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I was wondering what would happen in this election race if GM went bankrupt in the next few months. Would this affect the election? My thinking is that the press would blame management and the board, and it would be an embarrassment for American pride. and YES it would affect the election result.

muscle car

Obama might be green and pompous, but he is an outsider. MacCain is probably perceived as more of a Wall St. type, and he inherits Bush’s stink.

This would help Obama a lot in my opinion.

Meanwhile… it is a real possibility.

http://tinyurl.com/59aghl

Its true.

If you are in the game of registering people and collecting their emails, setup a facebook page and direct your traffic to it. No worries, people don’t have to be signed up at facebook to see your page OR TO ENTER THEIR DATA!

I discovered this by accident when I have been unable to get into FB this am. and popped one of my pages.

Then it dawned on me… some folks don’t need a microsite or blog unless they are restricting access pending a registration.

OK so maybe its not for everyone but a useful tool.

In the meetups I host, and “host” is the word I like to use as opposed to run, or operate, there is what I would call “one minute of democracy”.

All the work and preparation to setup the meetup, invite people, pay for it, create content will fall on your shoulders. Don’t expect to share the work – the committee system doesn’t work and that’s not what meetup members want. If you are prepared to be subject-focused and not your product or company focused, the meetup will be a success!

At the end of every meetup, its time for one minute of democracy. Ask group members about how its going? And, when would they like to meet next etc. Get some feedback. That will help you run a better meetup with higher levels of satisfaction. Every member gets to rate the meetup - you let them leave with the feeling that they are getting great value but also participating in the direction of the meetup group. When they get home, an email from meetup is waiting for them in their inbox, asking them to rate the meetup – What’s the last thing they remember?

The time has come for companies to start investing resources in online image insurance.  Companies can’t protect themselves from having an employee who is rude, or a washroom that is dirty.  Its impossible. But they can step in and act quickly to limit damage.  Or they can wait until negative stuff appears in a newspaper, or on TV or on YouTube.

What companies want to prevent is the short shrift - unfair attacks that are allowed to gain strength, or legitimate complaints that fall on deaf ears - a neglected unhappy customer who starts to influence a lot of others, because they aren’t feeling the love.

Instead of spending money on “buzz” marketing where people fake interest in a product or service, or instead of camouflaging a corporate voice in an online network, how about showing pride and stepping into the fray in a transparent fashion.

Here is a link to a flickr album that has been viewed by 379,000 + people.  It has pictures of a dirty Wal-Mart store. Are all Wal-Marts dirty? - no.  Hmmm Its hard to tell from the comments.

http://tinyurl.com/6mutkr

Next post, I’ll start a series on which Social Networks companies should use, why and how.

This film is 25 years old and is a visually stunning experience, that reminds us geniuses, how we are turning a beautiful world into sheer ugliness.

Can you use Facebook pages for target marketing?

Facebook pages have been out for a month or two. I have two fan pages; one for Frank Sinatra and another for Stevie Ray Vaughan. Both pages have music that I love. Fans can listen but can’t copy the tunes (which I paid for).

Facebook provides information on who your page fans are. For example you get stats on daily traffic; unique visitors, page views and stats on usage of FB apps in the page. You also get stats on fan sex and age.

So here is what I have learned about my  two fan pages.

The Frank Sinatra page  has over 500 fans and they are split 45% female 55% male, with 55% of fans between ages 18 to 24! That surprised me! and another 21% between ages 25 and 34.

Only 7% of Sinatra page fans are above age 35! If you assume that Frank Sinatra has timeless popularity, I would guess this reflects the age distribution of Facebook.

The Stevie Ray Vaughan page has been up a week and has 87 fans.   This page skews heavily to male with 93% male and 7 % female fans. The age distribution is a little older with 17% above 35 years of age, and 66% between 18 and 35 (vs. 76%  for the Frank Sinatra fan page)

By looking at the networks of the fans you can also get a geographic metric - for example, my Frank Sinatra page has a lot of  fans from Turkey. (this you have to do  on your own - not a facebook stat)

Here is the point. If you want to drive traffic to your facebook page, and from there have a "call to action" on the web etc. - you will know about your present Facebook page fan base, and you can use Facebook advertising to target your advertising.

Over 70% of web traffic is logged to countries with just 7 languages

English 35.1 %
Japanese 8.9 %
German 6.7 %
Chinese 6.1 %
French 5.3 %
Italian 3.8 %
Spanish 4.2 %

Consider the diminishing returns and poor ROI unless your company has significant operations in a local language.

http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/members/res_cgi.php/0709_countries_and_languages.php

Last night, I listened to the Dell folks at the local Tuesday event, describing how they jumped into emergency blog action for damage control when the SONY battery in their notebooks blew up in summer 2006, and bloggers posted nasty on them, for that, and broad service issues.

Its a constructive social networking case study of a big company, being responsive in dealing with squeaky wheels and bad press. The Dell website traffic numbers after the Aug. 2006 event, show that the web is the critical service information channel.

IMO when someone has a bully pulpit, in any media, and is unfair and unbalanced, lets first give the consumer some credit for their intelligence and fairness, present the facts, ask for forgiveness, and get to the heart of solving problems. Thats what Dell did with bundles of transparency and quick action.

Dude… you got some good service from DELL!

Other companies should follow suit and not wait for disasters or lousy service to erode their business.

BTW…Ask me about how in my mind, Apple ripped me off in the 1990s for $13,000. in royalty profits from my CD-ROM "Search for Ancient Wisdom"  that was in the Apple CD-ROM collection, by using a middleman publisher (Double Impact Multimedia) that went bankrupt just when the checks were supposed to be mailed. Apple did nothing for the designers, developers and creatives for ours and many other titles.  Today, I would blog that injustice so nasty 24/7 - we would see their response and how they fix the problem.

Debbie Williamson provides thoughtful interpretation of the new features in Facebook. Excellent interview from the Jenn & John Show, Vancouver, BC

http://www.emarketer.com/docs/eMarketer_Debbie_Williamson_Nov_7_07_NPR.mp3

Until Nov. 26th you can "Give 1 and Get 1" for $399.
inc. a $200 tax receipt. One Laptop goes to a needy child in a
developing country and you get 1 Laptop. Won’t it be fascinating to
have one of these! Also… you get $350. worth of free mobile Internet
for a year (US only). Good Cause - Good Deal. and you can make the
world a little more connected!

http://www.laptopgiving.org