Skittles Twitters March 2, 2009
Posted by skmak in Uncategorized.Tags: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube
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Skittles – yes, the candy – has launched a new campaign called “Interweb the Rainbow.” They have redirected their website, skittles.com, to the Twitter search site for the word ”skittles.” Currently #skittles is trending at the top of Twitter conversations.
Clicking the “Friends” link on the floating menu takes you to the Skittles Facebook page; clicking “Media” takes you to the Skittles channel on YouTube.
Other firms have taken this approach before, but no one I think as large as Mars candy or Skittles brand. What do you think? Innovative or lazy?
The Facebook Phenomenon January 7, 2009
Posted by skmak in Uncategorized.Tags: Facebook
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Wow! In less than 5 years, Facebook has reached 150 million users! From the post:
Today, we reached another milestone: 150 million people around the world are now actively using Facebook and almost half of them are using Facebook every day. This includes people in every continent—even Antarctica. If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.When we first started Facebook almost five years ago, most of the people using it were college students in the United States. Today, people of all ages—grandparents, parents and children—use Facebook in more than 35 different languages and 170 countries and territories.
The full potential of the web is to make the world more open, so everyone has a voice and can share what is important to them. With 150 million voices and counting, we can’t wait for the rest of 2009, and we look forward to offering even more ways for you to connect with the people who matter most.
It’s better than candy! November 1, 2008
Posted by skmak in Uncategorized.Tags: Facebook, groundswell, LinkedIn
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I hope everyone had a great Halloween. I was the awesome, Ms. Cruella De Vil.
I’m a tad late to this party, but there were two exciting things announced this week that I want to talk about.
First, LinkedIn has launched social applications! There has been a debate among several of my work associates as to whether Facebook can be used as a true business application. Many people rely on LinkedIn for their professional networking, and the launch of these applications has enhanced the ability for people to connect and communicate.
LinkedIn’s 30 million members can now share reading lists with Amazon, and collaborate with others via Huddle. Users can share presentations via Slideshare and blog posts via Blog Link and WordPress applications. Plus, the TripIt application allows users to meet up at events by publishing their travel schedules.
The second great announcement this week was this year’s winners of the Groundswell awards. Josh Bernoff, Forrester analyst and co-author of the book Groundswell, awards companies each year who have demonstrated an innovative use of social media. Here are some of the winners:
- Mattel’s The Playground Community – a private community of 500 moms. The community paid off tremendously when Mattel had several recalls in 2007.
- Hershey’s Bliss House Party – a campaign which allowed people to sign up for a party and receive a bag of chocolate to share. Hershey said that 10,000 parties were hosted, 129,000 people touched and the campaign was seen by 7 million.
- Nerd Network – a community of 110,000 people who use National Instruments’ LabView software. The community members answer 46% of all support questions.
- MyStarbucksIdea.com – members share ideas (over 75,000 so far), many of which have influenced Starbucks’ products and services.
- Borderless Workplace, by Accenture – a Facebook-like application that allows the company’s thousands of consultants use a knowledge-sharing wiki and update projects and status
- Brooklyn Museum – the museum won on all three entries they submitted, including a Facebook application that allowed people to share art they liked best; a community-curated exhibit, Click Exhibition; and their website which hosts the entire museum’s collection online
Congratulations to all the companies which won!
Rock the Vote September 1, 2008
Posted by skmak in Uncategorized.Tags: Election 2008, Facebook, MySpace, Voters
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The Rock the Vote website says that there are 44 million eligible young voters for this year’s election. In 2004, 20.1 million voters between the ages of 18 and 29 years old turned out to vote.
Candidates John McCain and Barack Obama are using social media to appeal to a larger demographic. Both have launched Facebook and MySpace pages, as well as Facebook applications. McCain and Obama have also each launched their own social community sites – my.barackobama.com and mccainspace.com. Many people question why they would launch their own communities when Facebook and MySpace exist, but I’m sure they did so to 1) collect more information about their community users and 2) better control the messaging and format of the site.
The interesting question is whether the online “friends” of these candidates are any indication of how the election will turn out in November. Here is a few stats (as of September 1, 2008):
- Barack Obama has 1,511,638 Facebook supporters
- John McCain has 256,138 Facebook supporters
- Obama’s Facebook application (Barack Obama Supporters) has 19,975 active monthly users
- McCain’s Facebook application (McCain: Get Involved) has 1,324 active monthly users
- Obama has 488,838 MySpace friends
- McCain has 72,323 MySpace friends
These numbers are changing by the hour – especially now that both candidates have announced their running mates.
What do you think? Are these any indication of future votes?
Oh, Look! She Started Blogging! August 20, 2008
Posted by skmak in Uncategorized.Tags: blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter
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My boyfriend’s 12-year old started a blog this month. She’s still getting used to it, so right now it mainly consists of what book she is reading and what she had for dinner last night. It’s really a way for her and her friends to keep in contact – I enjoy reading the comments more than her entries, sometimes.
So, it got me thinking. Here are some startling statistics for you:
- Facebook has 90 million active users, more than 75% log in each day and (in 2007) 22% of them were under 18
- MySpace, according to analyst Jeremiah Owyang, has 110 million active users, 15% of which are under 18
- In July, WordPress said that 257,163 blogs were created to bring them to a total of 1,102,039 active blogs
- As of January 2008, Twitter had over 700,000 users – as of today, they have 2,419,242 twitterers
The interesting thing is that the majority of Facebook and Myspace users are over 18! The other thing you should note is how quickly these communities are growing…and obviously this isn’t a comprehensive list! This isn’t just a “kid” thing. But, the digital generation is growing and kids find it second nature to share over the web.
Aw, look honey…she got her first comment! Go get the video camera, quick!
