Marketing Pilgrim

Facebook is launching a deal site. Who isn’t? But according to Network Effect, Facebook is going to be specific about the kinds of deals they promote and that could be the key to success.

The word is that the deals on Facebook will only be for social activities that you can share with a friend. Half price movie tickets and lift freebies for a ski resort as opposed to discounts on teeth whitening and carpets for your home. Daily deal site KGB will be partnering with Facebook for a five-city test and they say their deal vouchers will be delivered in minutes. I take this to mean that I can sit down with friends on a Friday night, choose an activity and we can all be sharing that discounted fun later on that same evening.

Jack Dorsey is back at Twitter and he is there for a very specific reason. The reason is to get the service firmly planted in the mainstream. He wants Twitter to work for the average Joe. Right now, there is plenty of debate as to how it works for anyone. The original users have seen it go from a cool hideout to a busy and noisy town square. Marketers are trying to figure out how to peddle their wares without looking like peddlers. While social media gurus and experts pat each other on the virtual back 24/7 for any variety of reasons.

Dorsey sees where he needs to go. In a report from the Wall Street Journal he says

Did you know that Hotmail is the second most used web-mail client, beating Gmail by over 94%? Gotta wonder how many of those accounts are throw aways for junk mail, but I digress before I even get started.

Microsoft is looking to strengthen its bid to make Hotmail the leading web-mail client by making it more interactive.

Right now, email is either text or HTML based which means your only real option for hooking people up is to include a link in your email. Microsoft wants to take that link and deliver that information right inside the email blank.

Imagine getting that YouTube video of a cat eating spaghetti right in your email client. No need to click! Even better, is the ability to add real time information in an email such as this example from Netflix.

I doubt that this really shocks anyone when they are rationally thinking about the power of social media rather than being swept up in whatever hype is coming out of Silicon Valley these days. Despite the social media revolution and the ‘your life will never be the same!’ messages that accompany every new product launch (Color anyone?) there still remains the fact that at least at this point in time people still talk more about brands and products face-to-face more than any other way.

A study performed by Colloquy and reported by eMarketer shows that even amongst the technologically savvy young adult crowd (age 18-25) face-to-face is the most often used method for giving information about products and brands.

Do you mix business with pleasure – on social media, that is? A blogger at Ars Technica has just posted about a study that examines the relationship between professors who Tweet and their students.

The study had students follow a specially designed Twitter feed that was supposedly written by one of their professors. One group got only school-related Tweets, one got only personal Tweets and the third group got a mix.

After following the feeds, the students were asked to rate the professor’s credibility. The highest ratings came from those who saw only personal Tweets. The addition of school-related Tweets did nothing to raise the professor’s score.

The authors of the study felt that the higher rating came from the fact that the students thought the personal Tweeting professor was more “caring” which apparently is more important that competent.

I watch a lot of television and I follow a lot of people on Twitter who also watch a lot of television. Before I had an iPhone, though, I couldn’t understand how people could send out twenty tweets a night commenting on TV shows as they aired. Then I got an iPhone and it all became clear.

With an iPhone, it’s so easy to share important thoughts with the world like, “What’s up with that carpenter wearing a suit and tie? He looks like Dr. Who! #americasnextgreatrestaurant” and how I feel about the song choices of this year’s American Idol contestants. At least my Tweets have some substance.