Facebook Fan Page Best Practices
June 20, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
I have been managing a couple of brand’s fan pages directly for some time – Savvy Cellar Wines (which I’m a Co-Owner of) for over two years and Organic Wine Review (which was video blog launched last year). My consulting practice SmokeJumper Strategy is increasing being called upon to assist software and Internet companies with their social media and marketing strategy, which inevitably includes Facebook. I was also recently asked by Facebook to become an Advisor to their Local product and marketing efforts.
During this time, I’ve experimented with many aspects of managing a fan page for a small & local businesses: from times to post, different media types and observing and measuring what types of posts seem to drive social interaction. Along the way, we’ve managed to grow our fan base (now at 2,100), hopefully engage them in a positive way and taken advantage of the advances Facebook has engineered into their tools and apps for fan pages, their advertising platform and their analytics to measure audiences and responses to actions.
Product Review | Kinkast Mobile Video Sharing
June 7, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Disclosure: I’m an advisor to KinKast.
It seems of late that mobile video is going (or has gone) mainstream. Distribution of smart phones, higher quality video cameras embedded in those phones and the social phenomena of sharing appears to have hit an inflection point or has reached critical mass. In the wake of this, a plethora of video sharing apps have hit the scene: Viddy, Vlix, Socialcam and KinKast.
Most of the recent video apps seem to be imitating the success that Instagram has had with still pictures – allowing people to share their videos broadly with others (friends and strangers alike).
Have Mobile Payments (Finally) Arrived?
December 6, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Based on investments, prognosticators and those that fuel the hype machine, this headline could have been written (and has) years ago. But something tangible may have occurred that mobile payments are poised to take off (really).
There have been many hurdles to the mobile payment market taking off. They included:
- Handsets. Lacked the appropriate SIM or RFID technology.
- Networks. Banks and credit card companies are notoriously slow, lack innovation and are conservative.
- Security. Communicating over unsecure mobile networks is one thing, but when financial transactions are involved, security becomes paramount.
- Merchant Acceptance. Establishing a large foot print of national and independent merchants is very difficult. In technology, we call this a problem of “scale”.
- Consumer Behavior. Consumers don’t change their behavior unless there is reason for doing so. Whether it be handheld technology, convenience, savings, security or access to locations that accept mobile payments, Consumers have not embraced mobile payments in large measure.
Repeat Business . . There is No Secret
November 24, 2010 by admin · 2 Comments
Interesting post at American Express Open Forum titled “The Secret to Repeat Business: Grow Your Fanbase.” I completely buy Paul Rosenfeld, CEO of Fanminder’s, premise that small merchants are “soured by $500 rate cards and the 50 percent cut that flash sales sites take from merchants.”
He then puts forward two principal ideas that businesses who are succeeding excel at: 1) Engaging customers through fan lists that inform and provide deals; and 2) Growing their fanbase.