Jun 16, 2011 Posted in Random Thoughts

Vancouver Riots 2011. Are You Suprised?

I first moved out to Vancouver just in time to witness the 1994 Stanley Cup riots.  I vividly remember watching the TV in shock as yahoos destroyed their own city.  I think it is safe to say that everyone was both shocked and horrified by the behaviour.

Fast forward to June 15, 2011.  The city has since hosted one of the most successful Winter Games in history and a lot of the ugliness from 1994 was left in the rearview mirrow… until the Canucks lost another Game 7.

I wasn’t surprised last night by the reaction to the loss.  The only thing that did surprise me was the fact that people were actually surprised.  These people have obviously never spent any time on Granville Street on a busy Friday or Saturday night.  There is definitely an undercurrent of anger and hostility in this city.

I can’t explain what it is but it definitely exists.  Anyone not smashed out of their heads would tell you that they didn’t feel safe watching among the tens of thousands gathered on Georgia Street for the Stanley Cup final round games.  It was like a volcano waiting to erupt.

Can someone tell me what it is about this city that causes this strange behaviour?  We’re like a petulant, only child.  We’re stuck on this side of the mountains thinking that everyone is so envious of us.  We hate Toronto and think that they hate us but the truth is that they don’t even think about us.

We want to hate Calgary but they have their own Battle of Alberta and again, Vancouver is left alone… stewing and looking for a fight.

As another note, people that were in the chaos last night have told me that the police were as much of the problem as the solution. Apparently, they were very antagonistic towards the crowd and individuals trying to make their way across the city.

One thing that is different in 2011 compared to 1994 is the use of personal cameras and video cameras combined with social media.  I think it is going to be very interesting to see some of the unedited footage that comes out as a result of last night’s idiocy.

Social media is the future, folks.  Mark my words, the big news networks cannot move fast enough to get breaking news out before individuals are recording and posting real-time to YouTube and Facebook.

These are amazing times we’re living in.  Personal privacy is a thing of the past.  All of the idiots that thought they were cool looting and creating havoc last night were caught on someone’s camera somewhere and they will face the music.

Same goes with any police behaviour that wasn’t by-the-book.  I didn’t see anything that would make me think that any wrong-doing was going on but thousands of cameras don’t lie and it only takes one shot to ruin a career.

Last night’s riot was dispicable and embarassing but the results are going to be a very interesting case study.  I’m curious to see how the next two weeks shake out.

Jun 16, 2011 Posted in Marketing Ideas

TGIF Launches Cool New “Buy a Beer” App

Not sure what to get Dad for Father’s Day this year? Forget about ties and socks.  Dad has seen way too many of those in his lifetime.

Instead, the large restaurant chain TGIF has just launched its controversial “Buy a Beer” App just in time for Father’s Day.

You can go to TGIF’s Facebook page and buy your Dad (or anyone else) a beer or as many beers as you wish. The recipient will recieve a coupon that can be redeemed at any TGIFs.

Doesn’t seem too new does it?  I mean, coupons have been around forever but here is the thing I like.  First, you have to ‘like’ TGIF’s page before you can gain access to buying the coupon.  When you like something on Facebook every one of your friends sees what you’re doing so it is promoting a viral effect for TGIF.

This is a great example of making good use of social media.  TGIF is still making money on every sale but this way they’re getting massive exposure at the same time.  Very smart.

To see the app on Facebook click here.

 

Jun 13, 2011 Posted in Marketing Ideas

Social Media and Local Businesses

Lately, small business owners have been asking me about one topic almost as much as I get asked about getting to the top of Google.  That topic?  Social media.  Specifically, whether I believe that social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube have any use in marketing a local business.

The short answer is yes – for most types of businesses.  I’m finding that businesses that sell directly to consumers (B2C) pretty much have to be on social media.

The reason?  Facebook and Twitter have the one thing that most small business websites lack.  That is traffic.  With social media you can get your message in-front of much more people than you normally can through your own website.  Of course, there is an art to doing this as people are not on those sites to buy your stuff.

What I find especially exciting about social media is the natural viral effect that these sites can produce.  Using Facebook as an example, it is so easy for someone to tell their friends about your business.  In fact, an act as simple as clicking a ‘like’ button notifies all of that person’s friends that they liked something you put out there.

Talk about word-of mouth marketing.

Of course, this can work against you as well as it is just as easy to share bad experiences with your company.  I see this as a good thing as it will eventually weed out all of the unscrupulous businesses out there.

There is another thing that I see happening that tells me that social media is here to stay.  Google is taking social media factors into consideration when showing their organic search results.  For some markets Google is actually showing a live Twitter stream right on their search results page.

There are also rumours floating about that Google is considering showing the number of fans that a business has for their Facebook fanpages.  Of course, that would suggest that a business would need a fan page in order for Google to be able to scrape these results.

Finally, to wrap this up, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the most common question I get is how to get to the top of the search engines. Well, assuming you have decent content on your site and your site is structured properly so Google will know what it is about, the most important factor contributing to good search results is the number of other sites that link to your site.

Guess what?  Social media is all about sharing information with friends.  When someone clicks a ‘like’ button on Facebook or on your own site, that action is shared with all of their friends.  Those friends can share it with their friends and so on.  Each time a button is clicked more links are created back to your site without any additonal effort on your part.  This is very powerful.

It could be argued that the links from Twitter and Facebook are no-follow links so they don’t have any influence on results but I can’t see that being the case. Of course, this is all part of Google ‘black box’ formula but I have to think that Google will not ignore 50,000 links coming back to a site regardless of where they’re coming from.

However, even if they do, wouldn’t it be worth it to invest even a little time in social media for a chance to receive some of the other results it can prosper?

 

Jun 9, 2011 Posted in Marketing Ideas

SMS Marketing Not Too Big in Vancouver Yet

When I was in the U.K. last year I saw service-based companies of all sizes making a fortune with SMS marketing. If you’re not familiar with this type of marketing it is simply building a list of subscribers that have agreed to receive your promotional messages via SMS or text messaging.

Compared to email which has approximately a 20% open rate, text messages are read 97% of the time and can see actual response rates ranging from 15% at the low end to as high as 45%. Of course, response rates depend on the quality of the offer as well as the quality of your list.

That said, restaurants, bars, pubs, nightclubs and all types of smaller service-oriented businesses were cleaning up using SMS marketing and it only made sense that Canada would follow suit. Or so I thought.

I conceptualized and built PackYourPlace.com and began testing it here in Vancouver. To say the least, the results have surprised me. First, I must mention that I’m a great marketing guy but not a strong sales person. I’ve also never tried to deal with the primary markets I was targeting – bars, restaurants and spas.

What were the Results?

I screwed up. I hadn’t done my research before jumping into this business. I hadn’t realized how hard the hospitality business had been hit and how price-sensitve many of them have become. Many cited the HST here in BC was to blame while others mentioned that the more stringent drinking and driving laws had adversely affected their businesses.

Either way, price was a big issue.

The other thing that surprised me was how, er hesitant some business owners are to try anything new. I’ve seen the results of SMS marketing first-hand so I knew I had a product that people would benefit from. However, I haven’t been able to get that across to business owners here. Many couldn’t see how their clients wouldn’t be offended when they started receiving promotional messages via SMS – even though they would only receive such messages if they requested them.

What’s the summary? I’m probably going to shelve this idea for a few months. I know it is a winner but the timing might not be right at the moment. It isn’t alwasy easy to admit when you’re wrong but in this case, it looks like I was.  Lesson learned.

Jun 8, 2011 Posted in Marketing Ideas

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