Marketing & Social Media

A Brave New World – The New Facebook Timeline

December 20, 2011 By DanaJ Leave a Comment

My senior year in high school we read Aldous Huxley’s futuristic novel Brave New World. At the time, I thought the book was out there – in a good way of course. It was all about this future that in 2004 I couldn’t imagine. Somehow, in 1931 Aldous Huxley imagined up this future society in the confines of his mind. The book is really spectacular and by far one of my favorites ever. Just thinking about it makes me want to get back into science fiction books.

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Babies are now exposed to all sorts of technology while in the womb. After looking through the new Facebook timeline, it made me reminisce on this book. The new timeline is supposed to get us ready for the future. See, many of the children born from the last 7 years or so will have their entire lives documented on Facebook if they like it or not. The new timeline design is for the future. That future when everything that has been done in a person’s life will be documented on the site. I have friends with photos ranging through the entire timeline of their lives. From prom to high school graduation through the birth of a child. I understand we all don’t go in that order, but regardless of order it’s all documented on Facebook. Here are some things I really like about the new design:

1. I like how Facebook has recognized important life events and lets you post them in your profile. Some significant life events that you might want to tell your friends about like buying a home, losing weight, travel and new tattoos. Other random stuff that Facebook has listed: telling your followers when you get contacts or glasses. I guess that would be significant if it was a huge dramatic change. But still a slight stretch.

2. The Facebook Cover is a great new addition. I appreciate being able to have a more unique Facebook profile now where I an add a personal photo. Right now, mine is a photo from Thanksgiving with my grandmother.

3. The year timeline on the right side of profiles is a great addition. I had a great time reminiscing on my experience cheering in college and reading old comments.

4. Nosy people have less stuff to search through while looking at Facebook. Come on now, everyone that has a Facebook is at least slightly nosy. And now the timeline helps you see where people were 7 years ago. As if that makes a huge difference on how they are now.

I hope with the new Facebook timeline, Facebook will also improve their apps. My iPhone and iPad Facebook apps had to be deleted because they wouldn’t cooperate. That’s another post though, of course.

How do you feel about the new Facebook timeline?

Filed Under: Marketing & Social Media Tagged With: aldous huxley, brave new world, facebook, future, marketing, new timeline, Social media

Silverpop Agent ROI Atlanta event recap

December 1, 2011 By DanaJ 1 Comment

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending the Silverpop Agent R.O.I Digital Marketing Tour 2011 at Intercontinental Hotel in Buckhead. The event lasted about half of the work day. Silverpop pulled out all of the stops and the hotel offered us a wonderful lunch, snacks and cocktails. I had lots of white tea to keep warm and I even picked up my first HonestTea to try later. I found out about the event on Twitter after seeing a tweet from Silverpop. We (FiPath) are also new customers. Here’s a gift they sent us last week:

Tootsie Pop and PopRocks were inside of the cup. I like the “pop” theme and the mug is perfect for tea.

I learned so much great information about how to create an effective email that our members at FiPath would love to read. One of my responsibilities is to manage and create content for the email. Or as Meg Heuer describes it, I am a Content Strategist. Sounds snazzy right? I really enjoyed being in a space with other professionals who experience the same frustrations as me. There’s no “how to” book for this crazy social space. I guess now it’s “mocial” now (social + local + mobile) as described by Loren McDonald. I took some great notes and I won a prize for most unique tweets! Below I have a recap of the top 5 takeaways:

1. The “forward to a friend” email option is dead. - This got me thinking. When was the last time I did this? Umm…well over a year ago. Nowadays, I share emails via Social media sites before I press forward to a friend!

2. Don’t make all of your emails a hard sell - Ask yourself, do you want an email that always says “Buy this” “Deal here”.

3. Care enough to send the very best email – Don’t send what you think people want to see. Or what someone tells you people want to see. Research!

4. Do not re-purpose advertisements and direct mail pieces – This one made me chuckle. I hate seeing re-purposed ads in email form!

5. Be human – Please and thank you aren’t called the magic words for nothing! These relational words make emails more human.

Filed Under: Marketing & Social Media Tagged With: email marketing, future advertising, interactive, marketing, mocial, silverpop, Social media

We totally F$*#@ed Up Marketing Campaigns

May 10, 2011 By DanaJ Leave a Comment

I’ve noticed lately that some marketing campaigns are taking a different approach to advertising their products. Instead of telling us all of the great fantastic parts of a product or place, they tell us the truth and admit that they totally screwedwebsite up. I really appreciate this new approach. We have to do that sometimes in our own lives: apologize, admit mistakes and commit to doing better.

One of the first campaigns I noticed doing this is Dominoes

The Show Us Your Pizza website from Dominoes offered real customers $500 if their real pizza photo won. From this campaign,CEO Patrick Doyle committed to “do better”.The campaign all started after the now infamous “prank video” where employees are shown doing dirty things to food. A viral video like that can totally make a company look bad. It also poorly reflects poorly on all restaurants across the country. Here’s an even more in depth look at the Dominoes apology videos and why the campaign was started. Below is a video of a disappointed customer and what Dominoes did to help keep him as a customer for life:

The second campaign that uses this strategy is Shoney’s:

I feel like I haven’t seen a Shoney’s in and around the Atlanta area -close to me- in the past few years. The only one I can remember was close to Woodward Academy in historic College Park. A Google search proved to me that there are still a few around the metro area. According to Nashville Public Radio the number of stores once was 1,600 around the country. That number has dwindled down to 230 after setbacks and a series of court settlements for discrimination. The ads feature the new company CEO David Davoudpour and emphasize that the company has hired a new five star chef named Will Eudy. They even have a four part video series featuring behind the scenes footage with the chef. Watching the behind the scenes video definitely made me feel like I knew him personally. Shoney’s calls the campaign “Starting Fresh” and is committed to showing that they have changed. On the Shoney Starting Fresh website customers can watch commercials from the campaign, view the behind the scenes videos and most importantly, join their email list to print coupons.

I think any company with the perfect track record is lying to the world and themselves. I think admitting missteps in quality and performance is an excellent idea. Just like any person out there who sees themselves as perfect and refuses to believe they need to change. What do you think about these types of campaigns? Do they make you want to continue supporting companies who disappointed you in the past?

Filed Under: Marketing & Social Media Tagged With: apologies, apology, dominos, marketing campaign, shoney's

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