It's Paula Deen, Y'all!

As I began to search for this week's topic, I wanted to find some tips we could all apply to our group Shenanigans projects. I found an article about Philadelphia Cream Cheese's successful campaign involving Paula Deen. As of August, the Real Women of Philadelphia branded social network helped raise sales by 5%.

According to the following Mashable article, there are 4 steps to take in creating a successful social media campaign:

1. Leverage an existing community
By aligning themselves with Paula Deen, on her website and in their commercials, Philadelphia Cream Cheese was able to reach an already established audience.

2. Create a reason for users to create content
"Greg Goodfried, the co-founder and COO of EQAL, says that it’s important to have some motive for people to create content on a branded social network. This motive doesn’t necessarily need to be a competition, but it needs to be strong enough to spark the community."  In this competition, women submitted instructional videos about their cream cheese recipe, 16 were chosen to fly to Savannah and four finalists were chosen. These four finalists daily choose one recipe and the author earns $500.

3. Focus on community content, not your content

Always make the community feel like the stars and they will remain engaged. Philadelphia posted authors recipes on their Twitter and Facebook page as well as picked several to display on their website.

4.Step aside and play a supportive role

Very quickly, the women of this competition began talking about their personal lives. Philadelphia stepped aside and allowed this to occur because they were aware it was only strengthening the community. They even began to feature interesting members on an open forum. Some women had more friends on this community than on Facebook.

HOTPOT

After recently joining FourSquare, I began to wonder what other location-based services are out there. A quick search led me to the new Google Hotpot. Yes, like the one you find in the kitchen. Basically it is a recommendation engine. I signed in and joined Hotpot myself and searched “restaurants in Bowling Green, KY”. As you can, see Mariah’s, Verdi, and 440 Main were the first hits, no surprise there.

Hotpot is in a sense a personalized recommendation tool. I am signed in under my google-linked profile and all of my reviews will have my picture and name I choose for myself. The best part is that the content is easy to read. It is set up in a grid format, with pictures and star ratings. If I choose to go somewhere, I can click and find the URL and phone number. I appreciate the anti-clutter mentality of Hotpot’s creator.

As far as the social aspect of Hotpot, you can add your G-mail friends and see their reviews as well. Let’s say Rachael or Abby go to Chicago and rate their favorite pizza. When I search “pizza in Chicago” on Hotpot, the first hits will be their ratings. I can filter to only see my friends ratings, or if I’m feeling adventurous I can filter to only see places I haven’t rated/visited.

I know that Facebook has added a places feature, but let’s be honest, if you are searching for a hotel or place to eat in a random city you will go to Google first. I believe they have beat everyone to the punch on this, and done it the right way. Check it out for yourself. It’s very easy to use.

Everybody Everybody get your Group-on

When boredom strikes I always look to my phone for entertainment. If my news feed or twitter can't hold my attention, I usually browse through the App store. I start by checking out the top 25, and today I stumbled upon Groupon. While I've heard of it briefly, I really wanted a better understanding, so I ventured off to the website.

From there I learned that the process is quite simple. First, you find local deals by signing up and entering your zip code. The daily deals can be sent to you via e-mail, facebook, or twitter. Next, you can purchase the groupon and share it with friends through social networks. Each groupon must reach a minimum number of purchases from customers to ensure a return for the business. Once that number is reached the groupon is activated. You are not charged until the Groupon is activated.Your last step is to enjoy the groupon by either printing it off or using your mobile device.

In other words, this is a succesful marketing tool for local businesses in a variety of ways.

1. More business is gained through shear purchases of the Groupon.

2. The incentive to reach the minimum further advances marketing through sharing the Groupon within social networks.

3. Groupons can be bought for friends which expands the target market. (For instance, I could buy a dinner Groupon for a friend in Chicago.)

This is an example of a dinner Groupon currently available for nearby Hendersonville, TN:

What do you think of Groupon? Will this be the new way to save? If so, would you as a business owner seize the opportunity to offer discounts?

H to the IZZO

You may not know this about me, but I love Jay-Z…. so much so that I “like” him on Facebook.  Because of this, I often get updates regarding his endeavors directly on my news feed. Lately certain notifications have caught my attention, of his other followers uploading random pictures.

On October 18^th Bing launched “Decoded Jay-Z with Bing”.   Jay-Z placed the pages of his new book, Decoded, across the world to be found by fans using Bing Maps. At the website, you are shown how many pages have been released, located, and decoded.  In order to play this game you must follow three steps:  Crack the clues, locate the pages & decode the pages on the street.  While cracking the clues you use your Jay-Z knowledge as well as the Bing search engine which is located beneath the clue. Locate the pages using Bing maps, and once you have figured out the area you will see a floating page-shaped beacon.  After you physically go to the page, you take a picture and upload it to the gallery. First person there is entered to win prizes, such as the unbound copy signed by Jay-Z and tickets to his show in Las Vegas with Coldplay.

For example, Jay-Z wrote on this page about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, so this page was on the roof of the Orpheum theatre in New Orleans. The fan cracked the code by climbing to the roof of the parking lot next door to the theatre. 

I think this is an excellent example of combining marketing with search engines, gpa, and social networks. It’s a way not just to create buzz about Jay-Z’s new book, but also bring a new audience into Bing.  I know I had never used it until now.