Using Facebook for cross-promotion
When you walk into a venue in your local community, say the neighborhood pizza shop, hair salon, bank, or cafe, often times you see a cork board with business cards and fliers on it for other local businesses. In some instances you may even see a little plastic stand with tri-folds or pamphlets, indicating a deeper connection between the two local businesses. This is a common form of cross-promotion that has existed probably for centuries which was recently referenced by Catalyst Marketers in Ryan Taft’s post “Cross-promote by partnering with local businesses.”
From this conventional marketing approach, the impact of such cross-promotion is recognized by the number of times one of your marketing pieces comes into your place of business as a result of being displayed in a nearby venue. If you are smart you marked or tailored each piece to be associated with each different venue so you can know right away from where it came. If you fail to do this then you may know that your cross-promotional efforts are having an effect, but from which sources and to what extent you may not know.
With the advent of Facebook, the idea of cross-promotion can (and in most cases probably should) be carried into this medium, but with added benefits. Considering the more intricate offerings of Internet technology, local businesses can not only expect to benefit from an increase in patrons coming into their place of business, but also from increased website traffic, more Facebook fans, and more email subscribers. Essentially, by using Facebook, you have more conversion goals and capabilities to consider in your cross-promotion efforts than just phone calls and walk-ins.
The one thing that comes to mind for me when helping local businesses to cross-promote with one another using a site like Facebook is “monetization”. Interestingly, this word does not appear in a dictionary, at least not at dictionary.com. It does however appear on wikipedia.com and is defined as, “the process of converting or establishing something into legal tender.” Monetizing is a common word in the blogosphere that typically equates to the practice of using your blog to generate revenue. I tend to use this term more loosely on the basis that there is a monetary value for every activity you perform and that in most cases you want to associate your efforts online to that monetary value.
For instance, a new email subscriber may be worth $25 to you and a new Facebook fan might be worth $1, so if you launch a marketing initiative that results in 25 new email subscribers and 10 new Facebook fans then you know that the monetary value of that initiative is equivalent to $635. If you spent less than that to launch the initiative then you essentially have made (or saved) money.
All this said, when doing cross-promotions, particularly online with a site like Facebook, the possibilities go farther than just leaving comments on the walls of a venue’s Facebook page. There truly is potential to connect with people one-on-one and in groups. Defining and massaging the monetary value of your activities is key to your success. You want to go beyond just publishing information and going through the motions. You want to make real connections and have real conversations. This is easier said than done, but the rewards are there for the taking.
Shoes2Share Organizes Aid To Haitian Earthquake Victims
As you have probably heard, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck southern Haiti on Tuesday near Port-au-Prince, causing a serious loss of life and catastrophic destruction. This is the most powerful earthquake to hit the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation in the last century.
Shoes2Share International is immediately initiating Operation “THERE”, which stands for “The Haitian Earthquake Relief Effort”. They are partnering with other relief agencies in providing immediate aid and hope to those devastated in Haiti.
Dave Shoemaker is an associate of mine that operates a C12 territory here in the Philadelphia area. C12 is a community of Christian business owners and CEOs and that I trust Dave’s selection for charitable causes such as the one in Haiti.
AutoConversion has made a donation to Shoes2Share to help the victims and people of Haiti, and we wanted to present you with an opportunity to support them as well. Your donation will help deliver essential items like shoes, workboots, infant products, medical supplies, blankets, bottled water, generators, flashlights and batteries to the people of Haiti.
Donate to the people of Haiti through Operation “THERE” here.
Thank you for considering this worthy cause,
Ryan Gerardi
Google goes bust over China hack
As somewhat of a doomsday-er I have to say that Google’s announcement this week about it’s new approach with China after determining that December’s security breach originated from China and with politically sensitive implications is a sign of things to come. For Google to come out swinging like this against the Chinese government shows just where Google sees itself in the global scheme of things. Question is, will it do any good?
It has been 4 years now since Google began producing search results for Chinese Internet users in the belief that “the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our [their] discomfort in agreeing to censor some results.” While their stated interest may have seemed novel, what they got in return was a sharp knife in the back.
This has to suck for Google. They gave China an undeserving chance and once again China stabs you in the back and oversteps its bounds for its own national interest.
This is why we can not trust China. I don’t mean Chinese people, I mean the nation and government of China. While the U.S. is storming around deserts vainly trying to balance regions in religious strife and raveling ourselves into political handcuffs that will make it difficult and costly to benefit from for oil supply, China is sailing the seas cutting strategic energy deals with people and nations the U.S. doesn’t even do business.
When will we realize in this country that we are en route to being devoured by China who is already looking to begin supplying itself with manufactured goods it has always imported from us, secure its energy futures, and keep the lock down on political forces that breathe a hint of threat to its ideals.
What Google needs to be doing is to work with the global community on ways to incentify China to be a global player. Respecting China’s censorship demands clearly just leads to events such as this. China are the ones walking the fine line here and Google needs to keep it this way. With a belly of guts, Google should be able to use this opportunity to pressure China opening up to the world more appropriately, and if possible, Google also needs for China to acknowledge its role in this hack and concede to a hefty penalty.
2010 – The year for alternative energy
In the summer of 2008, during the then upcoming Presidential elections, T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oil man, introduced himself to the world with a series of television commercials driving people to his website powered by Ning.
Ning is a social media software network that enables community builders to establish a collection of conversations online that support a consistent message or cause. This is important to know because it applies to the evolution of business and marketing. Ning is serving the needs of many good causes and organizations.
Pickens however is about alternative energy, but not with out a plan. Thus, PickensPlan.
The original PickensPlan revolved around the idea that the U.S.A could be a wind farm that would replace around 30% of our natural gas consumption presently being utilized for non-transit fuel. Then with the surplus natural gas we could subsidize our foreign oil dependency by using it for transit fuel and retain upwards to $300 billion a year from going overseas, particularly to rogue nations. That’s about 40% of our annual spending on foreign oil. (Hope I got my facts right. I will double-check them later).
Today, PickensPlan focuses more on the natural gas aspect but the goal still remains for this era being a stepping stone to reducing our dependency on foreign oil.
The movie preview below captures the essence to what I am referring. It was shared with me by Mike Johnston whom I know from PickensPlan. Mike puts a lot of time and energy into rallying the troops on Pickens’ Ning network and it is tough work, but it is efforts like his inspiring people like me to share the message with my friends.
There is no doubt that the USA is moving socially, politically, and economically into domestic, alternative, and renewable energy solutions. The last decade was a total transformation into digital communications. 2009 exposed the ugly face of political corruption in our capitalist society.
I believe that the coming year 2010 is the year of domestic and alternative energy. Translation…independence from foreign oil. This is not a pipe dream, but we may need to come together as citizens to trump any hindrance to doing so. Pickens pushes for this and I am committed to the Plan because it offers what we don’t see clearly enough in Washington – a real solution.
Go Pickens. Go Ning. and Go Energy.
