Kevin Rose (Digg founder) posted a tweet regarding a rumoured launch of a Facebook competitor service called ‘Google Me’.
Often correct with his posted rumours, this one will be interesting to watch unfold.
Even with Facebooks monsterous growth and profitability, Google is still an online powerhouse with a massive user and press following. Should their social network offering be more usable and not dabble in the areas of privacy infringement, which has been a common downfall for Facebook, they could do very well.
The latest popular online trend in businesses online appears to be social and group buying of daily specials in your local area.
Websites like Groupon and LivingSocial have become very successful by applying this business model to special deals. Group is valued at about $1 billion only after a year of operation with many new locations added to their website.
The websites make use of social media sharing, such as Facebook Connect to spread the specials through visitors’ circles of friends. This not only broadens the exposure of each special, but gives it a personal recommendation from each person that posts it.
It will be interesting to watch what other social equipped businesses launch in the future.
Whenever you see that little pink note stuck to someones car window, you can’t help but have a little laugh and say it serves them right. Although as soon as it’s found on your own car, you heart sinks and anger sets in while you try think of excuses to try get out of a decent sized parking fine.
This emotional response by people towards traffic fines presented the perfect marketing opportunity for FmyFine to engage with potential customers.
I was walking to my car, which was perfectly parked in a bay designed for a car and saw the little pink slip stuck to my window. I really had a hard time understanding why I had been fined and almost gave the nearby car guard a hard time about it too. Upon closer inspection of the fine, it turned out to be a witty marketing stunt by FmyFine.
Having your brand associated with laughter and a feeling of relief is more than some brands could wish for.
FmyFine.co.za is a website designed at providing customers with high quality excuses for lowering or getting out of their traffic fines.
With the ever increasing flurry of activity on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, ignoring your customers’ feedback is simply not an option anymore. To stay in the game you need to listen to your customers, engage with them and use their feedback to constantly improve your service and products.
getclosure’s independent complaints management service provides a simple, effective way for you to do this in the online space. As the getclosure service is discreet, you will have the opportunity to resolve issues promptly and professionally, before they spiral out of control on a public platform and damage your brand.
When one of your customers submits a complaint, we will deliver it directly to the most appropriate person in your company, and send them reminders to respond. You can log in to your getclosure dashboard at any time to track the progress of the complaint or contact your customer.
Consumers have the opportunity to give feedback once their complaint has been closed, and rate their satisfaction with the outcome of their complaint and how it was handled. Subscribers to the getclosure service have access to this feedback, which enables them to pinpoint exactly where they need to jack up their service. Contact us to find out more.
Here are a couple of handy tips to ensure that you make use of every opportunity to keep existing customers, and attract new ones too.
Respond to your customer’s complaint as soon as possible
Feedback on www.getclosure.co.za suggests that you have a much higher chance of retaining a customer when you deal with their complaint quickly and appropriately. Every complaint should be seen as an opportunity to win back a disgruntled customer and show them how much you value their support.
Manage your customer’s expectations
Give your customer a realistic estimate of when you will respond to or resolve the situation. If the matter needs to be investigated and takes longer than planned, apologise to your customer and give them regular updates on the progress.
Emma Donovan is the Content Manager of www.getclosure.co.za, South Africa’s leading independent complaints management and consumer affairs portal. The getclosure service is fast, free and effective for consumers. All suppliers have the opportunity to respond to complaints on the getclosure site, free of charge. getclosure also makes a host of consumer rights news and information available to South Africans.
These ads are brilliant examples of how creativity in advertising can not only capture the attention of consumers, but also make them decide between illusion and reality.
The following example was sourced from The Cool Hunter website.
The game of marketing has changed fundamentally. Taking out uninspiring, run-of-the-mill print and TV ads doesn’t fly any more. Marketing a brand effectively requires exceptional ideas and concepts that are entertaining and unusual enough to capture the imaginations of today’s cynical, ad-wary consumers. Our advice is to go beyond the traditional media to capture your audience in other platforms as well – offline brand experiences that DEMAND consumer attention.
If only these walls could talk, the saying goes. In the case of the N building near Tachikawa station in Japan they do. In fact the whole building facade has been transformed into a real time dialogue between smart phones and what’s going on inside the store.
All you do is hold your phone up to the walls and the constantly changing QR codes tell you what’s going on inside. You can also browse shop information, make reservations and download coupons.
This interesting animation video by RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace.
The simple thing is that people listen to what their peers, colleagues and clients have to say about brands and companies. It’s either going to be good, bad or an ongoing form of gossip about ever move your company makes, all depending on where you are in the market and if your company fits into a social segment.
How to create a viral element
There’s no formula to create word of mouth marketing, but there are methods that can create the platform: read more
Being quite active on Twitter, I often notice how the brands and people I follow interact with one another. Twitter has become quite a powerful customer service tool for companies, as it is quite easy to monitor what people are saying about a brand, the industry or what they are looking for.
Brands can easily engage directly with Twitter users in a personal manner, but for large brands there should be an active person dedicated to monitoring Twitter. The way to make use of this form of social media for customer service is to be fast, proactive and provide actual solutions.
Here are a few examples of how some local brands are making use of Twitter for customer service and interaction:
