A collection of social media and tech stories related to Foursquare (which has raised $41 million), Facebook Home (which is now available on certain Androids), Apple's iPhone (the smartphone of choice for teens), Vine (web embedding now available), mobile apps (downloads on the rise) and Twitter (music service acquisition)...
Though I’m nowhere near the level of intensity packed into one episode of TLC’s Extreme Couponing, I do consider myself an on-the-rise frugalista who knows that forking over full-price for everything was so five years ago. Clearly, I’m not the only one: Valassis released a stat earlier this year claiming shoppers saved $3.7 billion using coupons in 2010. That’s a lot of clipping. Or was it? The social media geek in me has to wonder: How much of those banked bucks were thanks to Facebook and its social-platform counterparts? I ask because these days, all of my money-saving or freebie-amassing has to do with logging on somewhere. With that, I give you my top five ways to save moolah using social media, both from a consumer perspective and “insider” view.
Sometimes it can be difficult to distinguish between what is truly innovative versus what is a bold marketing spin, particularly when one of the world’s best marketers, American Express, is involved. Is there substance behind The Social Currency claims?
It’s not every day you get to see a brand in the buff. Media Logic pulls back the curtain back on FYEGUY, its ongoing social media marketing effort on behalf of FYE, the largest specialty digital entertainment retailer in the United States.
All combined, the Jackass films produced by Johnny Knoxville and the gang have grossed more than $300 million worldwide. So with Jackass 3D (the most successful of the three pics) prepping for release on Blu-ray and DVD, Paramount and FYE turned to Media Logic to help them make a big, muddy, disgusting splash.
Leveraging exclusive content from the DVD (hosted on FYE’s “fyeguy” Facebook page), contesting and targeted facebook advertising – as well as fyeguy’s regular twitter and Facebook streams – we helped to build momentum for the release.
Then, when the DVD actually dropped, we followed that up with an additional foursquare promotion that closed the loop – driving customers directly to FYE stores nationwide.
I admit it, I am a smart phone newbie. According to my teenager, my old phone was from somewhere in the Neolithic age – you know 3 taps to get the letter “o” in a text. So I joined the millennium with some trepidation – as I experimented with geo-location applications. My first experience was the new “Facebook Places” mobile application. Similar to Foursquare and Gowalla, users ‘check in’ on their phone when they arrive at a destination to let their friends know where they are, as well as take advantage of special deals the location may be offering. The Gap was one of the first major retailers to experiment with FB Places, offering free jeans to 10,000 customers to check into their store using the app on Nov. 5th. After so much bad press, I was rooting for a win for the beleaguered brand. I like Gap merchandise, and now I was armed with a smart phone, and hey – we all need pants.
Innovative applications for Apple's iPad have got us thinking about how to tap their social marketing potential.
Location-based social networking has gotten a lot of buzz lately, particularly with the recent launch of Facebook Places. These services offer fun and entertainment to users. And with Foursquare alone reporting 2 million users, they offer a lot of potential for marketers...
Back in January, I wrote my first App Spotlight blog post here on Logical Juice, about Foursquare. Since then it has become one of the most popular apps available across all mobile platforms, and is now only days away from hitting the 1 million registered users mark. The popularity of the app gave rise to last week’s first annual Foursquare Day, the first globally recognized grass-roots celebration of the power of social media... And I was lucky enough to have received an invitation to join in the festivities.
At Media Logic, we decided it would be a good idea to begin offering overviews of mobile apps that interest us. These apps may have marketing implications, or they may just be cool, fun apps that grabbed our attention. For our first app review, we’ll be talking about Foursquare.