Sitting through stuffy lectures with a monotonous teacher is a student’s worst nightmare. But Pinterest may be changing that. Yes, Pinterest, the site where people pin their favorite pictures on boards to share with the world.
With Pinterest gaining traction by the day, it’s becoming a valuable tool for educators. Not only are teacherssharing tipsand using the site to grabideas for lessons, it’s being used as a teaching tool too.
Pinterest is helping inspire students, increase student participation, and helping them tell stories.
For example, University of Minnesota adjunct instructor Leslie Plesseris usingPinterest in her basic media graphics class. Though her students are not graded for their use of Pinterest specifically, they are required to use it with their activity being factored into their participation grade.
“I am looking at their design work and comparing it to what they ‘like’ on Pinterest to see where they are drawing their inspiration from and it helps me to understand their personal design aesthetic, which I can then use in determining their project grades and in any advice I give on their work,” Plesser told theDaily Dotvia email.
The students are interacting with each other on the site as well, as they follow each other and often repin items their peers have found.
More at: http://mashable.com/2012/03/22/teachers-using-pinterest/
Some have questioned the effectiveness of Facebook as a commerce platform, but can you dismiss an ad and marketing channel with 800+ million users?
Here are some tips for increasing the opportunities for commerce on Facebook.
Recently, Bloomberg published an article about several retailers, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom, Gap and Gamestop, who all closed their Facebook stores in 2011.
As a consultant implementing s-commerce (Social Commerce) solutions for my clients, I am writing to let you know that Facebook commerce (f-commerce) is alive and well and customers are making money selling products and services via Facebook.
I can’t speak about the f-commerce implementations of the aforementioned companies, only from my own experience.
For one company, Grassroots Festival, we created a Facebook store to sell discounted tickets on the festival’s Facebook fan page.
The Facebook store generated a 4.1% clickthrough rate, resulted in a significant ROI and also cut-out the middle men in terms of ticket sales, who require substantial commission.
We have also seen considerable success with smaller clients who do not currently sell their products online. The success of their s-commerce efforts has prompted them to commercialize their businesses online with e-commerce functionality on their websites.
For larger online retailers, unless they are offering specific incentives for their Facebook Fans to purchase from their Facebook stores, why would a consumer purchase something anywhere other than their website?
It is even more effective to find a specific niche or focus on clearance lines, rather than replicate your entire inventory in a Facebook store.
We have many hotel clients who have seen considerable volume in their Facebook stores specifically for gift vouchers, a growing category in the hospitality sector. Their websites are not usually geared up for anything other than booking rooms, and even then, they usually use a third party booking engine rather than managing their own functionality.
More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9428-why-facebook-commerce-is-alive-7?
Brands are being increasingly successful in social media by using humorous mascots, according to the WSJ. We’ve seen plenty of evidence of that in the UK with Dulux recently reinstating its dog and how brands as diverse as Burger King’s “The King”, Compare the Market (Meerkat) and Go Compare with its opera-singing mascot, Gio Compario, have used them.
The report says that ad executives believe consumers on Facebook are more likely to bond with a character than the traditional company page on the social-media website pumping out company and product news.
The piece cites US brands such as eBay-owned ticket-resale website StubHub, which uses a 25-foot-high animatroni tree, insurance firm Progressive with a sales agent called Flo (played by comedienne Stephanie Courtney, Spam with Sir Can A-Lot, Diageo with its live action Captain Morgan rum pirate not to mention the Old Spice guy and Geico’s popular talking gecko.
“Consumers are less likely to have a conversation with a logo or a PR guy on social media,” said Jeff Charney, chief marketing officer for auto insurer Progressive Corp. Since 2008, Progressive’s TV ads have centered on a perky sales clerk named Flo, who touts the insurer’s rates. She now has 3.5 million fans on Facebook, where she posts comments about new Progressive products.
Characters also offer a softer way to sell a product, which is important on social media where executives fear that blatant selling or promotion can turn people off.
“You can put fairly bald product benefits into the mouth of a mascot and it doesn’t come off as hard sell,” said Parker Channon, partner at Duncan/Channon, a San Francisco ad firm that crafted the StubHub pitch, from the WSJ.
More at: http://wallblog.co.uk/2012/03/26/does-your-brand-need-a-mascot-to-be-successful-in-social-media/
Graphic available From: http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/17/thumb-sxsw/?
Every year, before, during, and after South by Southwest, everyone’s eager declare someone the winner of the conference. Then comes the inevitable backlash, with questions about whether Popular App X will ever catch on with “regular people” — or if it’s just useful to techies who are constantly checking their iPhones in search of the next party.
For the second year in a row, mobile Q&A app Thumb (formerly known as Opinionaided) is offering its own take. It made a list of the apps that seemed to be getting buzz at the conference, then polled its users on whether they actually used the apps. The results (there were 4,700 responses total, with at least 220 for each question) are being pitched as an answer to the question, “Which SXSW Apps Do Real Americans Actually Use?”
Now, you could make a list of caveats to the results that’s longer than this post. For starters: Do we really think Thumb’s userbase is fully representative of “Real Americans”? And doesn’t the survey’s definition of “SXSW App” seem a bit arbitrary? But I have to admit, I was still curious about the results, so here they are. The most-used app seems to be Instagram (22 percent of respondents said they used it), followed by Spotify (14 percent), Waze (12 percent), and Foursquare (12 percent). Highlight, the app that many predicted would be this year’s big hit, was used by 5 percent of respondents.
Instagram’s victory is no surprise, given the rapid growth the company announced on-stage at SXSW. But if you want to argue about winners, it’s too bad Thumb didn’t ask about the Mophie juice pack.
Since women turn to online sources for information during critical times in the purchase decision process, marketers might benefit from knowing that 35% turn to sources at the beginning of the process and 42% at the end to narrow their choices, according to BlogHer’s Fifth Annual Women and Social Media study.
The study identifies emerging platforms that women use to gain information about products and services. It also traces the connection to specific media channels and analyzes the influence of each on purchase behavior.
Seventy-seven percent of women use Facebook for fun, while 87% turn to Facebook to remain up to date with with family. More than 61% of active blog readers admit to making purchases based on a blog recommendation, nearly double the rate of Facebook and Twitter active users — 33% and 31% — respectively.
Purchase conversion among the BlogHer community was 87%.
While Facebook ranks the highest for fun and keeping up with friends and family, blogs rank the highest in learning about new products and research recommendations that can turn into purchase decisions. Some 41% seek out blogs to learn about new products, 39% look for product recommendations, and 36% use blogs to make purchase decisions.
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/170164/blogs-influence-womens-shopping-experience.html#ixzz1pHNJnqul
Social commerce company Reevoo has released research that suggests bad reviews are good for business.
The company found that 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both good and bad scores, while 30% suspect censorship or faked reviews when they don’t see anything negative at all.
Not only this, but shoppers who go out of their way to read bad reviews convert 67% more than the average consumer.
Reevoo CEO and founder Richard Anson said that though this may seem counter-intuitive, negative user-generated content is actually one of the most effective conversion tools.
This is because shoppers who seek out bad reviews are highly engaged with their pre-purchase research, viewing almost four times as many products as the average visitor to a site, and staying considerably longer.
The company discovered that three times as many consumers actively seek out and read negative user-generated content as look for positive content: negative reviews are even more popular than ‘most recent reviews’, or ‘reviews from people like me’.
Figures quoted are from data collected across Reevoo’s network of 150 UK and international partners and from Reevoo.com, the company’s consumer website, as well as from independent consumer surveys.
The results contrast with a study last year, which found that reading between one and three negative reviews would deter the majority of customers, though much depends on whether there are any good reviews to outweight thr bad.
More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8638-bad-reviews-improve-conversion-by-67
Facebook’s Timeline design for Pages is coming very soon! As mentioned in this post, rumor has it that Facebook will be announcing Timeline for Pages at the first ever Facebook Marketing Conference on February 29th in NYC. (The conference is invite-only, but save the date as the event will be livestreamed! Details here.)
Mockup - Coca-Cola Facebook Timeline Brand Page (as featured on Mashable.com)
The buzz is building about the imminent announcement of this much-awaited feature. Well, I should say, some businesses and brands are eagerly awaiting this overhaul to fan pages! Many of us are waiting with bated breath to see how the new Timeline design will affect a) custom landing tabs, and b) apps. Not to mention the split-wall, and whether fan engagement and EdgeRank will be impacted.
I’m certain the new page design will have the attractive large cover image. And it’s likely that apps will be displayed in ‘boxes’ at the top right of the Timeline design, similar to the personal Timelines. I certainly hope that we can still drive visitors and fans to custom landing tabs/areas.
As for when the rollout will happen, my guess is that major brands and large businesses will get the new design first, and after that it could take two to three months before all pages have access to the new Timeline format. But, who knows? Facebook doesn’t seem to be revealing much yet! Given there are over 845 Million user profiles vs. 20 Million fan pages with more than 30 fans, the Timeline rollout for Pages could happen much, much quicker than it is for profiles!
Image credit: Coca-Cola Facebook Timeline Brand Page by Ryan Kennedy, as featured on Mashable.com.
Does Coca-Cola have access to its Timeline Page now?
Meanwhile, check out this cool discovery — it appears that Coca-Cola is testing its new Timeline Brand Page! As you can see from the screenshot below, discovered in the News Feed today (February 16th when this post was written) by one of my fans:
“Coca-Cola added an update to 1951 to their timeline.”
Coca-Cola Testing a Timeline for Pages Update!
1951?? Yes, as AdAge pointed out, with the new Timeline for Pages, brands will be able to go back in time to the date the company was founded to add all manner of updates. Now that’s cool! I’m personally not so keen to go back in time to add my own baby photos, first word, first kiss, first drink yada yada. Lol! All of that is just TMI, IMHO! But for business? Hmm, let’s get the creativity going!
Special thanks to my Facebook friend, Jamie Dolan for the screenshot and headsup on Coca-Cola’s Timeline test!
By the way, what’s interesting is – despite the serious amount of engagement on this post within 4 minutes – Coca-Cola deleted the post shortly after. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to go live?
The 37 shares also got nixed when Coca-Cola deleted the original post.
More at: http://www.marismith.com/coca-cola-facebook-timeline-brand-page/
A recent study has shown that Pinterest is more popular with men than women in the UK. This is, at first glance, quite surprising seeing as 83 per cent of Pinterest’s US users are women.
However, a closer look at the data reveals that many UK users are in fact professionals working in the media industry. This perhaps explains why the gender split is more even in the UK (44 per cent female, 56 per cent male) compared to the US, where women have adopted the site for social rather than professional reasons.
More at: http://www.thinktank.org.uk/blog/2012/02/uk-pinterest-users-buck-us-trend.php
Over the last year, you may have noticed that a once-niche trend not only crept into the mainstream, but is starting to really make a big splash. Gamification has become one of the hottest buzz words in the industry and is probably in the process of taking over a website or user experience near you.
For the uninitiated, gamification, said simply, is the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences. Over the last year, even large companies and enterprises are starting to get in on the game, with Gartner saying that all CIOs should have gamification on their radar, and M2 research predicting that the gamification market will reach 2.8 billion in direct spending by 2016.
Okay, so it’s on the rise, we get that, but let’s take a look at some of the players that are helping to take this trend to the next level. Three companies in particular are currently creating some buzz in the space: Badgeville, Bigdoor and Bunchball.
Badgeville started by making a big splash center stage at Disrupt in the fall of 2009. The company took home the Audience Choice Award at Disrupt, has since gone on a tear and is poised to have a great 2012. (Check out Rip’s original post on Badgeville’s prospects here.)
Badgeville Co-founder and CEO Kris Duggan pulls no punches when it comes to one of the most visible and early adopters of gamification, the check-in king: Foursquare. The CEO says that Foursquare was early in its attempts at gamification, but that its incentivization models remain fundamentally flawed.
Duggan points to the “Mayorship” system within Foursquare: “You have literally hundreds of people and only one mutually-exclusive point of recognition, the Mayor. What happens to the other hundreds of people? Not only are they not engaged, but you don’t take into consideration different types of users.” Duggan believes you need to engage not only the heavy user, but medium and light users as well. Rather than a one-size-fits-all methodology, you can appeal to each user type and incent them accordingly.
More at: http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/12/no-longer-an-awkward-teenager-gamification-grows-up/
