Kevin Harrington // marketing // blog

Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

I’ve yet to get all the details on this but I’ve just been told that employees at a certain recruitment agency are banned from using Facebook. Quite incredible.

We discovered this after we Googled a prospective candidate and found their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles. When discussing our observations the recruitment agency said they didn’t use Facebook to check candidates because they were banned/blocked from using the site.

What does this tell you of the agency? They don’t trust their own staff? They are giving less screening of candidates than most other agencies?

And while I’m at it…

Writing this blog post reminded me of the first email I received this morning. It was a spam email from Timothy James Consulting. How do I know it was spam…it was sent to an email address that hasn’t even been released yet inviting me to recruit someone with a skill set that is irrelevant for my team. I’d already told them to remove this address but it is clearly easier for them to carry on spamming me.

So watch out for emails from chris@timothyjamesconsulting.com or anyone else @timothyjamesconsulting.com. I’m not the only person that is not impressed with them, see this blog post.

This is a very good talk from Jesse Schell at DICE 2010 in Las Vegas. It’s rare that online videos are worth 30 minutes of your time, but this one is.

Issues covered:

• How gaming can be used in marketing.
• Why the iPad is rubbish.
• How valuable is Farmville on Facebook.
• Convergenace and divergence of trechnology.
• Why coffee loyalty cards don’t work.
• How to use games in rewards and incentives.
• And a lot more.

If the player above doesn’t show (for some reason Google Chrome doesn’t like it), follow this link.

How on earth would you advertise your services if you were offering circumcisions? This is a synopsis of a Facebook conversation. 

POST: Circumcision leaflets through your door as junk mail, welcome to London, E1. 

POST: Are they advertising that they come at a snip of the price! 

POST: 20% off if you buy before the end of June. 

POST: Don’t even joke – there is one of those little clip-art stars in the corner with the caption “Bookings being taken for this summer”. Seriously, who decides to be circumcised because of a leaflet through your door? 

POST: They have to advertise via leaflets as getting product placement on daytime TV is a little tricky. 

POST: It would probably do very well after the money saving section on GMTV! 

Well, it all made me wonder. What other obscure services do you think are difficult to market?

New competitors for established businesses can come from surprising places. If all a bank does is monitor competition from other banks they could be in for a surprise or two.

Here are a couple of lines from CNN:

“It’s become increasingly clear in recent weeks that Facebook is finally inching toward the launch of a micropayment platform.

“The social site has been expanding the presence of its virtual currency, which Facebook debuted last November when it changed the monetary units for its “Gifts” product into “credits” rather than U.S. dollars.”

How near is Facebook Bank plc? If you read the whole artice, and an interesting article it is too, you will not see the mention of Facebook becoming a bank. But with the possible developments discussed they get a stage closer. And with in excess of 200,000,000 members what a constituency to work with.

The additional reason why Facebook could suprise markets and excite the public is trust. Trust is the basis for most relationships. The Edelman Trust Barometer talks about this in great detail.

We all like to deal with businesses we trust. Trust in conventional banks is at a low. Here Joe Garner, HSBC, talks eloquently about trust in banks.

Facebook could become a bank. eBay, with PayPal has already created a new bank model. Who else would the world’s public trust with their money?

Shuzac

How many hours a week do you spend on Bebo, Facebook or MySpace?

Metro SE

We’ll be cooking our own food in restaurants next! Or making our beds in hotels!

See this well written article http://www.springwise.com/media_publishing/free_daily_pays_bloggers/

My recommendation to people is, “Maintain your own web presence. Keep control of your own Internet identity.”

Providing your content to other sites like MySpace, Facebook etc is all well and good but where will they end up? None of us knows. Use these sites and share your ideas and opinions but keep hold of your own web presence as well.

It is also worth remembering that the majority of the world’s population don’t use social/business network sites or use RSS feed readers. I know, unbelievable isn’t it?