(via ibmsocialbiz)
The deal was placed by Tasmanian eco-resort Huon Bush Retreats, offering 50 vouchers as part of its Facebook Offer. It allowed customers to book a room a a rate of $99 per night for three nights, resonating with many Australians as they not only redeemed the voucher, they also shared it with their Facebook friends — reaching over 3 million users in total. Initially, only users that had ‘Liked’ the company’s Facebook Page were able to redeem the Offer, but the social network is automatically primed to share the redemption of such a deal (but also by users who stumble upon it and opt to share it on their News Feed), explaining how it was able to expand to such a wide audience. Facebook’s lack of press around the Offers service appears to have been its downfall, not only for the social network but business owners too — one small Northern Irish hotel recently saw one of its offers claimed over 28,000 times in 24 hours. (via Facebook Offers Sends 3m Users to Deal for 50 Vouchers)
![After this blog post, Anil Dash was “cautiously optimistic” to see Popchips’ response and as per his expectation, Popchips’ founder Keith Belling phoned and offered him “a thoughtful, apologetic response” that indicates Keith’s understanding of what he was trying to say in that blog post.
So, what really happened? Recently, Popchips introduced a series of promotional videos that featured Ashton Kutcher playing different characters. One of the characters featured the celebrity spokesperson of Popchips in brownface and was a parody of an Indian Bollywood producer. Longtime blogger and Internet observer Anil Dash was rightly offended. He complained. Others joined him and within hours, the video was down.
It’s a hackneyed, unfunny advertisement featuring Kutcher in brownface talking about his romantic options, with the entire punchline being that he’s doing it in a fake-Indian outfit and voice. That’s it, there’s seriously no other gag. […] Naturally, a bunch of us (initially mostly Indian diaspora members whom I follow on Twitter) started complaining about it, and a number of like-minded allies also registered their offense as well. I can’t imagine I have to explain this to anyone in 2012, but if you find yourself putting brown makeup on a white person in 2012 so they can do a bad “funny” accent in order to sell potato chips, you are on the wrong course.
In many ways, the entire story explains the power of the Internet to provide instant and loud feedback.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3hl2fZFJZ1r8dxvuo1_250.jpg)
After this blog post, Anil Dash was “cautiously optimistic” to see Popchips’ response and as per his expectation, Popchips’ founder Keith Belling phoned and offered him “a thoughtful, apologetic response” that indicates Keith’s understanding of what he was trying to say in that blog post.
So, what really happened? Recently, Popchips introduced a series of promotional videos that featured Ashton Kutcher playing different characters. One of the characters featured the celebrity spokesperson of Popchips in brownface and was a parody of an Indian Bollywood producer. Longtime blogger and Internet observer Anil Dash was rightly offended. He complained. Others joined him and within hours, the video was down.
It’s a hackneyed, unfunny advertisement featuring Kutcher in brownface talking about his romantic options, with the entire punchline being that he’s doing it in a fake-Indian outfit and voice. That’s it, there’s seriously no other gag. […] Naturally, a bunch of us (initially mostly Indian diaspora members whom I follow on Twitter) started complaining about it, and a number of like-minded allies also registered their offense as well. I can’t imagine I have to explain this to anyone in 2012, but if you find yourself putting brown makeup on a white person in 2012 so they can do a bad “funny” accent in order to sell potato chips, you are on the wrong course.
In many ways, the entire story explains the power of the Internet to provide instant and loud feedback.
Horace Dediu (Creator of asymco.com)
This Quote is from Episode 34 of The Critical Path Podcast.
(via srikard)
BlackBerry is behind ‘Wake up’ campaign »
After much speculation, BlackBerry owner Research In Motion has confirmed that it is behind the ‘Wake up’ campaign, which has seen protest-style experiential activity hit Melbourne and Sydney over the past week.
(via stoweboyd)
Pinterest, the virtual pinboard, is (some believe) Tumblr with some different features. For some, it’s essentially a well designed interface for Amazon wish lists. But brands and companies have already noticed that Pinterest is a hot cake and users are addicted to pinning images on Pinterest »
While research points to a continued decline in interest in social bookmarking sites, the surging popularity of Pinterest would indicate that the urge to share and comment upon other people’s Web discoveries is still alive and well. […] Sites like Delicious, Digg and Reddit, which permit people to save and share Web pages, may have declined in popularity in the face of more functional social networks, but sharing links is one of the most popular social networking activities. Pinterest just adds a visual dimension.
(via theatlantic)
Future non-social marketing activities by social media marketers »
More than 3 in 5 social media marketers plan to increase their search engine optimization (SEO - 68%) and email marketing (61%) efforts in the next year, finds Social Media Examiner in an April 2012 report. These were the top non-social areas for increased activity by social media marketers in 2011 also, though both saw a slight decrease this year. SEO is a more popular area for increased activity among B2B than B2C respondents (67% vs. 62%), while those with 3 or more years of experience (74%) are more likely than the average to indicate increased activities in this channel. By contrast, those new to social media are more likely than experienced social media marketers to say they will increase email marketing this year (64% vs. 57%).
As Internet Marketers and/or Online Business Owners, your first touch (read, first impression) needn’t be as weird as this… When people come across your social media pages, what opinion do you think they formulate about your business? Those initial charmed impressions matter, and even more so with social media – where everything is already really transparent. A quick glance at your Facebook page and people can tell what you’re all about. In the online world, it’s all about your first impression, said Sarah Rapp, community manager at Behance Network.
What’s a Socially Optimized Business? It’s a business alive with energy and big ideas. “It’s collaborative, authentic, customer-centric, trusted, open and real-time.” (Click on image to download the PDF.) via xplane.com
Dharmesh Shah on the blog, onstartups.com, compiled 26 quick tips and real data (from Noam Wasserman’s book The Founder’s Dilemmas) on the ubiquitous founder issues in startups. This is so true for every startups, what he points out, “There are only two times when lack of clarity and understanding between founders becomes a problem for a startup: when things are going well and when things aren’t going well.” Here are 5 top mistakes to avoid »
2) Founders feel like Lewis and Clark: Rough idea of where to go, but don’t see a clear road ahead or upcoming pitfalls.
4) Unfortunate but true: If entrepreneurship is a battle, most casualties stem from friendly fire or self-inflicted wounds.
6) 65% of startups fail due to problems within the management team.
9) Each additional social relationship within the founding team increases the likelihood of co-founder departure by 30%.
13) Founders often fail to realize when they are about to make a fateful decision.
