Tumblr Leaves Posterous in the Dust [?!]

: Image via CrunchBase

Rising social media rockstar Kelly Neuville of Envano sent me an article from ReadWriteWeb [you can follow the ‘via’ link below the graph to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested] that would seem to suggest at first glance that I should abandon my love of the Posterous platform in favor of my first interest in this space, Tumblr. If I apply logic like this at every level in my life, I would learn a lesson from the flies on my farm and favor a steady diet of cow manure — after all, the sheer volume of their vote would indicate that manure is clearly a better food product, right? :-D

Now I’m not saying that Kelly was wrong to send me the article or that Tumblr = cow manure, although it would appear my analogy is heading in that direction. What I am saying is that there will always be a reason why the masses favor one product over another and it may have nothing to do with elegance or technological superiority. I posted the same data from a different perspective yesterday here; the article postulates that ‘The growth in Tumblr’s visitors probably has something to do with its popularity among celebs.’ and says ‘Earlier this week John Mayer made waves this week by shutting down his Twitter account, where he had 3.7 million followers, and switching to Tumblr full time.’ If that’s the case, then Tumblr has an ‘unfair advantage’ — it’s becoming the destination of choice for the MySpace crowd. My response? Meh…

via readwriteweb.com

Laura Ingraham was right — entertainers should shut up and sing. What I want to know is what are the thought leaders using? I was really impressed with Tumblr until I saw that Guy Kawasaki picked Posterous for his Holy Kaw! blog and then I wondered “what did I miss”?! And what about social media rockstar Steve Rubel? And what about me? Seriously, Posterous rocks at the two most important things I could expect any blogging tool to do; ingest almost any content for creation and curation effortlessly and autopost as part of my homebase and outpost strategy. I use Posterous as the foundation of my ‘e1evation workflow‘ and it made me one of the top thought leaders in my industry on the internet rapidly elevating my site to within the top 40k of all websites in the US in 3 months. I will and I have put my humble Posterous blogs up against the best and they’ve held their ground — believe me when I say I have no fear of Katy Perry on Tumblr…

Tumblr Leaves Posterous in the Dust (nytimes.com)
Tumblr Doesn’t Leave Posterous in the Dust (or “Why Facebook is scared of Twitter”) (tonywright.com)
Tumblr leaves Posterous far behind in Competition (techie-buzz.com)

September 19, 2010 9

Four reasons your Executive Director should be on Twitter

: Image via CrunchBase

Executive leaders at nonprofits should put community engagement via social media as a top priority in their job descriptions. They need to get their hands dirty.

But more often than not they don’t.

A broken model?

Usually, staffers do the “dirty work” with social media while management gets a debrief on ROI.

This is like having a nurses aid listen to a patient’s acute cardiac symptoms and tell the heart surgeon where to operate. A lot of critical information would be lost without the surgeon using her own stethoscope to listen directly to the patient’s heart.

Listening to your community is no different. Your community’s voice has a particular rhythm that can only be understood firsthand.

Four reasons EDs should be on Twitter

Executive leaders can understand the community better through unfiltered direct access

They can create greater trust within that community by demonstrating the orgs commitment to engage

Respond faster to the community by eliminating the time it takes to play the telephone game

They can anticipate needs that less experienced staff members might miss

But what if our executive leaders are too busy?

Too busy? If they aren’t willing to make an effort to hear firsthand from the people they serve, maybe they aren’t the right leaders for the organization.

via johnhaydon.com

…or maybe they don’t have the right tactics & tools. You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more…

September 19, 2010 0

Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare

A McDonalds in a Toronto, Ontario, Canada Wal-... — Image via Wikipedia

According to a current headline on TechMeme, McDonalds saw a 33% increase in foot traffic to its stores when it ran a promotion during Foursquare Day earlier this year. At that time, the fast food chain offered users who checked into McDonald’s a chance to win $5 and $10 gift cards. On the Econsultancy blog, Meghan Keane reports that McDonald’s head of social media Rick Wion claims that, “with this one little effort [$1000 in gift cards], we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores.” These numbers, however, simply don’t add up.

There is clearly some confusion here about the numbers that Wion was talking about. Keane reports that McDonalds saw a 33% increase in check-ins from the day prior to Foursquare day and a 40% increase in check-ins for the week the special ran. Then, however, she goes on to quote Wion as saying that he “was able to go to some of our marketing people — some of whom had never heard of Foursquare — and say, ‘Guess what. With this one little effort, we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores.'” It seems clear that Wion was talking about check-ins here and misspoke when he claimed that this campaign increased foot traffic by 33%.

Some of our colleagues, however, then took this number and ran with it – after all, a 33% increase in foot traffic to one of the world’s largest brands because of one of the most over-hyped social media companies sure sounds like a good story.

via readwriteweb.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

McDonald’s Foursquare Day Campaign Brought in 33% More Foot Traffic (mashable.com)
Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare (readwriteweb.com)
Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare (nytimes.com)
Case Study: McDonald’s ups foot traffic 33% on Foursquare Day (econsultancy.com)

September 19, 2010 0

Restaurant social media and word of mouth

via flickr.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested in learning more. Comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how this applies to your business…

HOW TO: Hire a Designer or Developer (mashable.com)
Think ‘location’ -based social media is silly? (e1evation.com)
Restaurants and Social Media (kylelacy.com)
Ideal Restaurant Social Media Flow (e1evation.com)
Five Digital Channels For Word of Mouth Marketing (mindjumpers.com)

September 18, 2010 0

Think ‘location’ -based social media is silly?

A couple of weeks ago, I was at our local frozen custard store and I told the girl behind the counter that I was the ‘mayor’ of said store in Foursquare. I asked if there was any benefit to this elevated status. Here response? WHATEVER as only a teenage girl can deliver it. Vendors need to think different…

“With so many brands trying their hand at location-based marketing campaigns, one has to wonder: is Foursquare really effective as a platform for bringing in new business? McDonald’s seems to think so; the company’s head of social media Rick Wion recently spoke of the fast food giant’s big wins from a spring pilot program using Foursquare.

At the Mobile Social Communications conference yesterday, Wion shared that McDonald’s was able to increase foot traffic to stores by 33% in one day with a little Foursquare (Foursquare) ingenuity. McDonald’s total cost for the successful campaign was a measly $1,000.

Econsultanty reports that McDonald’s, with Wion driving campaign direction and strategy, opted to try and take advantage of Foursquare Day (4/16) to bring in more business. The company used 100 randomly awarded $5 and $10 giftcards as checkin bait to lure in potential diners. The bait also worked to attract the media’s attention and resulted in more than 50 articles covering McDonald’s Foursquare special.

The campaign worked in both digital and real world capacities. Patrons flocked to McDonald’s restaurants for the chance to win giftcards in exchange for checkins, and 600,000 online denizens opted to follow and fan the brand on social media sites.

“I was able to go to some of our marketing people — some of whom had never heard of Foursquare — and say, ‘Guess what. With this one little effort, we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores’,” Wion explained to conference attendees.” Source: McDonald’s Foursquare Day Campaign Brought in 33% More Foot Traffic

Comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how this applies to your business…

via ScribeFire

September 17, 2010 1

Improving Customer Loyalty Tops Social Media Budgets

According to national survey results jointly released by COLLOQUY and the Direct Marketing Association, U.S. companies that use social media primarily to deepen customer loyalty spend almost twice as much on this emerging channel as competitors who use it for brand awareness, customer acquisition and other core marketing purposes.

Specifically, the survey results show the average social media spend for marketers whose primary objective is to obtain customer loyalty was $88,000 last year, compared to $53,000 for brand awareness and $30,000 for customer acquisition, the objectives that attracted the next highest spending levels.

The survey shows that the amount of social media budget marketers allocated to loyalty objectives increased by 293% over the past 12 months, easily surpassing allocation increases for all other social media-related marketing objectives.

via mediapost.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’re interested…

Improving Customer Loyalty Tops Social Media Budgets (socialmediabiz.com)
Does Social Media Improve Customer Loyalty? Customer Feedback Programs Best Practices Survey (customerthink.com)
links for 2010-09-17 (charman-anderson.com)
How to Create a Customer Loyalty Program via Social Media (via PR Workbench) (sayingitsocial.wordpress.com)

September 17, 2010 0

Has Twitter Has Killed RSS Readers? Traffic To Google Reader Down 27% Since Last Year

RSS readers, the wave of the future a few years ago, are now basically toast, thanks largely (we think) to Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social media (especially Twitter).

RSS readers were unlikely to go truly mainstream anyway, because they’re too complicated for mass-market consumers. And now much of the early adopter market that was addicted to them a few years ago has since moved on to Twitter, et al.

Some folks report that they use their RSS readers even MORE in the age of Twitter, because the jumbled 140 character thing is just too shallow and chaotic. Others actually read Twitter via RSS readers.

But, personally, I never use RSS readers anymore–in part because of Twitter and in part because we’ve built a more convenient way to follow the news right into the site.

And based on the traffic trends to the leading RSS readers, it appears many folks are doing the same. As Joseph Tartakoff of paidcontent notes, Bloglines was shut down this week, and traffic to the grand-daddy of RSS readers, Google Reader, is down 27% year over year.

via jamesandrews.tv

I conclude the answer is a resounding NO and that Google Reader is the best way to manage Twitter but most people haven’t gone beyond the surface yet. Comment, call or use the contact form to discuss how this applies to your business…

September 12, 2010 0

How to Make Your Location-Based App a Success: Reward People for Their Activities

Location-based mobile applications, also now being called “check-in services” to differentiate themselves from other geo-aware apps like Google Maps, are the hottest new social applications on the mobile scene today. The lineup includes game-based applications like Foursquare and MyTown, which each provide points, credits and/or badges for “checking in” (registering your physical presence) with a particular venue. There are also dedicated shopping-related check-in services like Shopkick, which rewards retail customers with discounts and deals for patronizing select establishments.

But almost all of the check-in apps integrate some form of mobile advertising. After months of experimentation with various formats, marketers are starting to discover what strategies actually work.

Despite the media craze for apps like these, some analysts are rationally advising caution to marketers who are tempted to jump on this latest bandwagon – after all, only 4% of U.S. adults have ever used location-based check-in services and only 1% out of those that use them do so more than once per week. But businesses, hopeful of reaching their most engaged customers, see check-in apps as a big opportunity for marketing initiatives, not to mention a rich resource of consumer data ripe for mining.

Case in point: analyst firm ABI Research has just released a new study that finds businesses are primed to spend $1.8 billion on location-based ads in 2015, a somewhat surprising number given the small crowd of early adopters currently using check-in apps.

According to ABI Research’s Neil Strother, check-in apps may raise privacy concerns among some users today, but those issues can be overcome by offering consumers deals, discounts and rewards. The “value-exchange” of receiving these rewards will be high enough that consumers won’t mind giving up privacy in order to take advantage of the benefits. “If you care about getting discounts or being rewarded for shopping,” he explains, “you’ll accept having your whereabouts known.”

via readwriteweb.com

September 10, 2010 0

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