How to get 20,000 targeted & REAL fans for $500 (+ shipping) :D

In my whatever years of web surfing, I’ve only gotten the gag-reflex twice. The first time, was when an old Navy buddy suggested I look up a website called “2 girls 1 cup” (please don’t do it)…  And the second time, was when coming across this for the first time:

As someone who makes his living online -it embarrasses me to see crap like this. Companies making profit off of crap -and making MY job that much harder! It’s a pain in the ass trying to explain to clients that “buying” Twitter friends is a waste of time. “But I know someone who did it!” can be so annoying to hear from a potential client. Therefore, I figured I’d blog about it -so that 2 years from now when I’m still sending clients the link to this post -they’ll realize just how far behind they are on this info.

When these so-called “Internet Marketers” and “SEO Experts” with 10, 20, 100,000+ Twitter followers read a Klout score under 40,  only influence a few hundred profiles -you know they’re full of… something. Did those thousands of fans all suddenly… die? Klout allows you to identify the spammers and junk profiles -probably why they get hated on so much.

In comparison to a “Internet Marketer” with 10,000 Twitter fans, my 14 year old daughter who uses Facebook as her primary source of communication -actually influences 10,000 REAL people online, more than double the influence of many top celebrities… what does that tell you?

HOW TO GET 20,000 REAL, TARGETED, LOYAL FANS FOR $500 (+SHIPPING)

Enough about Klout, the rest of this post will explain in detail -how your online brand, whatever it may be -can begin to influence the TARGET market -for cheap! When I say target market -I mean the people online who care about what you have to say. The people who are likely to spread the word about your product or your brand naturally.

For example, If you’re a World Famous DJ trying to engage/increase the size of your core audience, Twitter Followers/Likes etc.  -all you have to do is identify and reward your biggest fans. Let’s do the math on some cheap screen printed shirts. At a dollar per hit, you could have t-shirts printed front and back -one color. Bought in bulk, you can get a decent shirt for $3 or less. That’s about $500 for 100 t-shirts…

With a 100 t-shirts in hand -now all you have to do is identify your biggest fans. Who do YOU influence? Find them and send them a free shirt! I may not have taken the time to accumalate 5,000 Twitter fans of my own -but I DO influence several broadcasters in my niche -some of whom influence thousands of their own followers online. When I receive a +K from strong influencers such as these -says a lot about my work! I want to find the people I influence and tell them “thank you” by giving them something cool –for free! Now, I don’t think I could get Yarrow to wear such a corny shirt, but you get the idea -a famous DJ could easily get their core audience to wear a shirt -and they would wear it often -all the while promoting the artist, a walking, target market billboard.

The average number of Facebook friends for Gen X’ers is now about 200. Therefore, if you find 100 of your strongest fans and reward them with something like a free t-shirt… 100 Fans X 200 (Average Number of Facebook friends) = Now you have the potential to reach 20,000 people along your niche!

How would you engage your target market? BTW, I can get you those prices on shirts!  😉

How Heinz Ketchup got 1 Million FB "Likes" with #QRCodes!

I was sitting at Coco’s restaurant with my daughter for dinner last night. The place was a little busy, so while seated at our table -my daughter noticed the following QR Code on the Heinz Ketchup bottle.

Since we had nothing else to do, I whipped out my iPhone and scanned the QR code on the Ketchup bottle..

Which directed me to the Official Heinz Ketchup Facebook page. Which to my surprise, has accumulated almost a million “Likes”!

With almost a million “Likes” -the Heinz Ketchup Facebook page has created a much stronger engagement than ANY of it’s Ketchup competitors. There are over 7,000 people actively talking about Heinz Ketchup on Facebook!

In comparison, Heinz’ competition has a whopping 4 people talking about them on Facebook. Heinz is killing it on social media strategy with targeted QR Codes! 🙂

 

Social Loyalty: The missing ingredient to @BestBuy's success

Today I drove by a busy retail area of Manhattan Beach, CA. As I entered the shopping area, I noticed the largest store with the prime location -a Borders book store that was recently closed. This was disappointing to see, as I always enjoyed going to these large book stores and often spent hours inside them browsing through the aisles. In the blogospheres, similiarly marketed Barnes and Noble stores don’t seem to be faring any better than Borders -the rapid adoption of the iPad and tough competition from sites like Amazon -seem to have been more than Borders could handle.

I parked my vehicle in the abundant spaces in front of Borders and walked a few stores over to the Best Buy, luckily they’re still in business. I had read several online articles regarding BestBuy’s increasing struggles as well (with competitors like Amazon kicking ass online), so with this visit I was wondering if Best Buy is doing anything different -as to not suffer the same fate as Borders book store did next door to them.

At the front entrance I noticed a big sign “Gaming Trade-in Available”. I gruntled at the sight of this ad, disliking it and whomever thought of this ridiculous idea up in the Best Buy corporate headquarters… How is this going to create loyal Best-Buy customers? How is this going to create a renewed growth and interest in the Best-Buy brand? And, is Best-Buy aware that there are already thousands of smaller niche game shops around the country that will always do a better job at gaming trade-ins?

As I entered the Best Buy I was noticing how much it looks like any other big box store inside, this could easily be a Costco or Wal-Mart. There is nothing unique about a Best-Buy was my immediate impression. If I was the bozo in charge of creating Best-Buy advertisements, I would create social loyalty through geo-location social mobile apps -such as Foursquare and recently purchased by Facebook, Gowalla (congrats Andy!). With huge signs at the entrance allowing Best Buy customers to check-in, alerting their social graphs wherever they may be (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).

I walked on over to the home theatre area, noticing the holiday signs. There were several of these large holiday signs throughout the store, but they were so boring I thought hardly worth reading. Wouldn’t it be much cooler if the ads sparked the customer’s curiosity? An ad that would allow the customer to engage with the Best-Buy brand? With a QR Code, Best-Buy could easily accomplish that.  😉

So, with all these thoughts racing through my head on how to save Best-Buy from suffering the same collapse as Borders’ book stores, I decided to do Best-Buy a favor and check-in on Foursquare. I was going to share my check-in on Facebook to notify my social graph. Maybe that post would be enough to remind my friends of their own need to complete a holiday purchase I thought. I pulled out my phone to open the Foursquare app, but before doing so, I knew I was going to need a wifi connection. Standing inside the largest electronics store in the United States -I figured I would easily be able to login to Best Buy’s free customer wifi… haha, yeah right!

Upon searching the available wifi networks inside Best-Buy, I did not see anything resembling a Best-Buy service. I showed my phone screen to a Best-Buy clerk and said “Excuse me, which network do I select as a Best-Buy customer for the free wifi”. The clerk looked confused and walked me over to another employee who was busy on the phone. When finally asked, the second employee annoyingly said “It’s called Best-Buy”, but before I could finish responding that there was no “Best-Buy” on the wifi list he quickly said “it goes in and out all the time” -as if I didn’t already know that, and basically telling me to stop asking him. “Oh ok, thank you” I responded.

I was a little disappointed with that answer from the first two employees I asked, and I really wanted to check-in with a wifi service rather than paying for this check-in by using my 3G service. Also, there are a plethora of iPod touch users out there -who could also take advantage of check-in apps, but do not have the option of using a 3G network -Best Buy is missing out on those check-ins as well.  I walked on over to the Geek Squad desk to inquire further about the wifi situation. While standing in line, I couldn’t help but notice the Geek Squad sign that said “Check in” -at which point I was thinking I should make a blog post of these thoughts.

In the five minutes I waited in line to Check-in, I could have actually checked in!

When it was my turn to be helped, I asked the customer service employee about the wifi situation, to which I was told “we have a wifi but it’s password protected”. I asked “so there isn’t a wifi connection for customers to use and test out wifi electronic devices?” to which I was replied “no, we don’t have customer wifi here, when we did, customers would try to hack our servers and would also look up porn”. I was a little shocked by that answer, lol, and said “ok, thank you -no worries” before I started to leave.

As I began to exit, I couldn’t help but think of the missed opportunities for Best Buy here. What a great area to remind customers of the ability to check-in and save on their purchase -at the same time creating Best-Buy brand awareness all across Facebook walls across the country, unfortunately without internet access -the chances of Best Buy customers performing this action is very small.

I had written about Best Buy’s potential ability to take advantage of check-in services and geo-location in the past. This is a new marketing technique that Best-Buy could use to it’s advantage, and hopefully they figure it out before it’s too late. Amazon, as great as a job they are doing online, do not have the ability to create geo-location campaigns and share their branding through mobile phone check-ins. Amazon does not have a physical store location in every major city for their customers to mobile check-in, like Best-Buy does.

As I’m making my last turn out the exit path of a purchasing shopper -couldn’t help but think what a great place to make the final reminder. Why is capturing “Likes” and “Follows” important? Nielsen calls them “earned media impressions”. Being that it was the evening of December 5th when I visited this store, in the prime of holiday shopping season (and not a single shopper in line to purchase) -I really think Best-Buy should pay attention to social loyalty marketing.

Walking out of Best Buy 15 minutes later with no purchases in hand, I decided to grab a coffee before heading home to gather my thoughts for this blog post. Still annoyed that the country’s largest electronics retailer didn’t offer wifi to check-in, I decided to reward Starbucks for doing it right, starting with this picture I took through my phone.

Needing to tap into a wifi source to perform this check-in, I selected the “attwifi” network -which is what Starbucks normally names their networks and I know this from prior uses. However, I think it would be smarter to call these networks “ATTStarbucksWIFI” to be easily identified as Starbucks’s wifi to new customers that may not be aware.

This reminded me of a great guerilla marketing video I wanted to share along this same exact subject!  🙂

With my free customer wifi finally engaged at Starbucks, I was able to open my Foursquare app and quickly find the Starbucks location to check-into.

In addition to selecting the Facebook and Twitter share option, I also decided to upload the photo I took.

In the text description I included the #wifi and #coffee hashtag links, allowing the post further virability on the Twitter copy of this post.

Sharing the Starbucks check-in on Facebook allows the post to be seen on my profile wall, and also appears on the newsfeed section of Facebook. The Facebook post includes “Like” and “Comment” links, which allow any of my 400+ social graph friends to engage with this post.

Foursquare’s successful implementation of game mechanics onto their app rewards me with points and status. If Starbucks wanted to take it to the next level, they could easily create their own app for customers to check-in and earn rewards instantly -as Carl’s Jr. has done for their own customers in line with their rewards app.

With check-in complete and grande (err medium size) coffee in hand, I drove home to begin on this post… What are your thoughts on geo-location apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla, how would you use them to create social loyalty to your brand or business? Thanks for reading!!!  😀

How @Pandora_Radio lost my Social #Loyalty to @YouTube and @Spotify

Amazing, this is my 3rd post on Pandora Radio. I thought I was done with Pandora as far as them reaching out to me. Soon after my posts on Pandora, they followed me on Twitter -but didn’t respond to my direct messages or try to contact me. Instead, a few days later Pandora became more social, which I was very excited about and blogged about as well.

However, within a few days of my excitement to Pandora’s new social sharing features -I received a familiar notice on my Pandora account -I had gone over my 40 hours of free music allotment for the month of July. Oh no! What a shame, because it was only July 17!  😦

At first, I was unhappy about the situation. I was just starting to like Pandora’s new share buttons -and had recently shared many of the songs from Pandora to my Facebook wall. In other words, I was giving Pandora free traffic and advertising to my real friends, any of which could have clicked on those links to become new Pandora users themselves. In any other business I would get a commission for this right? Instead Pandora wants to charge ME??? No way, Homie don’t play dat!  😉

It’s not that I’m cheap and don’t want to spend the $0.99 to upgrade my Pandora account. I just don’t like being told to pay for a service that I’m accustomed to receiving for free -especially when I am the one recommending Pandora to my friends. IF Pandora had ALL of the features I would want in a music streaming service -then I may consider paying, but even then it would be tough. Pandora should be PAYING ME to listen to them, not the other way around -with a gamified platform Pandora could actually accomplish that. However, Pandora sticking up a paywall after 40 hours of free music- feels like they’re giving me the Buddhist Palm Technique at 5:57! lol  😉

So, what to do? Surrenderrrrrr??? Give in to Pandora’s mandate -or play around on the free internets? Me thinks I go play on the free internets Pandora -hopefully I can find some free music… Let’s see, first stop is a free YouTube playlist… Which means hours of FREE continuous music listening -to a wider variety of music than the Pandora selection –and NO commercials! w00t w00t! 😀

Because my YouTube activity is fed and linked to my free Empire Avenue account -that’s a much smarter decision for me to spend my online music listening hours with anyway! Everything I do on YouTube is adding to my social curation and value on sites such as Empire -that have applied the game mechanics I preach about.

And since I’m on Pandora “time-out” for the rest of July, I’ve been keeping an eye out for free music services that can fully deliver the social and game mechanics I am looking for in a music service, one that caught my attention recently was a friend’s Facebook newsfeed suggestion of Spotify.

Spotify is a new way to listen to music, for free, check out their quick and catchy intro video:

The only problem was, Spotify is new, so you needed an invite for the free account. Shortly after my first introduction to Spotify, I noticed another Facebook wall post regarding Spotify from top blogger, Justin Geronimo. Now I was really curious about Spotify!  😀

Luckily for me, I happened to be playing on Klout today, and noticed that I was selected to become a Spotify Ambassador.  🙂

I quickly signed up, and before I knew it -was in the Spotify onboarding process, where I was notified about Spotify services available on my mobile phone.

Spotify does a great job of making you feel special from the start, making sure to remind me that I am one of the platform’s newest users -and allowing me the ability to tweet and share that exclusivity to my social sphere.  😀

The Spotify download and platform installed very fast, within a few seconds and I was in. And the first thing I noticed? The big Facebook connect button!  😀

Can you say “awesome”?  😉

Once quickly Facebook connected, I can view my Facebook friend’s Spotify profiles, which include info I may be interested in -like their “Top Artists” and “Top Tracks”. I can subscribe to their playlists as well.

And if I find something I want to share, I can do so easily on multiple platforms. As you can see, Spotify encourages you to share not only on the big networks like Facebook and Twitter –but Spotify itself (very smart on their part)!

Those share features for Spotify are great use of Lead Generation mechanics. You can see that my Spotify share includes a link…

Which redirects you back to a Spotify landing page. New users are engaged at this point to become members and further share the Spotify branding on their own social networks.

I think Spotify does a better job of encouraging me to upgrade my account. I will always have my free account which is great, but I can upgrade for additional benefits and features.

Come August 1st when I’m no longer on Pandora’s “time-out” -I may decide not to come back after all, not unless they’ve done something to address my concerns. Is it over for Pandora? Quite possibly, I would say, with the current scenario. However, if Pandora were to strike back with a fully gamified and social sharing platform… 

Thank you for your thoughts, I would love to hear some of your comments and feedback below, don’t be shy!  😉

How @EmpireAve Syncs Their Economy w @Microsoft's #XBOX 360

Notice anything different on Empire Avenue today? Upon logging into your profile, you should notice a pop-up announcing Empire Avenue’s Custom Luxury Items and Achievements. However, this isn’t another Empire Avenue badge, this time -Empire Avenue is working with XBOX 360.

To unlock the badge, however…

… you are required to purchase the Xbox 360 virtual Luxury Item, which will cost you 14,600e.

Don’t have enough eaves for that? Well you can whoop out the credit card. 😛

Empire Avenue is being really smart. With the virtual economy they have created they can go to any third party vendor like XBOX 360 and continue building these partnerships -the sky is the limit for them.

Also, they continue to validate themselves as a social network. To get the actual achievement, not only do you have to buy the luxury item, you also have to tweet the code, either on your linked Twitter page, your linked Facebook page, or directly from your Empire Profile Status update.

Thank you for reading. Please post your comments below, would love to hear from you!

Why I Won't #FollowUBack on #FollowFridays #FF or #TGIF ;-)

My name is not Brittney Spears. I am no Lady Gaga. I don’t need thousands of followers to get my message out. As I have clearly shown in my previous posts -you can catch the attention of just about anybody you want on Twitter -without accumulating a million followers of your own. Do you think the protesters in Egpyt had wasted their time building followers to get their message out? Of course not, those messages spread fast -simply because they were valuable and important.

I see a lot of fake celebrities out there, wannabee posers and imposters, claiming to be experts because they have thousands and thousands of followers on Twitter. It doesn’t work that way. Most of these people have cheated their ways to those numbers using platforms such as Twiends.com etc. While Twiends.com is a legit platform that has great uses, it is unfortunate that many would abuse it to buy thousands of followers that really aren’t interested in these experts to begin with, they’re mainly interested in the virtual currency they receive for becoming friends through the use of the platform. These impostors will later turn around with thousands of followers on their social media profiles and preach their fake knowledge and products to the masses.

Your social media microphone is not meant to be used for blindly screaming at the masses, and it is not intended to be one-way communication. If you are using it carelessly simply to promote your product or junk without listening to the community -your accounts will never grow. When you put out nothing but spam and junk -that’s all you’re going to receive from your social media efforts.

However, when you use social media for good, and use it to promote your friends of similiar interest, and offer links of value for all to benefit from -that’s when you start to see amazing results from your social media. And don’t worry, if you have a good product to sell your real friends will always be there for you. 

The good news is, the people that use these methods to gain quick followers are linking to nothing but a bunch of spammers. I have local accounts with just a few hundred followers on Facebook -that attain thousands of page view impressions over any Facebook accounts I’ve built using platforms such as Twiends.com.

The bad news is, many folks new to social media or not understanding what social media is all about -may come across these imposters and fakers and give them their money. It’s already hard enough for many people to understand social media as-is -but when these folks pay real money to grow their accounts fraudulently, filling them up with spammers, and getting lousy results from their social media in the process -only adds to the confusion about what social media platforms are for.

So my advice in growing your social media accounts is to stick to the people that are actually interested in what you have to say. If you’re one of those fake celebrities or social media “experts” with a jillion followers -you may want to clean up your accounts -it’s very obvious and ugly. I know very well that you do not have the time to monitor the tweets from over 10,000 people, and if you did your eyeballs would soon be in a comatose. When you follow me and you are showing me those types of actions -it tells me that you will never have the time to listen to me, so please, tell me -why should I follow you back if you have zero interest in what I have to say?

To clean up your accounts quickly of all those spammers, I would recommend the Tweepi.com platform.

Tweepi.com allows you to view your follower’s Klout scores in large numbers, and analytics like when was the last time your followers tweeted. You can go through all your followers relatively quickly and delete inactive accounts. Above, you can see that I had been initially following some folks that I thought were targeted based on their monickers, however -you can see that these industry mavens and experts haven’t used the Twitter platform in many cases –months! What kind of an expert is that? If they are too busy to add value to their social audiences -you should save that “follow” for someone else.  😉

Nothing good ever happens when the blind follows the blind in masses. If you had social media back then -what would you have rated this scenario?

How To Add #Gamification Badges Points to Your WordPress Blog

Sweet! See that cool minibar across the bottom of this blog?

Yes, you are reading a post from a fully gamified blog! In it’s current stages, I haven’t had a chance to customize it much from the default settings, but I can already tell you that the back end platform for this minibar is pretty awesome!  😀

Visitors to my blog now have the ability to Facebook connect. And when they do so, they have the ability to check-in, share, earn badges, experience points -and make it to my site’s leaderboard status. For example, if you share through this application -you will earn the “Way to go!” badge -and have the ability to share or tweet that.

If shared on facebook for example, that share will show on my wall with links directing folks back to my blog, also giving my posts further chance to spread viral.

And if anyone else checks-in to my blog and shares -those posts have the ability to be picked up in the “Newsfeed” Section of Facebook as well. Where as much as all the buzz about Google+ is going on lately -Facebook still has a pretty loyal 500+ million web surfing eyeballs scrolling through this area of the internets.  😉

Now, I don’t have to guess as to who engages with my site the best, I have a leaderboard that tells me!  🙂

HOW TO QUICKLY GAMIFY YOUR WORDPRESS BLOG!

The following is a step by step guide to quickly gamify YOUR WordPress blog with the BigDoor mini-bar application. This is a dummies-type guide -so ANYONE can do this!  🙂

Step 1. Go to http://publisher.bigdoor.com/signup and fill in what you see. Then click on “Sign Up”.

Step 2. Fill out the lawyer stuff. If you’re adding gamification to your personal blog, you’re probably cool. If you are a big company that needs to gamify, please read on -however, you probably want to give the pros at BigDoor a call to help you do it right from day 1. No need for you to try and re-invent the egg here…   😉

Step 3. Confirm Activation email from BigDoor & prove you are not a silly bot.

Check your mail and click on the link.

You will be directed to an “Account activated” page –congrats! You’re in Neo!

Step 4. Configure Your New Account. Welcome to BigDoor, you have some options now. The Fast & Easy method to gamify your site is with the Widgets option. 

Type in the site you would like to gamify to begin.

BigDoor will review your site and let you configure your mini-bar in their easy web Studio, takes a few seconds. But this couldn’t be any easier to review -and then configure to your liking. There is also an “Edit Settings” tab you can see on the right there.

That edit button will open up the “Badges module”, allowing some really cool customization for different types of activity on your site.

You can edit, upload, and create new badges here.

Step 5. Add The BigDoor Minibar Code to your Site or Blog to go LIVE! Just copy and paste this script into your site before the </body> tag.

FOR WORDPRESS BLOGS

To add your BigDoor minibar code to your self-hosted WordPress site, go to the editor tab on your menu and select the Header template. Paste your minibar code before the </body> tag. (which is normally about half way down the scroll bar).

 

*IMPORTANT TROUBLESHOOTING INFO

If your blog already has a lot of plugins installed, there is a chance they may conflict with your minibar code. If for some reason you cannot see the minibar live on your site after installing the code -try deactivating some of your plugins. Particularly any Facebook or Twitter share plugins. BigDoor will stay updated to work with the best plugins, but if you have an old one that is outdated is when you stand the chance of these type of errors.

Thank you for reading, hope you found this info useful. I look forward to your feedback and any of your comments!

How @BestBuy can #BitchSlap @WalMart & put @Amazon in price check w #Gamification

January 2002. I was living in Salt Lake City going to college under the Navy’s ROTC program. I was 26 years old, not your average ROTC student. I was a ‘prior enlisted’ -someone who had been to the fleet out of high school and made enough a name for themselves that they earned the right to go to college. And I have to admit, I was quite the badass in the military as an enlisted. I can recall that by the time I had served my first 3 years, I had accomplished more than most enlisted sailors do in a 20 year career span.

So, 2002, I was attending Westminster College in Salt Lake City on this scholarship, with the original intentions of going back to the military afterwards. There would have been some nice perks to that return. I would have returned and been saluted as an officer, but even more so -my uniform as an officer would bear the ‘Good Conduct’ medal -which only enlisted sailors were awarded -recognizable immediately by any enlisted sailor who salutes you. Also, I was qualified as an Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist -on one of the newest and baddest ships in the world -and wore the Navy ESWS pin on my uniform because of that -meaning I was a pro in ALL my ship’s systems and ratings -not just my own, and at the time was the youngest sailor on my ship (and one of about 5 on the entire West Coast) to have earned this qualification at the young rank of 3rd class Petty Officer. Going back to active duty would have made me a true role model for the enlisted sailors waiting for me -and I’m sure I would have done great things.

However, the Navy made a few mistakes in their ROTC system for outstanding fleet returnees like myself. They allowed their top sailors and performers a chance at civilian life. Not only that, but they mixed in experienced leaders like myself with 19-21 year old kids who had never stepped foot on a military vessel before -and told these same kids that they had SouthPark Cartman cartoon-like ‘rank’ and ‘authority’ over their ROTC divisions. So, when a rusty and experienced pro like myself was a 26 year old freshman in college -I had to take orders from a senior ‘midshipman’ who was 5-8 years younger than me -and didn’t have a clue! I had literally flushed more seawater down the commode than these midshipman had ever seen.

The Navy tried to make up for this crappy situation with a scholarship. And I was able to use my GI Bill and College Fund I had invested in while on active duty -during these college years. But, the thing is, even with a tax-free GI Bill payment and the Navy’s college fund etc. -I was still making more money working part-time 3-4 days a week at the local Comp USA computer store. I was addicted to electronics having served 5 years on the highest-tech ship in the world. In fact, most of my ROTC friends had part-time sales jobs in electronics retail, I remember a handful of my friends were killing it at the local Circuit City with commissions.

BEST-BUY GONE AND DONE TOOK MY JOB!

Then the zombie-programmed non-commision Best-Buy blue shirts started taking over. I was still working at Comp USA in sales when the Best-Buy’s in Salt Lake City were announced. Shortly afterward, our commission structure at CompUSA disappeared. I stayed around for a couple weeks, but when I saw my next check -it was “see you later” CompUSA! And Best Buy shortly after swallowed them and Circuit City up -and spat out their carcasses to be leased out once a year for selling overpriced cheap China Halloween plastics.

And what can I say, when I first walked into a Best-Buy I thought it was pretty cool. Lots of eye candy for geeks. The internet was still young back then, so Best-Buy took advantage. Instead of a sales commission team -they hired a low hourly non-commission team to man the floor. With their Big-box Wal-Mart methods and low pricing, Best-Buy was able to win that first battle -wiping out most of their competition other than Wal-Mart’s electronics department -which use to be pretty small.

WALMART SAYS I WANT SOME OF THOSE HDTV SALES TOO

Have you seen the electronics department at the “super-size-me” Wal-Mart’s lately? They’ve all expanded since and are taking advantage of the long gone Circuit City’s and CompUSA’s. And now, you’re hearing that the almighty Best Buy is starting to suffer with the rising tide of competitors like Amazon.com and beyond. I can now go to my local Best-Buy to scan all the things I want with my phone –and instantly buy them for less and with free shipping having them sent to my house. Since I gave up my car almost 2 years ago to reduce my carbon footprint –this is an ideal way for someone like me to shop for a new television. And this is an example, I don’t even want one of those big t.v.’s…

WALMART IS CURRENTLY DOING A BETTER JOB ONLINE

I find it a shame that Wal-Mart -a big box company that offers a wide-variety of everything -is doing a better job online than a company who’s focus is supposed to be tech, gadgets, tv’s, computers, etc.

So here’s how Best Buy is doing it. On the Best Buy site, if you go to the ‘Shops & Deals’ Tab -you can select from about 9 items in the drop down -one of which is ‘Featured Offers’.

After about 5 or more clicks from the home page, I found a digital camera on sale on the Best Buy website. They offer a $30 discount on this item, free shipping, customer ratings to review, and they seem social in that I have the ability to tweet and share this on Facebook. That’s cool and all… if I had a reason to share this on Facebook and Twitter -I’m not just going to share this for the sake of sharing it just yet -that would be so dummmmb! 😉

And what about Walmart? How do they promote their featured items? Well, very similar to Best Buy’s setup -Walmart has a ‘Value of the Day’ tab.

However, instead of finding a special item 5 clicks later -on Walmart’s site I instantly see a great deal and price, with a strong call to action and urgency. It’s very clean and everything seems to fit smoothly, unlike Best Buy’s site.

And when I click on that special, Walmart also has FREE SHIPPING, and customer ratings, and the ability to share and tweet –which I still am not going to do -especially for Walmart!!! I’m not about to give Walmart of all companies -free advertising to all of my friends. HOWEVER, do you see the difference? Walmart included a Facebook “Like” button, which Best Buy did not. As you can see, 277 have Facebook Liked this offer -it’s a lot easier to “Like” something than it is to share it for some reason, which has given this page the additional chance to go viral when otherwise it couldn’t. I guarantee you the number of Facebook “shares” is tremendously lower than “Likes” for this page. Best Buy isn’t getting ANY of this.  😛

So, based on their respective target audiences and websites. It would seem that Walmart has the upper hand. It would seem that slowly but surely the bigger box giant will swallow up the big-box electronics-focused giant. How can Best Buy #win?

SO HOW CAN BEST BUY #WIN, KICK WAL-MART TO THE CURB, AND IMPROVE ONLINE SALES TO COMPETE WITH AMAZON?

Have you read any of my previous blog posts? Well, then you already know what I’m going to say the answer to that is… GAMIFICATION.

Yes folks, Gamification can SAVE Best-Buy from their current situation, would be an advantage to them over Wal-Mart, and could even put Amazon’s bitch-azz in in check (just kidding Amazon I ❤ U even tho it’s been a super-pain to convert my first marketing guide in PDF to your eBook format).

This is just a basic basic example of applied game mechanics to get your minds going, but through the use of a FREE Big Door Mini-Bar -Best Buy could reward users of their website with badges and points for things like leaving reviews, checking into the site, sharing on their social networks etc. -even more so, Best Buy could be tying affiliate links into those user shares -so that if I post a Best Buy item on my Facebook wall for example, and somebody buys it from that same link wherever it lands in cyberspace -I can be properly rewarded for that sale.

By gamifying -Best Buy would be giving their mavens and loyal shoppers a reason to promote socially that they previously didn’t have. The points earned for sharing create a virtual economy and even STRONGER loyalty to the Best Buy brand. That Sony HDTV is on Sale at BOTH Walmart and Best Buy -for about the same price. Hmm… they BOTH have free shipping. But wait a minute! All the feedback and reviews I uploaded on BestBuy.com over the past year have totalled more than 5,000 points to date -earning me the ‘TECH REVIEW GURU” badge on their newly gamified system. And it is well known that ALL holders of this coveted Best Buy badge receive an additional 10% OFF on EVERY purchase -in addition to existing sales. Where am I going to buy this TV now??? BEST BUY of course!!!

Do you see where I’m going with this? All of a sudden, with a gamified platform Best Buy could create tremendous loyalty amongst it’s customers. And what about Walmart? Can they gamify? Yes they can, but who’s going to be the first one to start posting Walmart badges on their Facebook walls etc? Not me, I made a vow not to support them over a year ago, promoting Walmart to earn points is not something I would be proud of, -at least not until Walmart stops selling all the crap I’m personally against -which is why I think Best Buy can focus on this niche and win -for them, gamifying should be right up their alley and in keeping with their niche (HDTV’s, phones, gadgets, computers, etc.).

AND DON’T FORGET ABOUT AMAZON

So what about Amazon? Their shopping platform is even better than Walmart’s, has better reviews and user engagement. They also offer free shipping. They even have their own Amazon Price Check App, which allows you to scan or say anything to search for a better price on Amazon. They could also gamify their site and be successful with it and create virtual economies and stronger loyalties.

It would seem as if Amazon is starting to get the upper hand in this scenario. Low overhead, less maintenance, extremely competitive -and can offer the same products as the big box electronics stores now can. So what can Best Buy do to compete with Amazon before it’s too late? They need to start taking advantage of those extra expenses they are paying to have physical stores all around the country. For Best Buy…

LOCATIONS LOCATIONS LOCATIONS = MORE CHECK-INS AND CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Best Buy needs to pay attention to what they DO have that Amazon.com will never be able to compete with. Stores… hundreds of them all over the country -in comparison to one competitor.

More stores equals more physical locations that their loyal customers could be checking in and earning points for doing so. Points that would add to their existing Best Buy Loyalty points. When customers start performing these check-ins at store locations and sharing on millions of personal Facebook walls -Best Buy would get a dramatic increase in traffic, both online and in-store -dwarfing the Facebook and Twitter impressions created by Amazon users.

Hey Barnes and Noble, you seem to be suffering from the same-type symptoms as Best Buy –pay attention to my blog posts!!!  😉

I guess in the same way a Lakers fan will root for Dallas when they get their asses kicked on the way to the finals -I’m rooting for Best Buy -who took out my old college part-time job back in the day.

And Rest in Peace Circuit City!!!

#Gamification: How @Pandora_Radio can create loyalty amongst it's users

**This post was originally titled ‘I ❤ U @Pandora_Radio -but you better #Gamify quick!’ -but the “<” was creating problems on some sites -so I’ve adjusted.  😉

How many  fans out there? I was an early adopter of Pandora myself back in the day, before iPads and iPhones (makes it sound like a long time ago, huh? lol). However, as cool as Pandora was -it wasn’t the only place I went to online. I would still stream music from various other sites and radio stations about equally as Pandora.

Then one day while streaming Pandora on my desktop I received a sudden message from Pandora.com. I had gone over my monthly allotment in free music streaming. In order to continue listening to music selected by (no matter how they try to promote their algorithm) Pandora -I had to cough up some of my real cash. You wan’t to charge me for something I’ve expected for free since day one? Nope, not gonna happen, sorry. Pandora web developers hadn’t read “Drive” by Daniel Pink yet…  😦

And that’s too bad, because Pandora did not hear back from me for a very long time after that, not until my first iPhone 3GS did I remember the old streaming algorithm radio station and wondered if they had an app. With the launch of the iPhone 4, which allowed users to stream Pandora while running multiple apps -the user usage for Pandora took off overnight -and Pandora was back in the spot light!  😀

Unfortunately, instead of focusing on the auto industry -Pandora should be paying attention to what made them in the first place. Pandora, I initially liked you because you suggested music that you thought I would like based on my input –because back then my friends weren’t all connected this well and sharing socially. However, you should realize that no matter how good your music suggestions are -music suggestions from my REAL friends will always get a better response from me.

Pandora devs -heard of Facebook and Twitter yet? Of course you have -you have your own Twitter page with 40K+ followers -but why don’t you allow those same followers and millions more to share your own site on these great platforms? Do you really think your algorithm is cooler than the voices of  500+ million?

And while your algorithm is pretty awesome -that’s not enough, and that fact has lost it’s marketing buzz a long time ago. Pandora, you simply never created any loyalty from me -you always thought you were cooler than I was. But there are too many choices out there for me to pick from nowadays. Even more so, more and more folks out there are becoming aware that their time, opinions, and everything they do online is valuable -even listening to music. Why should I open my ears to you Pandora -when I know I can listen to other sites out there that will reward me for my time in doing the exact same?

So, what’s the answer for Pandora? How can they increase user loyalty in today’s ever expanding digital universe and choices so that their stock investors aren’t so worried? How can they keep me coming back and once again looking at their home page again? (which I hadn’t done since buying an iPhone!!!) Easy… with the right mixture of gamification….  😀

By rewarding Pandora mavens and loyal brand followers -Pandora can reap the benefits of social media organic mentions on Facebook newsfeeds and more. Through a cool mix of badges, points, and rewards -Pandora could gamify their site to allow users more social music interactivity with friends.

Furthermore, by rewarding Pandora users with points for their sharing and opinions -Pandora would essentialy be creating a virtual currency -which through an API could be tied to larger synchs and retailers. All of a sudden, Pandora would have incredible leverage with their advertisers and negotiations. What if with your Pandora experience points -you could redeem them for real .mp3 downloads? What if with sufficient Pandora user points -Pandora suprised those same mavens with concerts and tickets? The opportunities are endless, but they better hurry -their “non-IPO’ing” (and probably more focused) competition is already doing it!  😀

#Gamification: The ONLY Fair Option for Your Company Sales Team

I was recently blessed with a new business to work with. Interpret  is a leading entertainment, media and technology measurement and market research firm with headquarters located in Santa M0nica, CA. 🙂

In assisting with Interpret’s social media presence, I’m taking my usual steps. However, one of the obvious reasons for even spending effort on Social Loyalty is profits. Yes, there will be plenty of exposure and branding, engagement, etc. -but at the end of the day, we want to see some awesome leads generated -that turn into additional business and real $$$ for the company.

Well, Interpret has 90+ employees. The company hasn’t had to focus on their social media, but as more and more business is being conducted online -it is important to keep up with their online efforts. And if the company Social Media presence is the Lead-Generation tool that it’s supposed to become -then how can the company share that presence fairly amongst all it’s sales staff? Should one control the social media accounts and all passwords to the company blog –dividing leads as they see fit? I’ve worked on sales teams like this before, it’s not cool.  😦

What happens when the BIG lead comes in through social media? You know, the one that can make headlines, lead to early retirements, etc. Who on your sales team gets that lead in this method? If you’re on the sales team this doesn’t seem very fair does it? It doesn’t really make you want to share any of your company’s website amongst your peers. What if you’re new at the company? I wouldn’t want to share in this method either. I have worked hard for my social network -they are my capital R-E-A-L friends that I have worked hard to develop R-E-A-L relationships with throughout my entire life. If I’m going to expose them to my company product in an effort that they or any of their friends seeing my ad become clients, and bring my company $$$ -I want to make sure I’m given credit for that and properly compensated.

Does any of that sound familiar in your situation? Even prior to social media this seems to have always been an issue. What’s the answer? Well, I think it’s obvious that Gamification is the answer.

As mentioned in my previous post, Gamification could give Netflix the boost it needs so that their competition never catches up. Currently, a lot of Netflix’s competition has a chance. As also mentioned in my last post, the BigDoor “Mini-Bar” is a free Gamification tool that you can install on your company’s website -and would rest across the bottom of each of your company’s website pages.

The mini-bar allows anyone to easily login with Facebook. Through points or badges, you can reward your sales staff for checking-into or sharing any of the company pages or blog articles. You would have to be careful when designing the gamification, but could easily accomplish this in a manner that doesn’t turn the staff off by playing. I would highly recommend your company devs and social media gurus to read “Drive” by Daniel Pink and several others before designing any rewards.

Now, before your brain starts to wander and think if this is worth it for YOUR company (you don’t want to add points or badges/games), keep in mind, that NOW your company has the ability to properly reward the originating sharer with their rightly deserved commission for finding the social lead. And you don’t have to be so focused on the game aspect. Through a BigDoor gamified platform, now, your social media manager would have the ability to go to John Doe and say “John, I’ve notified the senior management that the company blog post you shared has received over 1000 views –just from your link, great job! ” (“And we’re taking you to lunch!”) 😉

Through a gamified platform like the BigDoor mini-bar, which has affiliate tracking -all of a sudden, the company knows exactly who in their staff shared what -and who responded to it from where. So, if the big client responds to an ad shared on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eMail, or whatever method the member of the sales team originally posted from –no matter how many people later RT or continue to share that across the internets -the ad will always be tied to the originating affiliate link poster’s profile -giving that specific sales team member credit for the lead. It was through that persons social network that the lead came from -so there should be NO argument from anyone else as to who gets the credit or commission.

Gamification will take away blame, confusion, and anger over the treatment of your company’s web leads. Instead of anger that another sales team member received a strong web lead as a “gift” from their manager, or because they were ranking in seniority or other reasons -they will be happy that their sales team member earned extra pay from their additional social media efforts. Gamification will then also incentivize the rest of your sales team members to start working on their own social networks to promote with. No more arguments -just a bunch of focused team members!  😉

And what is the end result? Now you have all of your employees -however many it may be –all with their own megaphones and engaging with their social spheres/ target market -on behalf of their company –sweeeet! It’s a win-win-win situation -if that employee ever leaves they’ll always regard this company as the reason they started working on their own social graphs (which always belong to them) -and because of that will surely have nothing but good things to say about the co. even after departure.  🙂

Comments, feedback, suggestions, please share, Retweet, hit the LinkedIn button y’all! 😀