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Facebook Places Ireland finally launches

MulleyFacebookPlaces1

Facebook Places for Ireland finally launched today. Some of the nerdier types have been waiting for ages to get to play with this. (Some even nerdier ones did all kind of hacks with networks toe be able to check in).

What does it mean for an individual?

More stalkeridge! You can now see where you friends are and with whom, if they wish to share this information. You can tell your friends where you are now, show them pictures from that location etc. As Facebook Places matures you will be able to avail of deals in locations near you or go to the locations based on offers.

What does it mean for a business?

If you claim your Place/location you can merge it with an existing Business Page. When someone checks in, their friends see this, might click on through and see your business details. If people are frequenting your business, why not give them the option of telling their friends? The average Irish person has 160 friends on Facebook. That’s the potential audience every time someone checks in to your location on Facebook. The longterm goal with this is Facebook Deals. Check in, get 20% off, win prizes and so on. Rewards for being loyal.

Right now: As a business, get your physical location created or claim it and enable people to check in. Get some Facebook Stickers made too to encourage people to check in!

Here are some of the frequently asked questions on Facebook Places.

The above pic is me outside Facebook HQ in Dublin with a giant Places icon. Courtesy of Made In Hollywood Props.

Measure It! February 2nd 2011 – Science Gallery

Measure It! will finally get underway on Feb 2nd from 10am to 12pm

Want to attend? Leave a comment here on this post. Also follow @measureIt on Twitter to get more updates.
If you want to present. Email Mulley.

Full details:
Location: Studio 1, Science Gallery, Dublin
Time: 10am to 12pm

Measure It! structure:
2-3 presentations followed by breaking it out into groups for a task. (Music from Jeopardy may or may not play)

Irish teens and the digital world

Or getting into the Irish Times for 500 euros.
Or doing your own R&D on the cheap.

Ages back on Twitter I remember seeing a teenager talk about the rarity that email was to him. Most of his communications online were around Facebook IM/Messaging. Mix that with various marketing research groups telling us what teens are interested in, without asking them and I thought it might be good to put a survey together. That’s where the Irish Teen Survey of Digital Trends came from.

Firstly, I compiled some ideas/questions I wanted answers for. Then I asked Eleanor, Aidan, Adam and Ian for some feedback on these. They suggested questions to ask, they laughed at some of the notions I had about teenagers and they listed options for some of the multi-choice questions. With that information I then collated the questions and employed someone to put them into some surveying software. I used Surveys.ie by SensorPro for this as I had also worked with them previous to this on surveys.

Next was propagating the survey. Once again I asked teens to send the survey to their friends. To get the survey completed, all those that did the survey were entered into a draw for an iTunes voucher and all those that got a friend to do the survey and their friend mentioned them, were also entered into another iTunes draw.

After the survey was done, results were collated and a summary and press release made. There was converage in the Irish Times, Silicon Republic, I was talking about it on Phantom1052 as well. Lots of coverage on Twitter too.

What does this survey do for Mulley Communications?

  • Insight. Seeing what teenagers do online, how they consume content, what and why they pay for items will help the day to day work of the company. Presentations, training sessions and marketing plans will be better as a result.
  • Traditional media coverage. While it’s people that are online and connected to me/the company gives us the business, the enforcement of the company being trustworthy to their bosses happens in the Irish Times, Radio 1, the Business Post etc.
  • Practice. Being able to ask new questions and create mechanisms to get the answers is good for future projects
  • Serendipity. You never know what new products for you or a client could be created from data you collate.

Costs:
Between the vouchers and the work to collate the survey, it cost about 500 euros.

Some lessons learned:
While 101 surveys were completed, there was a very large rate of those who never completed the surveys. Too many questions. Next time I might split the survey in two with maximum 20 questions, if even that. Also, have a few publications in mind for each survey, perhaps offer sections of the survey to each publication. Sample size is low too. Shorter surveys would almost double the numbers. Widen out the survey to rely less on people that receive this from friends on Facebook or Twitter.

This survey follows on from our Facebook eyetracking survey, Google eyetracking survey and iPhone survey.

Some social media links – 11 Oct 2010

How long does it take to form a habit? If you’re into marketing and want people to make your product the default they get, this is good to know.

So one ad agency gets ditched. Is it really the end of agencies? I don’t think so as long as companies don’t have the resources. Some big orgs have half a dozen comms agencies alone.

Alcohol brand or product? See the updated Facebook terms and conditions.

Saatchi and Saatchi celebrate 40 years. Showcase of their best/most known work.

How to present with a PUNCH.

Measure It! – Thursday November 4th 2010

The next Measure It! is on Thursday November 4th 2010.

The event will take place from 10am to 12pm at eircom HQ in Heuston Quarter. You can get the Luas to Heuston and then cross the road as if walking to IMMA. Thanks to Gina for organising the venue. Leave a comment if you want to attend. You can get updates about Measure It! on Twitter too. How modern.

  • Gina from eircom will talk about using “old skool” metrics to sell new skool social media to an organisation
  • Alan O’Rourke from SpoiltChild will cover how to measure Return on Investment and Earnings per Lead for social media campaigns.
  • Stephen O’Leary will show you social media coverage of a recent news item

What Measure It! is:
This is an informal event where those working in and around social media/digital/online marketing gather every month or so and share case studies or insights about social media measurement in order to up the knowledge that people working in this area have. The event is free. We normally do 2-3 10 minute presentations and Q&As around them and then you are split into groups to do an assigned task around social media/measurement. The value of Measure It! is in the sharing of information and networking with new people so don’t huddle together with your colleagues!

Shortcuts through quicksand

There’s a very good post on Buzzfeed about the use of infographics (Diagrams displaying information in a useful and understandable way) to help rig Google results. It’s the new gray hat SEO manipulation technique.

Simple idea: Create an infographic. Make the content tabloid enough/interesting enough to get linked to and offer code for people to embed it on their site with of course a link back to the site with your golden key words.

Already we’re seeing website and blog owners being emailed and asked for links to these infographics and to use certain keywords with the links. Nefarious to say the least especially when there isn’t any thought on who might be interested in the content. “We thought you might like this health insurance graphic since you er blog about food and please link with the text: cheap health insurance Ireland”

Traffic Control. Sparks, KS.
Photo owned by PV KS (cc)

It’s common for a client and an agency to want a quick win. Good traffic and lots of links. That’s the goal, right? Social media/online marketing is simple to set up, free to do and so people seem to think that there’ll be instant success as a result. The case studies we show and are shown make it seem that way too. Organic growth by creating content, interacting, getting feedback and moving on again is much more stable. But traditionally the marketing industry bought volume. Buy an ad on the Late Late, stick something in every paper and you’ll reach everyone with your very bland ad.

Quantity is still the catnip for many. That’s why you see so many company blogs mentioning celebrities and trying to shoehorn their offerings into some scandal. Good luck with aligning nipple slips into recruitment news lads. There was an old Irish Politics blog that started getting into mentioning all kinds of celebrity sex drivel. Traffic exploded but so did respect for the blog’s political analysis. This here blog for Mulley Comms gets 1/10th of the traffic as my personal blog and something blogged over there will do very well in Google but talking online marketing or online PR here means it won’t get first position on Google. That’s ok though as the blog here is new enough and still finding the way.

You see it too with Facebook campaigns that push for people to become fans. Win an iPad or iPhone for anyone that’s a fan of your Facebook Page. How many of your new Facebook fans genuinely care about what you do and how many clicked Like to enter the iPad draw?

Now counter that with what Sabrina Dent highlights for newsletter list building. She talks about Ciara Crossan going to Wedding Fairs. That’s where Ciara’s constituents are. Those who subscribe to her newsletter are the right demographic, not any old sod joining to get to the prize. Good leads at targeted events. There would be plenty of ways for Ciara to get 1000s of randomers on her mailing list but how many will take the content seriously then? A polluted database costs you more in the end.

So as clients, consultants and agencies should we keep pushing for the slow and more intelligent game instead of cheap tactics like link rigging and begging friends and strangers to Like client status updates? Should part of a company’s social media policy to ban staff from clicking on that Like button and leaving comments? The same way for competitions staff, their families and suppliers are banned from taking part? Should you train your own thoughts into thinking longterm?

Measure it! Dublin – September 29th 2010

Vanue change: Measure It! on September 29th is in the Centre for Research and Innovation in Learning and Teaching in National College of Ireland. Same start time and end time.

Alrighty folks. The next Measure it! is September 29th in Dublin after taking the Summer off. Last Wednesday of the month. We’ll have it in the City Centre again at 10am.

Register your interest now. If you want to be a presenter too, let me know.

What is Measure It?
People that work and don’t work in social media come together to discuss case studies, share information and contribute to discussions around the broad theme of measuring social media campaigns.

There are generally 3 quick presentations which focus on measurements and then the crowd are given a task to do after being split into groups. This is an information sharing event and a networking event. You should try and work with people you don’t already work with.

The event is free to attend. Just leave your details in the comments section.