Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Facebook Social Deals Starts 5 City Test” plus 2 more

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Facebook Social Deals Starts 5 City Test
Facebook Send Button: Because Sometimes It’s Personal
Celebrity Apprentice and Getting Back to Basics

Facebook Social Deals Starts 5 City Test

Posted: 26 Apr 2011 06:36 AM PDT

Facebook is adding to their original deals offering. Now, I can appreciate trying to get in on the deals frenzy because there is money to be made. What is starting to get kind of silly though is that everyone, their brother and their eighth cousin twice removed has some deal set up as well. While there are seemingly infinite deal options people still usually only have a finite need or amount of money so something's got to give.

Search Engine Land's Greg Stirling begins his post with

After several months of anticipation Facebook is launching its second deals program: Social Deals. The new effort more closely resembles Groupon-style daily deals, with several twists. The original "Facebook Deals" is now being called "check-in deals" to distinguish it from the new program.

Before we go any further let's dissect that last statement. In typical Interet fashion is pretty funny when you really look at. Facebook is essentially saying that the first deals deal that we dealt with isn't quite what we said it was so we will rename it so you can now have our new deals deal which deals with deals in a different way. Good deal, right?!

This whole thing is starting to sound like the old routines of "You know, that I know, that you know……."

One thing that Facebook has going for it is its current grip on a very large group of people so maybe they will deal with deals better than other deal offers (like Google Offers).

Back to Facebook's new offering (is that OK to say to will it confuse you with the Google Offers deal?). Sterling goes on to say:

Check-in deals are free to users; they're mobile centric and operate like conventional coupons. By contrast Facebook's new Social Deals, like Groupon or LivingSocial, must be purchased up front using money or Facebook Credits (the first use for real-world products/services). You actually buy a voucher that is then redeemed offline.

The intention here is to make the Facebook online experiences translate into real-world experiences. There will be a five city trial to start: Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco.

As always, Stirling goes into detail about this new offering so I am more than willing to let him tell you how it works (there is also a good article from the New York Times with some other insights). What I am interested in is thinking about how people will use it. I suspect that among the younger crowd this will be something they will investigate and experiment with but I will wait to see just how these deals are adopted by other groups of users who may not care about being the 'dealmeister' in their peer group.

In the end, Facebook is trying to make the whole deal experience more than just a hit and run by tying everything together through Facebook Pages which the participating businesses can capture these users through a system of likes etc. It's interesting in concept and probably will have legs unless Facebook toys with something that ends up offending people. Actually, half the fun of watching any Facebook undertaking is to see where they will lock, load then shoot themselves in the foot by overstepping some boundary of common business etiquette and decency.

So welcome to the Facebook's new deal that doesn't replace the old deals but looks to deal a real blow to the other dealers out there.

Phew, what an ordeal.

Facebook Send Button: Because Sometimes It’s Personal

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 02:57 PM PDT

Facebook has just released a new button that allows users to share items with select people as opposed to everyone who follows them.

The new Send button pops up a small email blank with a drop-down address bar that automatically suggests folks you’ve recently communicated with on Facebook. You can override this by typing in a name, an email address or a Facebook group name.

This is actually a very nice feature. I often see things that I’d like to forward to a select group and not everyone who follows me. The downside is, it doesn’t work with Lists, only Groups. For example, I saw a great daily deal today that I would have shared with my mommy blogging friends, but in order to reach all the people on my “mommy blogger” list, I had to select them one by one. Not good.

It is good for those who have Groups for family or clubs and this button might actually encourage people to create more groups, something I’ve never considered doing before. I could make a group for just my siblings, then use the Send button on 1800flowers.com to discuss all of us going in on one bouquet come Mother’s Day.

As a marketer, I’d take this one step further and use that Send button for some suggestive selling. Offer a discount to anyone who creates a group that works for your product, be it a lunch club, hiking club or just a club for deal lovers. Once they have the club made, they’ll be more likely to share via that Send button when they visit your site.

Facebook will be providing Insights on the Send button in the near future so you’ll be able to see if it’s working for you.

To get the code, visit the Facebook Developers page.

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Celebrity Apprentice and Getting Back to Basics

Posted: 25 Apr 2011 01:03 PM PDT

Last night on Celebrity Apprentice, the teams were tasked with creating a four-page ad for the Trump Collection of Hotels. Now, before you scoff, let me tell you that you can learn a lot about marketing from this show, so read on and hold your laughter.

The judges felt that both teams failed miserably at the job, but what’s interesting is that they failed because they over-thought the task and forgot about the basics.

For example:

Stale Images

The executives on the task told the teams that they didn’t want those same old, typical hotel images, gleaming buildings and a waiter with a towel over his arm. And yet, that’s exactly what the teams gave them. The women even went so far as to put the Playmate on their team in a tub full of rose petals while she sipped champagne. Ah, luxury . . . that we’ve seen a thousand times before. The execs even went so far as to say the ad looked like the ones you see for a low-rent strip club. Yikes.

Clutter

Both teams had a clutter problem. The women packed more than a dozen images on their four pages. The eye didn’t know where to land and it was confusing and messy looking. The man, had a single clean graphic on each, then cluttered the space with a mile of text. The words were carefully chosen but no one is going to read a full page of text on an ad for a hotel chain.

No Call to Action

With all the words the men did have on their page, the web address for the Trump Hotel Collection wasn’t one of them. They were so focused on the big picture, they forgot to include any contact information. The only thing worse, would have been to include a phone number or web address with a typo. Doesn’t matter how great the ad is, most consumers won’t go any further without having a call to action handed to them at the end.

The contestants on Celebrity Apprentice aren’t trained in the art of advertising so perhaps these simple mistakes are understandable under the circumstances. But what are your circumstances? I would bet that the majority of the people who read this blog also haven’t had an formal trained in marketing or advertising. Many are small business owners who take on their own marketing due to cost and ownership issues.

For those people, it’s easy to get caught up in all the hype about social media and mobile and ads that dance and sing. But we can’t forget the basics.

Don’t lose a sale because of a typo in your email address or a phone number without an area code. Check all of your ads today. Check your Twitter, Facebook, and Places account. Click the links, dial the phone number and scan for typos.

Every piece of marketing you put out there needs to be clear, conceptually inviting, with an obvious call to action. It’s that simple and it’s that hard.

Photo by: Douglas Gorenstein/NBC