Daily Deal Sites: Good or Bad???

Honestly, before I didnt care about daily deal sites, but these days I heard my friends talk a lot about them. Thus, I did some research about this topic. It s quite interesting! :D

The spread of daily deal sites has been significantly increasing and penetrated the small business world. There are a number of leading daily deal sites including Groupon and Living Social which have attracted millions of shoppers around the world.

There are few questions we need to consider:

1. How can small businesses run an effective daily deal and reduce risk?
2. Are they better off avoiding daily deals sites altogether?

First of all, we will examine 3 different daily deal sites as follows:

• Groupon: Last year,Groupon entered the Australian market and is now operating under the StarDeals.com.au. Groupon allows consumers to signup for coupon offers from local businesses. If a set number of Groupon users signup for a particular coupon, the customers are granted the coupon. Groupon charges a cut of the coupons sold, and the businesses get increased exposure and potential new customers. Of the daily deals sites, Groupon has the widest range of discount offers.

• LivingSocial: Living Social works similarly to Groupon, with consumers able to register in a specific city or market. Living Social has a greater number of household and personal care offers than other daily deal sites and has a dedicated section for travel getaways.

• CuDo: Every day, Cudo emails you an exciting experience packed full of value from handpicked businesses. Things like day spas, salons, hotels, restaurants, theater tickets, tours, holidays and much more. You experience them daily, or whenever you choose.

If these deals can be done correctly with the right type of business, they can be very effective. In other words, when local merchants runs daily deals, shortly there will be an effect on their online reputation.

Through using search tools, these deals can be browsed and selected. Moreover, the link is also provided to direct back to their websites. However, the thing needing to be considered here is the effect to their online reputation. Consumers who seek and purchase these deals are often the most active online and in social media channels. This can be good or bad, depending on their experience. If local businesses effectively take care of these customers, they are more likely to post on Facebook, Twitter and Google Places and share their opinions about how they experienced.

However, there are many problems related to these daily deal sites. For instance, when these deals have been taken, many shoppers still don't know how to redeem due to unclear instructions on these sites. They also have problems with the quality of customer experiences. Additionally, a lot of people got trouble with the payment systems of these sites. Then, these users go online and write negative reviews, which can then really damage local merchants' reputation. Therefore, here are a few tips for running effective daily deal sites including Groupon, Living Social and CuDo

1. If you run a daily deal, you must plan for and anticipate how to handle a big increase in volume on a short term basis to insure a great customer experience. Line up short-term staff to come help in case you need them. On most sites, you can put a cap on the number of coupons sold. This can help prevent you from being overwhelmed.
2. Negotiate! There are millions of these "Daily Deal" sites today so don’t just try the first one that calls you. Be sure to shop around and do your homework. Furthermore, you should choose some daily deal sites which have a good reputation/ high credibility.
3. It would be great if you can provide a clear instruction to help customers know how to redeem their coupons in order to avoid the confusion. Ask customers when they come in to present coupons upfront. This will ensure you know about them ahead of time. We all know that it’s hard to take special care of customers that are paying 1/3 the price, but these are likely to be the critics of today. You have to take care of them.
4. To redeem, ask them to provide an email address to send them other deals in the future. Tell them they can opt-out after getting the first email. However, you need a digital way to create a relationship with that customer to encourage future visits.
5. Setup an online review management service to track what people are saying. You need a social media monitoring service like chatmeter to monitor the response and track all of the online reviews. Chatmeter notifies you of all new online reviews and social media mentions every day, so your just one click away to responding.
6. Respond to all customer comments, good or bad. If you receive any negative reviews, try to invite them back when business is back to normal, most people would understand the circumstances. If positive, say Thank You. This helps your online reputation and shows the business cares and will drive loyalty and word of mouth, which is crucial for any business to thrive. 

Source:  chatmeter Blog, 2011


What do you think about these daily deal sites? any experience?
Please feel free to share your comments :D

Return on Engagement (ROE) !!!!

I m sure that everyone’s heard of Return on Investment (ROI) but have you heard of Return on Engagement (ROE)??? 

Today I’m going to talk about the concept of Return on Engagement and present some ways you can use to measure it.

 Let’s have a look at social media usage statistics 2011

• 750 million Facebook users are building their social identities and connecting with others (Facebook statistics, 2011)
•   200 million Twitter users are sharing thoughts, links and information (White, 2011, September 16)
•   7.5 million people are “checking in” on Foursquare(Yarow, 2011, March 8)
•  Over 3 billion videos are viewed a day and 100 million people take a social action on YouTube (likes, shares, comments, etc) every week (Youtube statistics, 2011)

It is evident that most people love social media and if companies' customers including existing and potential are there, shouldn’t they be?

Nowadays people don’t just search these social networking sites for people; they also look for many other things including products, services, brands and companies.  The reasons is that they are looking for coupons, exclusive discounts or chances to win. Furthermore, they are interested in what other people are saying and what companies are saying back. Thus, it is critical for companies to understand how to benefit from engaging with their customers.
 

Through using these social networking sites, companies can build relationships with their friends, fans and followers and potentially make them become their newest customers. Moreover, companies can create some interesting activities in order to give their customers something fun and exciting to talk about is that they will do just that—share it with their friends and  spread the world, and that’s what companies want.

After all, we all want results, numbers and measurements of traffic. Well, by using these platforms, companies can get as specific as they want, providing offers and prizes for “fanning” a page, “re-tweeting” a phrase, checking in at a store location and more. From here it becomes as simple as monitoring the buzz. We call this ROE, return on engagement.

There are some ways marketers can use to measure ROE as follows:

#1: Use a URL shortener like bit.ly to show how much traffic you are driving and from where.

#2: Follow your tweets and retweets on Twitter to see how far they travel http://tweetreach.com/
#3: Track positive, negative and neutral along with # of comments posted on your sites
#4: Read “calculating the ROI of blogging” http://bit.ly/Z6xqP

#5: # of RSS subscribers and your repeat traffic (demonstrates loyalty) 
#6: Develop specific tactics which improve your ranking on popular search engines
#7: Remember traditional methods like polls and surveys to get results.

 

#8: Keep track of what topics/issues/conversations
 #9: Measure customer satisfaction via social media, take a quick pulse to see where you stand. 
#10: Track # of people recommending, whether it’s a RT, “like,” “favorite,” which results in new members of your community
#11: Determine your “share of conversation” vs. your competitors http://bit.ly/Gjxgg

Source: PRSarahEvans, 2009

Let’s give them something to talk about. Let’s also talk about it with them.

What do you think about ROE? How does your company measure engagement via social media?

Man won a Twitter bet against his boss!!!!!!!

On 26th August, a UK man tweeted on his Twitter account with a message as follows:




The situation here is that they were discussing Twitter and the “Company Twitter Account”  has less than 30 followers and still has. His boss said that it was a waste of time and it was only competitors that were following them. The man disagreed with his boss said it could be better....  He bet he could get 10 RTs if he tried from his twitter account.



Surprisingly,  after 3 days he came back from his holiday weekend, he checked his Twitter and saw that there were 23,000 retweets ( equal to £11,500).  Now , his boss is scared of him :D





Looking at Topsy today, the tweet had been re-tweeted around 24,000 times… and made it into the Twitter Top 100 over the weekend.

 
I think that this number (24K for few days) could make any social network members stunned. Furthermore, this is no longer simply a bet, which triggered a wave on Twitter towards anyone who dares to be against any social netwking sites.....

We can see that  it is the power of social media...nothing is impossible-

One thing we need to consider is that it is one of those tweets that people just retweeted without even looking at the content of the message ....this may lead to another issue; that is, many brands and companies will see this as a great new marketing tool to get exposure and try this for their own business.


My question now is that : is Twitter a big waste of time like the UK man’s boss claims or do these 24,000 tweets actually help?

BEST IN CLASS Facebook Pages and why they are successful!

2 weeks ago we discussed about Facebook and its basic features in class. It s quite interesting, so I did research about some popular Facebook Pages and why they are so successful. I hope it can help you gain some Facebook page experience to prepare for the next step.

Some questions I firstly want to ask you  is that "Does your business have a Facebook Page?" and " Are you using the features of Facebook in the best possible ways?"

Today I am going to focus on some "Best In Class" pages.  These pages are considered as the " Best In Class" is because each of these pages has utilized Facebook features available in unique and interesting ways, and  they have attracted millions of fans throughout the world.

# Red Bull

When I visited Red Bull FB Page for the first time, I was completely attracted by the Welcome tab (see the image below). It can be said that Red Bull encourages fans to “Like” their page with an attention-grabbing image.  Furthermore, the welcome tab sticks to one call to action, making it very clear what Red Bull want to happen.

Additionally, they have created many activities on Facebook page to engage with their fans, including series of online games, Red Bull web Tv and Red Bull Athletes.    

Tips:

• Consider spending some money in designing a creative page to attract your fans
•  Pay close attention to your call to action, specifically for the “Like” button

#The Twilight Saga



No matter if you have seen the movies or not, you can’t deny that the Twilight Saga is hot.

Last year, they created a “Tweet Sweeps,” where they encouraged fans to tweet about the movies for a chance to win movie tickets. The best strategy with this type of contest is to tell fans specifically what to tweet. Thus, there is no confusion, and they can take action quickly. 


This year, in order to prepare for the new movie coming soon on November 18, 2011, they have created a WeddingGuestBook tab (see the image below). The purpose of this tab is to encourage fans to get involved in the new movie by sharing their thoughts.

In addition, the Twilight Saga page has taken advantage of the “Discussion” tab where fans can post topics of discussion and all fans can join in and comment. The discussion tab creates a great sense of community and dramatically increases the engagement on the page.

Tip: 

• Encourage more conversation among fans on your page by starting a few discussion streams to get them talking.
• Create a discussion tab to encourage fans to post their own topics

# Jonas Brothers

With millions of fans around the world,  Facebook page is the best way for the Jonas Brothers  to stay connected.

Their page allows fans to  watch to their video clips through a music application  "BandPage". In addition to connecting with other fans through videos, photos and the open Wall, the page keeps their Event tab updated with all their concerts.



The Jonas Brothers were among the first to integrate UStream, a live streaming service, and the Facebook Live Chat box into something they called JonasLIVE (see the image below).
In June 2009, the Jonas Brothers held their webcast with the UStream and Facebook Love Chat integration. To help spread the message, a "Share" button was directly below the UStream window encouraging fans to  invite their friends.




Tips:

• Create some interesting events to attract fans' attention
• Utilize the "Share" button to spread the message to the world

..............................................

The selected pages above are among hundreds of great pages that are not mentioned here. I am sure that after looking at these pages, you may start to consider your own page and think about how to develop your page better with a proper strategy. Here are 5 takeaways for you:

1. Use all available features on Facebook including upload photos, videos and events, interacting on Wall and sharing links
2. Try to extend your page with Iframe,  then you can make your page more unique 
3. Promote your page. Include your page in your email signature, in your email marketing. Come up with creative ways to expose your presence
4. Interact. Receiving comments and making feedback. Encourage your community to interact with one another and try to respond to as many questions as you can.
5. Be helpful. Provide your members with a variety of types of content and interact often with them; you will want to be as helpful as possible to them.  

Reference:

Levy, J. (2010). Facebook Marketing: Designing Your Next Marketing Campaign (2nd Ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.

I hope that after reading my blog today, you will get some helpful ideas for your Facebook page.

Please feel free to leave any comments here-



 Cheers :)