SNS users, and consumer tolerance for SNS advertising compared to online advertising in general.” The highlight of their press release (titled “Social Network Users Less Receptive To Advertising”) is that more than half of U.S. consumers are now using social media sites, with very high levels of repeat visits and engagement. But … ads on social media sites have lower click-through rates than …more…
