Wrapp: The Coolest Gift Card...Ever?!

If you're not familiar with Wrappyet, you will be!

Wrappis a social gifting service that enables friend-to-friend marketing on behalf of brands locally or globally.

After reading an article about Wrapp on BrandChannel.com, I downloaded the free app to my iPhone and tried it out by sending some free birthday gift cards to a few friends on Facebook.  I must admit, it was pretty cool!

According to BrandChannel, here's how Wrappworks: "The Wrapp mobile gift card and retail app lets retailers drive traffic to online and physical stores starting with small amounts, $5 to $15, that users get for free. Then, using Facebook and the mobile app, people can give their Facebook friends those free gift cards, a notification they’ve received a gift card is posted to that friend’s wall, and others can see it and contribute more money if they wish."

Following my brief experiment, I found sharing gift cards through Wrapp even easier than it sounds.  What I haven't experienced yet is the redemption side of the offer.  I'll have to wait until one of my friends uses their digital gift card before passing final judgment, but so far I'm intrigued.

For a company that wants to promote sampling, this is a great way to get small gift cards into the hands of targeted consumers. After all, who knows what a consumer wants more than his/her friends? Also, by allowing friends to increase the value of the gift card on Facebook, the card can quickly grow from a small individual gift into a very large group gift with each friend adding only a few dollars to the total.

As a consumer, I see tremendous value to the Wrapp gift card distribution model.  However, as a retailer, I think the greatest opportunity will be for those who jump on the bandwagon early.  As more and more brands join the fold, share for early adopters is likely to wane due to increased competition, unless you're a retailer willing to continuously increase the size of the free offer (or you have the market cornered).

There are other similar social media gift card distribution models around Europe and Asia, but this is the first one really trying to gain a foothold in the U.S. 

I expect to use Wrapp frequently, and already have in just the past 20 minutes! 


**The opinions shared on this blog are solely those of its author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Goodwill of Greater Washington, its affiliates or supporters.

The Great Facebook Addiction

Is Facebook the drug of our generation? The answer is a big embarrassing "yes," says an interesting new study by Ars Technica.

 Except we youngsters can't even say that anymore, now that we're Facebooking our moms and whatnot. As a direct quote from the study explains, "Students from 10 countries... all reported distress, isolation, confusion, boredom, and a feeling of addiction when they had to go 24 hours without any form of media, including Internet."Apparently a large amount of this distress was in reaction to not having access to Facebook.

Lets take a moment to think that one over. What is it we do on Facebook? Post statuses about our fun Friday night? Whine about final exams? Boast about our vacations and semesters abroad through cleverly titled photo albums? I'm an addict and I'll be the first to admit it, but I've never felt so silly about that until just now. In fact, now that I really think about it, not once since I became Facebook active have I gone more than a few days without checking in. And now that I have my trusty iPhone in my pocket at all times (God help us all if I don't) it's certainly less sparatic than a few days. Maybe more like a few hours?

This study has really got me thinking about deleting my Facebook app and seeing how long it takes me to start "itching like a crack head," as one study participant put so eloquently.

using Facebook to find terrorists?

Ever get freaked out about the lack of privacy on Facebook? Do you feel like "big brother" is able to watch us a little too closely through our social network profiles?

Normally, I would be the first to agree about being concerned with what we are accidentally sharing (and to whom) on Facebook. Not everyone needs to know what I decide to share with my network, and I believe we should keep our sharing to a minimum anyway, mainly to spare everyone else the boredom and ourselves the embarrassment.

Speaking of people who share too much, lets discuss the case of Sundullah Ghilazai - an alleged terrorist who boasted his dastardly plans all over the internet, and thankfully for us, got himself arrested.

Back in December 2010, Facebook user Sundullah Ghilazai was arrested by US federal authorities after boasting on the social networking site that he'd use explosives on the Washington DC public transit system. Several bomb threats were made in the area, and Ghilazai and his internet boasting fit the profile for the prospective terrorist. Even if he wasn't - the details he shared publicly on his profile are enough to raise several red flags. However, it wasn't until an informant contacted the authorities that Ghilazai was arrested.

The informant reported that Ghilazai disclosed to him some disturbing details about his possible violent plans through the private two-person Facebook chat feature. Ghilazai's Facebook interests and photo albums  contained a lot of material regarding AK-47's, tents filled with explosives, and hateful commentary. Had Facebook's privacy controls been even looser than they are, would this man have been pinned as a terrorist sooner?

Granted, terrorism will exist Facebook or no Facebook, how do you feel about the sites' privacy issues now? Would you rather have everyone's information be somewhat public in order to catch people like Ghilazai, or do you value your privacy above potential safety threats?

from sketchy to squeaky clean (for a price)

These days it's impossible to get accepted to college, land a great job or even be considered for an interview if you have incriminating results on your Google search.

Those Facebook photos of your keg stand at last years 4th of July party? They'll be back to haunt you. And that hasty Tweet you made with all the cuss words and inappropriate context? I doubt think your future boss will find it as funny as you did. Maybe you're not a party animal - but your online presence says otherwise. It says screams "do not hire."

Now, this isn't exactly news. Internet searches have been causing a stir in the job search/college application world for a few years now, and lots of people have smartened up about what they post online. Most of us have already done what we can to clean up our image, should we have even the slightest of questionable content linked to our names on the internet. But for what we can't get rid of, what is there to do?

Thanks to Reputation.com, we don't have to do a thing! If you can afford to pay the fees, that is. For an annual fee of $120-$600, the busy bees over at Reputation offer to "expunge negative posts, bury unfavorable search results and monitor a client's virtual image." Acting as PR rep's of a certain sort, Repuation.com allows your new squeaky-clean image to shine through all the negativity you have uploaded over the years, assuring prospective bosses and college admissions staff to see the "real" you.

The only question is, what happens to all the people out there equally guilty of questionable content but who cannot afford to pay for this service? We all (hopefully) know better than to post anything lewd or incriminating on the internet these days - is it fair that only the ones who can afford it are allowed to erase their past?

Social Media Trends 2011

Social media changes from month to month. Trends come and go quicker than the seasons change. Having said that there are some trends that I think will continue over the coming year and with that in mind I wanted to share them here. All in all it should be an exiting year in social media with these expected trends escalating and expanding in 2011.

1. Social Commerce: 

Group buying + Facebook Commerce + Mobile Commerce

It’s all the same thing: new ways to leverage your social circle to help you shop or share your haul. Social commerce with the end goal of increasing conversions, leads, and sales started to gain attention years ago with consumer reviews and began to escalate in different methods. The connection of social media to sales, sales indicators, promotions, and other measurable or valued marketing and sales conversions, including couponing, is fueling the investment in social media as companies begin to prove the capability to drive commerce.

• Group buying: You should have heard of sites, such as Groupon, that sell for discounts if you get your friends to “group” together to buy a product or service? Like all kick ass ideas this one is incredibly simple and instantly understandable and there is something in it for everybody. Groupon and like-minded sites are expected to continue to grow, offering a new way to reach different audiences.


• Facebook commerce: 
Facebook has joined the social shopping market by launching its functionality called Facebook Connect. In short, you can now sell on Facebook by letting your customers buy, but also letting them tell their friends. And letting their friends tell their friends. Even if you don’t offer ecommerce on your website, it’s now possible to provide that service through the social network. And it’s overly simple to set up. YouTube has been recently extracted this concept with what was described as the first "YouTique" launched last September, by French Connection.


• Mobile Commerce: Mobile payments enable eCommerce merchants to expand their offerings and create new experiences on the phone, a trend we expect to see continue as mobile blurs the line between offline and online. Shopping will become even more social. Your mobile phone will soon become your identity.

2. Content Curation: Branded Content

Brands are starting to realize that one of the main ways of engaging their customers and offering value is to create content that enriches the user’s social media experience rather than just blasting messages out at them. All companies should become media companies, in that the content they provide is valuable, consistent, and non-salesy. With users starting to get more and more aware of ads and adding their own filters the smart brands will create bespoke content that engages users in a meaningful way and offers value. Building that content in to Facebook and other social sites while all hooking back to their own website will be crucial with video playing a more and more important role in the branded content play.

3. Crowdsourced Innovation

Crowdsourcing as a term and idea is nothing new, but 2011 will likely be the year where it becomes a core part of many organization’s social and customer engagement strategies. Additionally, there is an increased understanding from customers about the concept of Croudsourcing, which means it will no longer just a way of engaing the social media savvy, but rather a much broader audience who will share their ideas and thoughts with brand simply for the reward of recognition and being heard by the brands they purchase form everyday.

4. Niche Location / Location Casting

The ability to drive commerce and hence expand the potential advertising and marketing opportunities is fueling the growth of location-based social networking. Location is a key factor in the future of search, social, commerce, and media, among a lot of other things. It is the most important signal to emerge in the database of intentions since the link. If 2010 belonged to Foursquare and its playful, competitive and sometimes addicting ecosystem of badges, mayorships and specials, it's likely that Facebook will rain on Foursquare's parade in 2011 with its completed Facebook Place.

5. Social Gaming

New media models are being built based on virtual goods and currency, currently connected directly to the increasingly popularity of social games. As a category, social gaming has grown incredibly quickly, becoming one of the dominant drivers of usage on Facebook. The current leader moving this trend is Zynga, which is building a new media model from micro-transactions. From this trend, viable marketing opportunities are emerging, so-called "engagement ads." These are basically an exchange between a player and an advertiser, where players earn points or currency to raise or extend their game play in exchange for some brand-related activity like taking a quiz or sharing an ad on Facebook. The power of gaming to drive revenue and marketing benefit for advertisers, as well as its increasing capacity to catch mass engagement, is driving not only new offerings but also new partnerships, startups, and other innovations.

tap listen & talk

In chapters 4-6 of Groundswell, the authors discuss three important keys to success and strategies to achieve it. The topics covered include "tapping the groundswell", "listening to the groundswell," and finally "talking to the groundswell". Each is important, yet you will be stronger and more effective having a knowledge of all three skills.

 Once you have tapped the groundswell, considered your strategy and looked at the important objectives, it is time to pursue your success. I fully agree with the authors' view on listening to the groundswell, because your company is only as good as the consumer believes it to be. Listening to consumers by monitoring response to your brand is important not only because it provides feedback but because it allows you to create dialogue with the community and emerge yourself in the groundswell. This is where "talking" comes in.

When I read chapter 6, all I could think of was Facebook and the interaction I have with clients and users of the company I intern for. Every day I connect with them through Facebook and often on Twitter as well. This is has already become common practice for many companies and will only continue to do so with time. If a brand wants to be successful, especially with today's tech-savvy consumers, they must learn the importance of communicating with their audience and potential audience, giving themselves another way to expand and strengthen their business.

"Great Firewall of China" blocks LinkedIn

It's no secret that in recent years the Chinese government has put into place several blocks on social networking sites that would allow citizens to communicate and share information on an online community. The two largest and most internationally used websites that have been blocked throughout the nation for a while now are Facebook and Twitter. However, access to Twitter has been managed by those who have the skills and knowledge to hack in through private networks. According to CNN, the most popular way to access Twitter in China was through a loophole involving the very popular professional business-geared social networking site LinkedIn.

 The Government shutting down access to LinkedIn in order to prevent access to Twitter is yet another jab at the Chinese civilians who are being kept from communicating, sharing, and receiving news and information on the internet. Moreover, search engines such as Google are so heavily censored that it seems practically useless to use them in the first place.


Since the blocking, news of planned revolution protests are sprouting up regarding Chinese political activists eager to change the government. Any thoughts or predictions on the matter?

Facebook Social Inbox - The Email Killer?

Everyday I have to write tons of emails in a similar boring pattern with “Hi Mary”, “Dear Lily”, “Best Regards”, “Cheers”, whatsoever. Is there anyway to make our conversation more simple, connected, time-saving and just “to-the-point”? Suddenly, the Social Inbox idea raised by Facebook few months ago came back my mind. With all the myths, debates and its recent activation. I am so much looking to find out how it could change the ways of communications we have currently by bringing a social world to your inbox. Will it be a revolution or just another Google’s ill-fated Wave? I'm longing to find out...

For those who have no idea about this social inbox, here is a quick wrap-up. Pls be noted that it is just available recently by invitation for limited users.

• A combination of the most popular forms of communications (e-mail, text messaging, Facebook's own private messaging and instant messaging) into one convenient and flexible feed.


• This Social Inbox has convenient features such as storing coversation history by contact, dividing inbox into two parts to filter emails from whom you don’t really know.


• The benefit for Facebook is that it already has 500 million users who are addicted (on some level at least) to the social network’s messaging system, and many of them are probably like the high-school students, and don’t use email. 

A few things for discussion:

• Email-killer? - On the face of it, having just one place to communicate with everyone from coworkers to family members seems like a good idea. But is Social Inbox considered the future of email or online communications? 


• Individual identifier? - Now everything we have on Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, blogs, discussion forums, etc. are linked via email, by default. That is, it comes back to that unique identifier that marks me out as an individual. But will this social inbox really work when it comes to the integration with other channels?


• Privacy? - Even Mark Zuckerberg told people that Facebook will protect users’ information in this social inbox and not use it for any advertising purposes, people are still always skeptical about the privacy issue on the social environment. Will this be another challenge for Mark on the ongoing privacy debates?

Your opinions?

Facebook pages: hits & misses

In response to the chapter titled "Strategies for tapping the groundswell" in Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies, I found myself thinking about the sorts of interactions I have with businesses and companies through their Facebook pages.

For many companies, Facebook has been a priceless blessing. For instance, I am constantly intrigued by Facebook posts published by businesses which I am a fan of and often times interact with the posts. This works in their favor by ultimately getting me more involved in their business, i.e. spending money on their products or services. For instance, just yesterday I saw a post about a great happy hour deal at Shangri La and ended up meeting there with friends for the evening.

However, as mentioned in the chapter, Facebook pages can often backfire on a company and result in money lost and poor publicity. As in the case of Walmart, their Facebook page was meant to attract young people and promote their dorm room decor line. Unfortunately for the company, their Facebook page became a soapbox for a disgruntled community unhappy with the Walmart's business practices.

These sorts of hits and misses occur daily in the ever-evolving world of social networks. What is most important for companies is that they choose the appropriate channel and online format to engage in communication with their customers or audience and remember that this sort of communication on the internet is two-way. What the audience says will not always be what the company wants to hear.

Facebook is empowered by “Places” – "Who. What. When. And now Where."

Few days ago, when manually updating apps on my Iphone, I found Facebook got a new feature called “Places”. So now, after buying FriendFeed, lauching a new real-time search engine, which declared a battle to Google in social search, Facebook has now expanded its power into location-based services (LBS). It is time to welcome a “Where” on Facebook, after the recent “When”. People who know search and LBS believe that there’s gold in real-time and social data, as well as geolocation and behavioral data. Then it seems Facebook is racing in a very fast pace to these latest trends and technologies, in order to consolidate its leading position in the world’s social network and technology map.

From now on, people can easily share their locations, tag friends who are with them at the location through “Places” from their mobile devices. At first, Facebook Places will be integrated with popular LBS poviders such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Booyah and Yelp by pushing the check-ins from these LBS providers’ apps to Facebook Places. Some providers are planning to launch location-based social games, which built on Facebook Places and based on interacting with people and sharing real-time posts at real-world locations; allowing users to socialize, meet new friends and track popularity. 

As Facebook has a large base of members of nearly half a billion, it is definitely a high proportion of their users will, intentionally or not, use the location sharing through “Places”. Although Facebook has just jumped on this location-based market, "Places" is now a threat to other LBS providers as it is taking the advantage thanks to Facebook current user base. It is predicted that “Places” won’t take long to become the mainstream.

In my opinion, the secret super power of "Places" didn’t lie in the concept or technique but in the local business location-based advertising market. Because as well as trying to attract users, Facebook is also trying to attract local businesses to build Facebook Place pages, and associate their Facebook presence with a location. It helps the Facebook advertising engine working more effectively by targeting audience using profile data, searching information and now, users’ geolocation. It opens opportunities on developing Facebook social games and apps using the location-based feature, but it also presents challenges in terms of privacy protection and requires Facebook to be careful in updating more rules to its current privacy setting.

All in all, it is seen that the social media giant has done many things to strengthen its power, expand its reach and certainly, to make more money. While waiting for the “Places” full functioning version coming to other market after testing in the US, this topic on location game is broadly opening for your personal opinion and discussion.

Colgate Wisp’s “Kissovation” Viral Campaign

Colgate Palmolive is quite a big name in marketing. Its recent launch of Colgate Wisp, a mini disposable toothbrush, has been a successful case of actracting audiences across social networks and video sharing sites to deliver millions of engagements in just a few short months.

Mission and Challenge

Targeting 18 to 25-year-old men and women, Colgate Wisp’s mission is finding a way to talk to and engage young and urban people about a brand new product category. These comsumers are known as active daters who care about their initial appearance to the opposite sex or among a group of other people. It believes that the convenience of Colgate Wisp can meet this group’s need and demand. So the challenge is how to introduce the product and transfer its message to these young people in an interesting and engaging way or into relevant conversations and contexts.

Strategies and Solutions

Positioning Colgate Wisp as a kind of technology advancement, the Colgate’s social media agency, Big Fuel, came up with the “Be More Kissable” creative platform, featuring the tangential theme of self-confidence. The “Kissovation” concept signifies the correlation of feeling kissable and strong emotional confidence.

Social media, popular channels of the product’s target consumers, were chosen to deliver the concept. The campaign featured a unique viral video outreach program as the heart of the strategy, along with a photo contest with and a Facebook application.

Online Video Sharing

Partnering with famous YouTube stars, such as KipKay, CollegeHumor, Michelle Phan, YourTango, etc.; a series of eight wacky viral videos, contextually integrating the Wisp, was released and syndicated through YouTube, Vimeo and other hubs. Topics covered a vast range of niche interests such as comedy, dating, relationships, and kooky how-to instructional. These videos were expected to introduce the Wisp to its target consumer in a friendly and entertaining way, without heavy advertising. 

Some of the videos in this series include:

• “Twitter in Real Life ” by CollegeHumor 


• “New Year’s Eve” CollegeHumor 


• “Quick-Draw Gadget” by KipKay


• “Kissable Lips DIY” Michelle Phan 

“Be the Face of Wisp” Photo Contest and Widget

Colgate ran a wildly popular photo contest to find the most kissable person in America, called “The Face of Wisp”. Participants submitted their photo to Colgate Wisp’s website and received a photo sharing widget that enabled friends to vote for them. This widget could be shared on leading social network sites, e.g. Facebook, Myspace, and other microsites. The contest was even spread through relationship magazines such as Elle and Cosmopolitan. And the winner will be in future advertising campaign for Wisp. 

“Spin The Wisp” Facebook Application

To enhance the engagement, a social media appliccations on Facebook, called “Spin The Wisp”, was created to collect Facebook friends’s name and then land on various flavors and locations. So Facebook users can send virtual kisses to random friends or selected ones. 

Results

Until the end of June, the series of “Be More Kissable” videos attracted more than four million views on YouTube and totally more on other video-sharing sites. The click-through rate for the “Spin The Wisp” Facebook app, according to eMarketer, was ten percent based on the number of engagements via notifications, which is quite solid. Until May 2010, the campaigns received more than six million toal engagement based on widget installs, video views, app plays and pass-alongs (eMarketer). At the bottom line, the Wisp generated an “impressive” $44 million in sales after only seven months in the marketplace.



For a summary of The Wisp viral campaign, enjoy the campaign recapture from Big Fuel, the agency behind!

The Underwater Iceberg of Location-Based Mobile Services

Last time I have mentioned about the concept of location and geo-fence as one of the expected trends in mobile marketing this year. It becomes hotter with more competitors, including established services, emerging businesses and big online companies. All of them are joining the geo-location battle.

Currently there are two most popular location-based mobile apps, Foursquare and Gowalla, working as both a social network and a game, built on GPS function and user-generated contents. Basically, they two all allow users to share their location with friends. So, when you walk into a bar or restaurant or mall, you probably "check-in" on your cell phone, and your friends will see where you are. You get rewarded for frequent check-in activities. That’s quite simple!

Just in case you really still have no idea about what they are, or for further information, here are the summaries of FourSquare and Gowalla on CrunchBase

What are their differences?



Here is a brief comparison done by Mashable:

What do users get? 

• Connecting with friends, knowing where they were and getting tips from other people for each location

• The fun of earning badges and various perks from the places where they check in.

• Accessibily to your check-in history, giving you a snapshot of “What, Where, When, Who”

Let’s talk business!

The clever part here is that you get points for checking-in. But the really cleverer part is more about business. These geo-social networks are certainly capturing marketers’ attention. Through smartphones that signal someone’s location, stores and brands like Starbucks, Tasti-D-Lite, Macy’s and Pepsi are getting live information about when and where people are shopping. Some companies are turning Foursquare or Gowalla into a virtual loyalty-card program, while others are creating their own location applications, customers discounts or other rewards for shopping.

So basically, Foursquare and Gowalla are rolling out free analytics programs that will give participating businesses detailed information on who is checking-in to their locations, and give them the ability to communicate with the visitors. That’s what set these services apart.

The risky side

While some may find interested in sharing their location, the concept of automatic geo-location a little hard to accept, especially in terms of privacy concerns, Are people ready to share their personal locative information? Probaly. Or not really.

A recent poll on some reasons more people aren’t using check-in services revealed privacy and security concerns as a number-one reason.

The future

• Giants get into the game with motivation of the true value which comes from targeted advertising based on locality. The only question for these businesses to answer now is whether or not location-based rewards are the killer feature or if location can stand alone.

1. Facebook has been actively testing multiple location products and considering various implementations of some form of location feature.


2. Twitter has announced their official plans for location. “Twitter Places”, the product enables users to “tag Tweets with specific places Additionally, the product integrates with Foursquare and Gowalla. However, Twitter isn’t implementing a badges service right now. 

• Database of consumer behaviors and lifestyle can be built from location-based services. For instance, insurance companies can start tracking this data to have a more accurate way of determining risk and rates.

• Companies and retailers will have more creative approaches, incentives and campaigns to encourage consumers using these check-in services.

Social Games – No More Playing Around!

If you have a Facebook account, you're probably familiar with games like Farmville, Mafia Wars or Texas Hold’em Poker. The world of social network gaming is seen as a comparatively gentle one. Players are more likely to be growing crops and cooking dinners than slaying monsters and killing bad guys. These games might seem like a good way to entertain with no entrance condition. However, anyone who is involved deeply into it will find that it’s only the surface of the iceberg. So what’s more?

1. What are Social Games?

Social Games = Casual Games (user engagement) + Social Networking (viral distribution)

Basic types of social games include:

• Multiplayer games that utilize the social graph as part of the game. (Parking Wars, PackRat,..)

• Games which mainly involves socializing or social activities like chatting, trading, or flirting. (Farm Ville, Pet Society, Friends For Sale…)

• Turn-based games that are played within a social context or with friends. (Texas Hold'em Poker, Scrabble,…)

• Competitive casual games with friends-only leaderboards. (Who Has the Biggest Brain?, Word Challenge,…)

2. Working Principles

Most of social games work on four basic principles:

• Simple gameplay, which does not require much tactical or strategical thought. Just simply click on something and get the reward, then make it to other higher rewards in similar steps 

• Real-time based element, which require you to wait for sometime when starting a process and doing activities. It doesn’t take much time for each visit but requires you to come back everyday, or even several times per day.

• Microtransactions, which are the solution for the dilemma of real time elements. To advance faster, game players need to buy more clicks or more rewards per time unit. For those who don’t want to spend money, they can do something like signing-up or taking a survey with the game company’s commercial partners

• Network connections, which means using the power of social networks. Friends can help or recruit each other in a social game even if you aren't online at the same time. 

So basically, the common rule is to get people hooked with easy rewards, then block them from gaining those rewards as fast as they want, make them pay you money directly or via another company, and encourage them to invite all their friends to participate. In fact all of these games can be played without spending any real money, and without signing up for shady offers to receive more in-game currency. But in-game earnings will never be enough to keep things interesting. That’s the story!

3. Top Games

4. Top Companies

Most of social-game companies have built their entire business model around relatively tiny micro-transactions. Because the games are free, what companies are trying to do is get as many people engaged in the game as possible. Then they try to maximise the number of those players that we can offer something interesting to - that they would be willing to pay money for. Furthermore, the companies also try to maintain players’ interest through constant updates. 

Current big players include:

• Zynga - 700 employees and $200 mil revenues in 2009, the developer of Facebook.

• Playfish - 250 employees and $75 mil revenues in 2009 

• Playdom - 300 employees and $50 mil revenues in 2009, the leader on MySpace

Even these companies have made huge revenue, their reputation is going down. Last year, Tech Crunch revealed a video featuring Zynga CEO Mark Pincus saying the company "did every horrible thing in the book" to make money off of player. It was a hit to the company and players at that time

5. Security and Social Risks

• To accumulate significant amounts of currency, players can either purchase some with their credit card or sign up for an account or do some surveys with a third-party service. But it found that these surveys contain risks with its request to get your mobile phone number and end up at subscription for an unknown service at a specific cost.

• Being targeted by hackers and viruses is another possibility of playing social games. Some bugs can destroy all of your game progress.

• Spamming friends by numerous updates, requests or invitations might cause inconveniences and may lead to losing some “real” friends

6. Future of Social Games

• The expansion of social networks in terms of size and popularity will bring social games to more users. Furthermore, social networks are widely seen as the new email and the new SMS diving rich, shared content that capitalizes on mass interaction

• The development of smartphone market, app market and social networking usage on smart phones will enhance the popularity of social games.

• Game companies are planning to build up their own social networks

• Current social game players are aged between 18 and 34 but the 40+ market and the “mass market” are also present and potential.

• The upcoming social games will be more targeted and diverse in categories in order to cope with the increasing competition. 

• The second generation of social games will be more developed in terms of gameplay and graphics. With Flash 10's 3D capabilities, 3D games may be coming to social networking sites soon.

• More channels and methods of trading virtual goods will be established. More online platforms to support game players will become popular.

IKEA's Brilliant "Tagging" Campaign on Facebook

One of the most clever digital campaign last year should belong to IKEA. They set up a profile for the store manager and launched a simple message: "Tag yourself on the furniture that you want to win (in each image). Then write a statement about why you should win in the comment field below the photo. Then hope you were the first to tag that item and had the best justification. Winners will be contacted directly through Facebook. Good luck!" 

Some of the best campaign strategies are simple, and none simpler than using the default “tagging” tool on Facebook to help create a buzz for an online competition. With the way tagging works on Facebook, the moment you tagged anything, everyone in your network instantly knew what was up for grabs. Subsequently, thousands and thousands of people were flooding the Facebook page in search of freebies. A very clever approach for small budget campaigns. 

The Handshake of Social Media and World Cup 2010

As the world’s biggest sport event is coming in the next three days, its heat is spreading further and hotter than ever before. The world is going to stop for a month to watch out the game.

Sport connects people. And so do social media. With more than 40 million active Facebook users, 50 million daily tweets and millions of views on Youtube everyday, social media have been becoming more popular since the previous game in 2006. So this will be the first World Cup experiencing the explosive growth of social marketing. There’s buzz about the role the social media will play in the action off the field. The only question: What have you seen, here and there?

FIFA developed its own service

FIFA has plans to get in on the action with its own social networking service called TheClub on its official website. There are more than 1.6 million members attended so far, who connect to other fans around the world.

Social networking sites are ready

The marketing strategies of World Cup 2010 include the use of Facebook sites to connect fans on global and regional levels and Twitter accounts to provide updates on the preliminary news and action. It’s expected to drive a record amount of social media traffic as users descend on Twitter and Facebook to critique refereeing decisions, celebrate goals or simply taunt the opposition.

• Facebook has an app that ranks soccer passion based on number of “Likes” fans hit for their team, divided by the number of Internet users in that country. Moreover, football fans have already participated in Facebok fanpages and groups and got daily updates about this global "social" event in advance of the 32 team competition.


• Twitter has already commented that they expect this year’s World Cup to drive more online traffic than the U.S. presidential election and the Super Bowl. Very much like the Winter Olympics look for Twitter to be a tremendous source for 2010 World Cup breaking in the moment news, insight and reactions.

Brands are getting more social 

FIFA sponsors and partners have also evolved their strategies for building and sustaining online buzz around the tournament. Brands have multiple planned online touch points for the World Cup. They are also directly or indirectly participating in World Cup social media marketing related endeavors.

• Coca-Cola has launched an online contest called the ‘Longest Celebration’ competition , inspired by Roger Milla’s post-goal dance at Italia ’90, which allegedly inspired a new generation of dance moves. The contest simply encourages users around the world to upload their own creative goal celebrations to YouTube.

• Budweiser takes creativity to the next level with the “Bud House”- an online reality show featuring one fan from each of the 32 qualifying countries living in a house in Cape Town with contestants eliminated when their team is knocked out


• McDonalds launched its online World Cup Predictor, in the form of an online fanstasy tournament, asking fans to use their knowledge to predict which teams will win which games, round-by-round


• Sony Ericsson has launched the Twittercup which appears to be an online competition at its very simplest – the more tweets your nation receives, the further they go in the cup. Launched in December 2009, the Twittercup has already amassed 43,000 tweets


• Castrol is launching the ‘Castrol Index’ and Castrol Predictor apps this month – the first a system for rating players (measuring passes, tackles and moves) housed on www.fifa.com to find the team of the tournament, the second using past team and player performance data to calculate which nations have the best chance of success at South Africa 2010

The real question is what kind of impact are these campaigns going to have on helping brands get the online traction their multi-million dollar investment demands?

Quit Facebook Day – To Leave or Not To Leave?

May 31st is the first officially unofficial Quit Facebook Day. To mark protest against issues such as privacy, data management, fake warnings and phising attacks, the day is when users plan to delete their accounts and leave Facebook altogether. It was formed by a teamed-up group of dissatisfied Facebook users in an effort to organize a mass, coordinated exodus from Facebook--and they're using social networks to do it.

However, quitting Facebook isn't easy. Facebook is engaging, enjoyable and addictive. It keeps people in contact with family and friends. Quitting Facebook is like quitting smoking. To many people, Facebook is the internet. 

Therefore, not many people have seemed to like the idea of quitting Facebook. Up to this moment, only 34506 have committed to delete their Facebook accounts (counts on quitfacebookday.com) Considering the fact that Facebook has somewhere in the range of 500 million users, 35,000 just doesn't seem substantial enough to make Mark Zuckerberg shed a tear. The lack of interest thus far is a telling indication of the average Facebooker's indifference to the ongoing privacy debate.

Currently, Facebook’s privacy policy has 50 different settings, 170 different options and contains almost 6,000 words, longer than the US Constitution! Although there is an evolution in privacy issue to protect users (check this LINK for more details), Facebook makes it difficult for the average user to understand or manage this.

So the simple rule is this: if you don’t want your personal information made public, don’t post it on the web. That’s especially true for sites where data sharing is an integral part of the system.



In the end, what's your decision? To leave or not to leave?

Should Marketers Do Social Marketing in Vietnam?

As somebody may know, I’m a Vietnamese living in Singapore. So sharing my understanding about social media in Vietnam is something I enjoy to do. This article is writing based on reliable research and reports on Vietnam online consumption behavior and digital landscape, and certainly my personal insights and experience. 

“Social Media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it's finally done there is surprise it's not better.” says Avinash Kaushik at Google. Coincidentally, this is quite matched to the situation in Vietnam, where social media is emerging and businesses are seeking opportunities online. To understand more, there are 5 main points to mention in the large picture of Vietnam social media landscape.

1. Who are online in Vietnam?

Vietnam internet population is very young with 76% from 15-34 and they spend a lot of time online and enjoy the increasing high-speed connection. It makes Vietnam the fastest growth in internet penetration, outweighing other neighbours like Thailand or Philippines. 50% of urban Vietnam is regularly online - even more in Hanoi. If you live in urban Vietnam and do not access the internet, you are fast becoming the minority.

2. What are they doing?

According to Cimigo's recent report of Vietnam NetCitizens , main online activities of Vietnam online users are:

• Gathering information. Reading news and using search sites are the most common activities online. Google is the most widely used website in Vietnam. Online newspapers are also in top-visited websites


• Online entertainment. Online music, movies and gaming are most popular. Zing, the integrated entertainment and networks website, shows the second largest penetration in Vietnam. 


• Online communications. Communications is a further key activity on the internet. The most frequent usage is chatting and emailing. SMS online and instant messaging are coming next.


• Blogging and social networks. Social network become familiar with Vietnam online users with the blogging trend. The need of interaction and networking increases significantly


• Online business. Although there is an increase in online business activities, Vietnam online commerce has not been highly developed yet. The payment system is still weak and the threat of illegal payment is quite high.

3. How’s the social media landscape?

As Vietnam has only had internet access since 1997, social media in Vietnam is relatively young; however, it has been growing rapidly for the past one decade. Some popular social media platforms includes:

• Social networks. Self-expression demand in Vietnam is very high. In the past, social networking in VN just means “blogging”. While the world was eyeing on bloggers.com and wordpress.com, in Vietnam, Yahoo!360 ruled with more than 2 million users. It was not a tool specifically designed for the Vietnam market, but the market took it anyway, with great passion and enthusiasm. Since it closed in July 2009, Facebook becomes the fastest growing market in Vietnam. Local social networks also grow significantly.


• 


• Photo-sharing sites. Most of popular photo sharing sites in Vietnam are forum based with online gallery. The community used to focus more on professional photographers but now it opens to everyone who is interested in photography. And Flickr is the largest and most popular photo-sharing community in Vietnam


• Video-sharing sites. There are two popular video-sharing sites in Vietnam, YouTube and Clip.vn. However YouTube shows more advantages with better speed,great navigational and usability, reasonable advertising and huge community, while Clip.vn has slow speed, too many banners, weak usability and can not expand community. Therefore, YouTube is leading in video-sharing in Vietnam with fast growing community


• Music sharing sites. Popular sites are Yeuamnhac.com, Nhacso.com, Zing MP3. However, majority of users just visit, listen and download music without community interaction


• Career network sites. These websites, such as Cyvee.com or Caravat.com, are for sharing resumes and discussing about career and recruitment trend.


• Integrated-service sites. These “all in one” websites,mostly locally designed, such as Zing.vn or Zume.vn, offer everything from blogs, news, videos, music to photos. 


• Forums. Forum seeding is still very effective in Vietnam. Popular forums are Webtretho.com, Otosaigon.com, TinhTe.com, Hihihehe.com, DDTH.com and GameVN.net. 

The recent disappear of some popular social networking sites such as Facebook due to government censorship has raised another issue in Vietnam social media situation. It pushed Facebook’s users in Vietnam looking for “black” tips to access to the site. Before that, the government mostly blocks pornographic and political websites, which are against the culture and the government. But this recent censorship on social network sites for invisible reasons is not widely supported by online users.

4. Why doing social marketing in Vietnam?

• Decreasing traditional media. It is undeniable that TV and Print still dominate in Vietnam but they are losing their attention and all decrease for a “new kid on the block”, online marketing, which is more effective and cost-saving in the current economy situation. The size of the online advertising market in 2009 is estimated at VND 278 billion VND (approx. USD 15.5 million)


• High penetration rate. Internet user in Vietnam is expanding with “miraculous” speed with 66% home penetration in 4 key cities in Vietnam.


• Targeted. Social media provide chance to reach the “right” target, especially young audience. 


• Easy to measure and tracking. With the provided tools and programs designed for social marketing, it is easier to measure the effectiveness.

5. How to apply into practice?

• Follow the users. Marketers should understand and use what they are using. Interacting with them on Facebook, Blog, RSS, Twitter, Flickr , YouTube , Newsletter and Forums reasonably and wisely should be considered


• Increase traffic by quality. In order to maximize your traffic, microsite is still ideal for short or seasonal campaign. However, in long terms, marketers should ignore “quantity” and go more for “quality”. A well-designed strategy from the beginning including SEO, SEM, E-mail marketing, E-PR still an effective way to drive traffic.


• Have an umbrella. Nobody remember tons of micro-sites everyday. Therefore, building and maintaining the corporate website together with your micro-site campaign is crucial. Having brand account on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc. is necessary.


• Measure, measure and measure. Marketers should use social marketing statistics, tools and program, such as Google Analytics, traffic tracking, site ranking, conversion rate, etc. to analyze and measure the effectiveness of their online marketing plan.


• Connect with offline activities. In Vietnam, social media is not everything. Lots of people are online, but also lots of people are still out there. Social media is just wings for tiger, it’s not replace everything

Overall, there are a lot of opportunities in Vietnam with 25 millions of online population. Young people become more and more familiar with social media. Many online emerging trends have been established in a fast pace. Vietnam online advertising spend continually reaches new highs. So the opportunity is here but the challenge is also here. The decisions are all in hand of marketers.

(Sources: Cimigo’s Vietnam NetCitizens report, Vietnam digital landcape by Mr. Hieu Nguyen)

 

Does What Happens in Facebook Stay in Facebook? - How to Control?

Definitely unsure. Today, what happens in Vegas stays in Facebook and what happens in Facebook may stay…everywhere. So has society become less private or is it Facebook that's pushing people in that direction? Is privacy online just an illusion anyway? Do people no longer need to keep access to some of their personal information online limited just to trusted friends?

Nowadays, people probably are becoming more comfortable telling the world at large about more and different parts of their lives. But it doesn’t mean it's ok to take away peoples' choices and force them to make public some of their information all the time. Facebook became a huge success on that premise and ought to be able to continue to thrive without doing a 180-degree turn on privacy. 

More than millions, tens or hundreds of millions of people around the world have reason to limit visibility of their personal information from the web but still want to be able to share that information with trusted contacts. But privacy doesn't mean secrecy. Therefore, people need to know about privacy settings to monitor their social networking presence effectively.

Have a look at the answer of what really happens on Facebook in this video below before thinking of making some changes for your Facebook profile.

Facebook's continuous security problems make its users not happy. Among its 400 million users, many have been threatening to delete their account due to the security and privacy issues that keep surfacing. Most of the complaints are stemming from the older users, mostly aged over 35.

So how to control things, not to end it up? These are some Facebook’s basic privacy settings, which could help to avoid threats caused by the public to your personal life

• Grouping friends into lists (using “tags”) to apply specific privacy policies to them. 


• Remove yourself from Facebook search results. There are numerous reasons you may not want to be found by others on Facebook.


• Remove yourself from Google. If you want to be easy to find, making your search profile can be a great idea. However, many other people may feel unpleasant when everyone can “google” their name and comes out which every single aspects of their personal life on different social networking sites. 


• Make your contact information private. Frequently people we don’t know end up contacting us and we have no idea how they got our contact information. So it is better to public your contacts to people you want to share only.


• Avoid the infamous photo/video tag mistake. You let loose for a few hours one night (or day) and photos (or videos) of the moment are suddenly posted for all to view, not just your close friends who shared the moment with you and the result can be devastating. 


• Protect your albums. By setting specific privacy on them , you will ensure that the only people that can view your photos are the ones who you really want them to see.


• Prevent stories from showing up in your friends’ news feeds.  Sometimes it is not good to let all of your friends and business contacts hear that you just break up with your girlfriend or are in any new relationship


• Protect against published application stories. Frequently, a news feed item is immediately published to your profile when you add an application. But it is unsure that your professional contacts are interested in seeing “Nick just published to the world that he is having sex!” after your visit to a so-called “Have sex” application. 


• Avoid embarrassing wall posts. Just because you use Facebook for business doesn’t mean your friends do. That’s why once in a while a friend of yours will come post something embarrassing or not necessarily “work friendly” and it can end up having adverse effects. 


• Keep your friendships private. It’s often a good policy to turn off your friends’ visibility to others to avoid people make use of your friends’ profile for different purposes while some of your friends may not want to live public lives. 

All in all, the best way to prevent embarrassing items from showing up on Facebook in the future is to not make bad judgments in your personal life. We’re all human though and being completely paranoid about every choice you make is probably not the best way to live your life. Be aware of what privacy settings are available and be conscious of what your friends may be publishing about you.

In the worst situation, when your online presence is turning bad, there are some websites could provide solution to delete your existing social networking profiles and virtual friends such as Web 2.0 Suicide Machine or Seppukoo.com or DeleteYourAccount.com. However these sites are facing the social network giant Facebook’s strong protest. Whatever it happens, they still receive a lot of visitors and do many “deleting” actions each day. Hopefully everything goes well with your social networking experience, so you do not need to visit these sites. Good luck!