Staying Connected

Facebook is used by many people to share photos, post updates and keep in touch with family and friends, especially by the older population. The site launched Fan Pages in November 2007 to give brands and celebrities an official presence on Facebook.

Many companies and celebrities use Facebook to create profiles or share widgets for brand-building and promotion. Fan pages of celebrities like Barack Obama and brands like Coca-Cola and Nutella now attract millions.

Facebook is also helping brands and celebrities promote their pages by introducing features and widgets like the “Facebook Fan Box,” that can be embedded into web sites allowing businesses and celebs to better interact with their fans.

Social media experts recommend fan pages as a cost-effective way to engage with raving fans of your business. But to work well, they should ideally be setup professionally, kept interesting, and updated regularly with useful content and promotions that keep users coming back for more.

Social media experts like Mari Smith and Dan Schwabel recommend that businesses can earn more brownie points and attract more fans to their Facebook page by

•    Being authentic and engaging
•    Offering fresh and exclusive content
•    Getting a vanity URL
•    Controlling your page
•    Holding contests and promotions
•    Engaging with fans
•    Promoting your causes
•    Buying social ads

Image courtesy of:  rebuildlakeshore.com

The tactics of Local Facebook Marketing just got a whole lot easier to understand. Sarah Smith gave up the goods in her presentation at the Local Search Summit. It turns out there are some very subversive ways to use current Facebook technologies. Marketing on Facebook just got a lot easier.

Local Search Summit 09

Don Campbell gives a great overview of the ideas presented in our “Using Facebook and Twitter to Drive Local Leads” session. And, I’m looking forward to Aaron Irizarry posting the rest of the video…

… But in the mean time, I’m going to share some ideas based on the Facebook marketing presented by Sarah Smith.

I’m so excited by these ideas that we’re going to be implementing some of them THIS WEEK with clients.

But look, I’m even more excited by what YOU are going to do with them. Please comment and let us know what you think the opportunities are.

Ok, ok – so the list:

• Kinda mundane but still very helpful: Sarah indicates there is now radius based targeting for ads (e.g.: 15 miles around city X)
• Real-time Search with greater search granularity.
• Target just your fans or people coming to an event with Facebook Ads (this is definitely cool, and I can see some good applications but not mind-blowing).
• Birthday Targeting! Holy cow! This is huge. I have a whole program already laid out for this one.
• 1 to 1 communication with Event attendees/maybes. The pain point here is less obvious – you’ll get it when I ‘splain it.

Killer Facebook Marketing Opportunities:

Birthday Targeting:

Happy Birthday to You!

So, Birthday Targeting – my goodness, how subversive can you get?! Imagine yourself cruising along in Facebook and Blammo

“happy birthday Bob, click here to register for your birthday gift – good all month”.

Notice, we plan to message “good all month” (or “all week”, or “for the next 10 days”). There is still a serious call to action but clearly it’s an obtainable goal.

The challenge of the Birthday message in Facebook marketing is that if you make it a “today only” deal you may miss those who sign in after work hours or who are otherwise unable to commit today. Maybe they’ve got a party to go to .

You can see how this would be a killer tactic for a local business. Let’s say you have a non-impulse product. You could make an offer of a $25.00 commodity gift card (Wal-mart, The Gap) or $100.00 gift certificate for your service. Even if you’re not perfectly targeted you have the opportunity to start a dialog with a local buyer who knows someone who is.

Event Focused Permission Marketing:

Facebook event invitations are becoming much more prevalent. And, it turns out given this new feature, they’re a sneaky marketing opportunity.

Ant Party

One of the problems we’ve had with “Fan Pages” vs. Facebook Groups is that there is no way to push communication to your fans. You can post something which will show up in their feed but  you can’t get into their inbox without a more personal connection.

So, Sarah says that all you’ve got to do is get someone to respond ”Yes” to your invitation (or “Maybe”, I think – hopefully Sarah will clarify) and you can then message them up until the event.

But wait, there’s more: You, the group owner don’t necessarily have to initiate the “Event” invitation. Meaning that you can easily convert the Fan to a Friend with much less restriction on continued messaging.

I’m not going to tell you how we’re going to put this one into use but I’ll tell you once we’re done.

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As you can see, these two opportunities, “Birthday Ads” and “Event Focused Permission Marketing”, enable much greater attention getting behavior on Facebook. Marketing through these channels can get you past the banner blindness of the usual ads and may even get you into the Inbox.

With the rate of adoption of Facebook and Twitter we’ll take any opportunity, the more sneaky and subversive the better, to build community and then hopefully move that community offline to buy something.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions on how to best leverage these new Facebook marketing opportunities and any of the others Sarah detailed at Local Search Summit.

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Related Posts:

• Pay-per-click Facebook Advertising Delivers Low Cost per Lead

Image Credits:

• Birthday Cake Image Courtesy of Pink Cake Box
• Ant Party courtesy of Flickr user tarotastic

GNODRP ("No Drip") Greater New Orleans Disaster Recovery Partnership

“No Drip” (GNODRP) – Hurricane Preparedness and Hurricane Recovery Partnership

Greater New Orleans Disaster Recovery Partnership (GNODRP)

Formed in November of 2005

Gulf coast residents know all too well what June – November mean: Hurricane Season!

Thankfully all has been calm out in the ocean water but that does not mean New Orleans isn’t engaged in serious preparation. The Greater New Orleans Disaster Recovery Partnership (GNODRP) pronounced “no drip’ is just that. In the coming months the greater New Orleans area will need to be on guard and preparing for tropical storms and hurricanes. GNODRP offers services to help the community prepare before a disaster and to recover after. GNODRP is also working in many ways with people still recovering from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The Mission of the Greater New Orleans Disaster Recovery Partnership (GNODRP) is to regionally support long-term recovery and preparedness.

What You Should Know Now

The GNODRP is working on two large projects that benefit the greater New Orleans area.

1. RECOVERY SUPPORT: GNODRP provides long-term recovery support to victims of Katrina and Rita. The number of people still needing recovery is extensive and GNODRP wants to get the word out that they’re here to help.
2. FUTURE DISASTER PREPAREDNESS: GNODRP will be serving as the central point of contact for nonprofit organizations for preparedness and recovery efforts of future disasters. GNODRP will serve as the leader in organizing nonprofit recovery efforts in the event of a future disaster. Referred to as Greater New Orleans Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (GNO VOAD)

Hurricane Katrina Satellite Image

Who and What GNODRP Serves

GNODRP currently has 7 member parishes: Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Washington & the River Parishes: St. John the Baptist and St. Charles.

GNODRP offers services to aid in the disaster recovery process, these include but are not limited to rebuilding and repairing homes, case management, advocacy, emotional and spiritual care, donations collection and distribution, preparedness and volunteer coordination.

Through the GNODRP Donations Warehouse Program, rebuild agencies and case management agencies can pick up furnishings and materials on behalf of clients still in need of recovery.  The materials are donated from a hodgepodge of sources. The partnerships that GNODRP has are extensive.

Who Is Involved?

GNODRP is made up of a coalition of over 70 organizations who give support by meeting community needs in the recovery process that have gone un-met by other sources The coalition is made up of faith-based, non-profit, government liaisons and long term recovery organizations.

A full list of member agencies and resource partners can be found by click the corresponding link. Some representative members include the United Way of New Orleans, the Red Cross and Catholic Charities and there are many more.

How You Can Get Involved

The GNODRP is always looking for people and organizations to join in their effort to collaborate and share resources. There are many ways to support GNODRP some include putting your name on the mailing list, signing up to volunteer, or making a donation. GNODRP is looking for many skill sets including social services, construction expertise, grant writing, PR, and most of all friendly and passionate people who want to make a difference in the local community.

For more information about GNODRP and to get Involved visit their site at: http://www.gnodrp.org/

or email: info@gnodrp.org

Keywords: disaster recovery, disaster preparedness, hurricane, New Orleans, GNO

It was a good time and I’m hopeful to see it evolve into something worth doing.

More from the Social Media Club of New Orleans:

• Social Media Club New Orleans | Facebook
• Official Blog of New Orleans Social Media Club
• Social Media Club, New Orleans, on Twitter (in development apparently)

Metcalfe's Law And The Network Effect

What’s interesting to me about the recent Nielsen data regarding “Twitter Quitters” is that it makes a prediction based on current data without looking at how this technology is like others before it.  Surely Nielsen

doesn’t have data on adoption of all technologies since the beginning of time, but if they thought a little harder they might find some similarities.  Or perhaps they just want the attention of controversy.

Metcalfe’s Law

states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system.

The most common illustration of this is the fax machine.  One fax machine = paperweight, two fax machines = dialog, ubiquitous fax machines = global communications in the pre-email era.

So what’s the point?

My contention is this: Twitter (per the Nielsen data) is a 1978 fax machine. If you had one you thought you were really cool, but the reality is you were probably only impressing yourself.

If you’re not aware of the concern, here’s a little background:

• Twitter Quitters Post Roadblock to Long-Term Growth
• Retention Problem for Twitter?
• Proof That Nielsen is Wrong; Twitter’s Retention Rate is Not 40%

Fax Machines - They're Everywhere

I mean think about it.  If you’re not one who is naturally tapped into online communication you sign up, cruise around without an instruction manual or map and it’s boring.  “Where to now?” you must think.  Then the phone rings, the teapot whistles or the dog barks and you’re outta there.

Unless you’re already in the know it’s hard to find the great resources there are out there:

• One Year Later, Why I Love Twitter
• Can Twitter Be Useful For Business?

It’s no wonder there’s a 60% dropoff rate.

If you believe TechCrunch, at the end of April there were a few more than 1 million users of Twitter with only around 200,000 really active.

From TC :

March 2008

• Total Users: 1+ million
• Total Active Users: 200,000 per week
• Total Twitter Messages: 3 million/day

So let’s look at that in context.  With around 1 million users worldwide 40% of whom are in the U.S. that means that only about 400,000 U.S. folks are on twitter.

It's Lonely Out There

So… if you’re not one of those 400,000 you’re one of the other 299,600,000, or thereabouts, U.S. folks who aren’t yet on Twitter.  That means you’re not one of the 13/100ths of 1 percent who are already hip.

That’s a really small number.  I mean really small.  You might be lonely.

So, I come back to likening Twitter to a 1978 fax machine.  Currently Twitter lacks mass utility — so did a fax machine in 1978.  Where’s the fax now?

The Fax is ubiquitous

.

Photo Credits:

• Network Effect image from Wikipedia
• Fax Cat courtesy of anomalous4
• Lonely Bench courtesy of Ann Kinney

New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center Web Site

New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center graciously hosted the Social Innovation Conference called ‘The Feast’ put on by All Day Buffet. Social change entrepreneurs joined together to talk about the social change movement that is about to explode. As the entire nation in quietly experiencing the beginning stages of a business paradigm shift, New Orleans is growing into the next hot spot for the movement. Some refer to it as the next Silicon Valley because of the incredible opportunities that New Orleans has to offer start up companies, for profit and nonprofit alike.

Echoing Green Web Site

The conference started with a presentation from Heather McGrew of Echoing Green, a 501c3 organization that invests in “new leaders who have untested, smart ideas that deserve to be implemented”. They’re looking for great new social change agents or social entrepreneurs worldwide with new ideas. The focus of Heather’s talk was about ‘identity’ and what that means for an organization, company, and the third sector as a whole.

The cycle of identity goes like this: A start up organization realizes it needs credibility to get funding and investors, it begins to create a brand that people recognize, as the organizations grows the brand becomes more and more widely recognized (credibility) due to press releases, logos, website design, ads, completed projects, etc. The building of the brand can begin to dominate goals rather than the mission of the organization. So, the question becomes, how do we get back to the movement? How do we get back to the social change mission we started out seeking to accomplish?

The organization’s leadership must have the same vision, which must be congruent with the mission. Everyone needs to be on par with and seeking to accomplish the mission. In addition to the mission there are long-term goals that social change entrepreneurs are trying to reach. This one project will change a segment of the system in place but the entire system is the long-term goal. Many social entrepreneurs have this global ambition however; as an organization takes on an identity it becomes territorial of its resources and mission. For example, GTECH, Green Coast Enterprises, and SPOUT may all find themselves competing for some of the same grants, investors, land, etc. Competing over resources to accomplish similar missions is not what the organizations are about. Competition in the third sector, unlike the private sector is less likely to produce successful results. Ideally social change organizations would use the limited resources available to them in the most efficient manner. This means collaboration on a large scale, larger than we have seen yet in this sector; collaboration that is about identifying with the movement not the organization’s brand.

Rachel Botsman and Tamara Giltsoff from Social Innovation Sustainability Space presented a similar message regarding a business paradigm shift and the theme of ‘connectedness’. I thought the most illustrative example of the change that we hope to see more of in the business world is the collaboration between Coca Cola and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Coca Cola has the most water efficient manufacturing plants however the WWF was saying, it really doesn’t matter how efficient your water usage is if there isn’t any water left to use. Coca Cola and the WWF spent years spending money lobbying for their positions. Then Coca Cola understood and formed a partnership working to conserve the water we have now. This is an example of private and public sector organizations identifying themselves with the social change mission not their brands. The overall message being that everything is interconnected and people and organizations need to shift a large part of their identity and the reason they do business toward social change.

NOLA 180 Web Site

Speaking of interconnectedness, NOLA faces a hard battle improving its broken education system. John Alford spoke about NOLA 180‘s plans for implementing a school turn-around plan through out individual schools in New Orleans. Currently, the model is being tested on Langston Hughes Academy where students are held high standards and personal accountability. The students serve a 9-hr school day, have homework, and are taught strong moral principals in addition to academic lessons. Langston Hughes will likely serve as an incubation school for new teachers and administrators to be trained for the eventual take over of another school that seeks to be turned around. John’s models are impressive and daunting, there is a lot going on in them, which means an equal amount of work to do. But, they’re visible, the plan is accessible and all we need to do is execute. As he said, the New Orleans we are building now with young, successful talent cannot be sustained if the future generation of New Orleans is not being educated. The students are connected to New Orleans success.

Voodoo Ventures Web Site

Chris Schultz’, Voodoo Ventures, a local business and social entrepreneur gave an incredibly motivating and inspirational speech about start up organizations. He taught all of us how to execute ‘bootstrapping’ perfectly. That is pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and putting your ideas out there and in motion. Fear of failure should never enter your mind; everyone fails at least once and if you fail you pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move on to the next idea. Also, entrepreneurs often have the ‘impostor syndrome’ that is the fear of being considered an impostor. This, he says, needs to be shoved off as quickly as possible. Of course someone has thought of your idea before, but have they executed it?

Receivables Exchange Web Site

Nicolas Perkin honed in on this point in his presentation about his company The Receivables Exchange . He told the story of how his current investor had almost invested in someone with the same idea a couple years before but, the Receivables Exchange plan had the kinks worked out and the other didn’t. The investor invested in their company and the company has been and still is incredibly successful. Lesson: It’s all about execution. The idea isn’t what makes the company its how it’s executed. What we all need to remember is, as Chris said, ‘the one renewable resource we can all count on is our ideas’. We’ll always have new ideas and some of them are less than stellar but others are treasures. Now we need to ‘just do it’.

Hello Health Web Site

Jay Parkinson founder of Hello Health was the case in point changemaker. Dr. Parkinson is a doctor that has become fed up with the current way America practices medicine. He brought it to our attention that we’re really stuck in the 1970′ in the way America delivers healthcare. You make an appointment, go to the office, fill out a bunch of paperwork, see the doctor for eight minutes, he writes down what happens, tells you a number of things, you leave, forget 85% of what he told you, and then you have no further communication. Then the paper chart is filed away so you have no reference to that either. Insurance companies and other payment options add to the frustration of doctors and patients. In the most simplified way possible to explain the problem, there is no incentive for a doctor to care for their patients as well as possible. And, quite with the current system there is no way for a doctor to do so.

Dr. Parkinson took the social networking tools we use in this century and created a website that allowed patients in his area to look at his goggle calendar, make an appointment and he would make a house call. Billing would be done through PayPal and there was no need for staff, office, and the practice of paper documentation is now documented on your personal medical profile, available online. Now, the doctor is being paid upfront, quality care is provided to the patient, there is no hassle with waiting rooms, and you can communicate with you doctor and access your medical records with ease, at any time. It is revolutionary and is exactly the type of paradigm change that causes systemic change.

Slow Money Book Cover - Copyright Woody Tasch

Woody Tasch, author of Slow Money, introduced social changemakers that have accomplished systemic changes in their communities though years of persistence. An interesting example was organic farming and various other resource-accountable organizations that are working to sustain resources. The point that I took away from his presentation is that everyone needs to be aware of what impact everything we do has on our resources. Putting this knowledge in numbers that we can actually imagine and visualize is key. Let’s not talk in billions anymore, let’s break it down and talk in the amount we can all comprehend.

The type of ideas that Dr Parkinson and other social change agents have are what organizations like Ashoka, All Day Buffet, and Echoing Green invest in. Ashoka, based out of Washington DC, encourages and invests in social entrepreneurs. They offer them invaluable resources and a network that will allow them to stay sustainable.

New Orleans is a fertile ground for startups, nonprofit and profit alike, the plea I heard today is: as NOLA starts to take off, let’s keep our mission’s identity in mind. Let’s create a mission that changes the world because our entire city is working together to create social change. Let’s set the example of how social change innovation should be done for the rest of the world. Let’s create the social change industry that revolutionizes the way businesses, government, and public organizations operate.