More on Groupon

As I was traveling this past weekend I read an interesting article in United's in-flight magazine. Much of the content of the article was presented in class today, but not mentioned is how Groupon came to be. I think it's a pretty good story of entrepreneurship. Andrew Mason, the 30-year old CEO of Groupon, first created a site called The Point in 2007. The Point organizes people behind charitable causes, and once enough people have donated time or money to a project, it's undertaken. Unfortunate for charities, The Point has not been hugely successful, but Andrew Mason saw the potential market behind group purchasing...and so it he gave it a try with coupons and has become wildly successful.

There are other interesting details about the growth of the company. For example, Groupon is expected to be the only company to achieve $1 billion in sales within 2 years (priceline.com did it in 2.5 years).

Read the full article from Hemispheres Magazine at The-Tipping-Point

Overload

After being exposed to more and more forms of social media and reading about strategic invasion of privacy that is used by many companies, I find myself getting frustrated with many aspects of social media: the constant page suggestions (I am guilty of sending a few of these as well in the past), companies and aspiring musicians trying to be my "friend", links, tags, and many other types of social media tools. Is anyone else experiencing this social media overload? It brings me to my question: when will social media go too far to where the people will turn away from it and not pay attention like they have done (at least for the most part) to commercials, print ads, etc. Where are we headed next in terms of marketing?

Google Hot Pot

Google has a cool location based recommendation engine called Google Hot Pot. As location is becoming more and more popular especially with social media groups such as Facebook and Foursquare, users are trying to make the most out of the functionality.

So what does Hot Pot do? It takes all of Google’s places, features, reviews and ratings and adds som what of a… personal touch. Google will use your profile and link it to the likes and dislikes with a counter at the top of your profile, this data will then get fed into the search engine. One of the aims is to get you to rate and review businesses for others to see.

If you are worried about your name being used, then stop worrying. You can create a Hot Pot nickname that can be separate from your Gmail account so that only your friends can see your real name and the rest of the web can only see your nickname.

Thought that it is interesting topic to share. More can be found at -> http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/11/discover-yours-local-recommendations.html

The key to blogging is connection!

I have been fairly skeptical of blogging. I understand how to use it. I can talk to my audience, I can build relationships, I can sell my product (whether that is an idea, a concept or a physical product). My major issue has been getting to the blog. What drives me to find the blog? What makes me want to share my opinion?

In that light, I have a friend's sister who is a foodie and she blogs about food. Here's a great site that is featuring a contest that drives both participation and content:

http://www.foodbuzz.com/project_food_blog

If this is being done about food, could the same idea work to tap into the passion people have about your product? It might have already been done, but I still thought this was cool. What makes people want to connect with your product (whether its to read or write about it)?

It went viral

"The latest online video to go viral features an annoyed San Diego airline passenger refusing a pat-down from a Transportation Security Administration worker. John Tyner, the Internet celebrity of the moment, is now being hailed in some circles as the everyman victim of overzealous government employees."

- The Baltimore Sun

10s of thousands of views already on YouTube!
Definitely falls into the SUCCESS Model.

Be Obama's Social Media Manager

With the mid-term elections behind us it ought to be another 15 minutes or so before the 2012 election season starts. You can bet that the President will be going back to the social media well before long. He currently has 7.5 million Facebook followers, 3.3 million Twitter followers and 2 million MySpace friends.

Now for the good news He is hiring a new Social Media Manager! It could be you. Here's the article with the contact to submit your resume.

www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/02/16/obama-seeks-new-social-media-mouthpiece/

Social Media Marketing gives small business big chances!

In Japan, among the people, the brand, Satisfaction Guaranteed has been very popular rather than Uniqlo, Beams, and so on.

The company was founded in 2007. Basically, Japanese clothes items are made in China or other low-labor-cost countries because of the cost-effectiveness to beat severe competition while the company has persisted with the brand made in Japan.

In three years, the brand has increased the popularity such as the number of Facebook fan, 170,000 and opened the shop in Singapore.

Note: The number of Facebook fan of Panasonic is 54,000.

Why is the brand successful? The key is utilization of Social Media.

According to Japanese business journal article, the CEO, Shunsuke Satoh mentioned the following successful key points as follows:

Unlike famous brand, the recognition was so low. He clarified the goal of the brand’s facebook. Afterward, the CEO communicated directly with customers through Facebook’s personal account, created Fan Page and expanded its contents to increase the number of fan

Investment heavily in advertising at initial stage in utilizing Facebook, Asian countries’ Yahoo! Banner advertisements.

Posting Facebook Fan Page Posted on the shop’s windows which many passers-by can access the page through their mobile.

Collaboration its official site with its Facebook Fan page and other brand’s Facebook Fan page with its Facebook Fan Page.

He also mentions that the number of fan does not always show the number of the core fan. So his direct communication with fan/customers makes him grasp what the fan seeks for the brand.

Social media marketing has a huge potential for small business or entrepreneurs!

Facebook Fan Page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/japan.satisfactionguaranteed?v=info

The company’s URL:

http://www.satisfaction-guaranteed.jp/sg/index.html