Facebook Places Gorgeous Mobile Promotion

A few weeks ago, I wrote about YouTube's terrific mobile promotion of their new html5 experience. Here is an even better, more eye-catching promotion by Facebook for the new Facebook Places product. As background, to access Places, users had to download the new iPhone app. Upon opening of the new app, the screen animates to highlight the new Places tab and experience. It is great looking but entirely distracting... Which is clearly the intention. I have written before about making sure that new products and enhancements somehow get "into the river" - my reference to ensuring that features are not relegated to the edge of the experience... After all, they then are not core to the experience, rarely used and therefore not impactful. This one way for Facebook to get Places into the river - and considering it's currently a mobile-only product, it is as effective as can be:

Facebook Newsfeed Split Into: Status, Questions, Pictures & Links

As Facebook has rolled out their new Facebook Questions product - they have altered the core "news feed" posting tool.

Perhaps it is an effort to drive traffic to Questions by placing it "in the river" ... Or perhaps it is the natural expansion of "content types": status, questions, photos, and links. But it is a marked changed in posting behavior: users have to explicitly define the content type:

The striking experience for me was when I posted a link within the status update and it behaved differently: the link is no longer recognized (automatically grabbing the link, imagery and snippet). To share a link with commentary, you now must explicitly click "post link":

Congratulations to LearnBoost

Dogpatch Labs San Francisco resident LearnBoost announced today that they have raised $975,000 in seed funding. LearnBoost is an online gradebook for teachers. The product is remarkably slick, integrates with Google Apps and functions both on web and mobile (including the iPad). Congrats to the team. What is LearnBoost? LearnBoost’s product allows teachers to manage their classroom by offering an amazing gradebook and software for managing and creating lesson plans, tracking attendance, maintaining schedules, integrating calendars including Google calendars, seamless tagging of Common Core State Standards, and so much more.

Who are the investors? LearnBoost raised a seed round from leading venture capital firms such as Bessemer Venture Partners, Charles River Ventures, RRE Ventures, and Atlas Ventures. LearnBoost’s angel investors include Naval Ravikant, Bill Lee, James Hong, Karl Jacob, and others. Full TechCrunch coverage is here.

Drive Engagement Through Email Reports: Apture, Yardsellr Ex.

Email is a well known acquisition and activation lever - but it can be particularly powerful as an engagement driver... which in turn drives activity and potential conversions. Below are two examples of weekly emails that arrive from consumer web services Apture (a web toolbar that I have installed on this site) and Yardsellr (a social classified site and Dogpatch Labs graduate). Both emails are automatically generated, highly personal and visual. Apture's email contains weekly reports and charts for various pieces of data associated with your website's readers and their interaction with the Apture bar. It is very informative and simple to digest - but most importantly, it conveys if and how Apture improves your website (time on site, searches, etc)... and because they are confident it will, these email reports drive loyalty:

Yardsellr's "activity report card" delivers weekly and all-time statistics about your Yardsellr account and active listings. In addition to being colorful and full of useful data, these emails are actionable: users can edit / cancel listings, generate traffic virally (ie Twitter and Facebook) or upgrade listings for additional traffic.

Best Practices:

We often think about email as a way to drive new users, deliver announcements, or move products / sales. But consider your active users too. Craft personalized, visual emails that are regularly delivered and sum up users' sitewide activity. It is a powerful way to convey the value you are providing while encouraging ongoing activity (upgraded activity too!).

Golfsmith & Nike National Golf Day Give Free Nike Golf Balls to Facebook Fans

This weekend, your local Golfsmith will be hosting Nike's National Golf Day - which features Nike product demos, discounts, etc. But Facebook fans of both Nike Golf and Golfsmith get the VIP treatment with a free sleeve of Nike ONE Vapor golf balls and a 30% trade-in bonus on new Nike clubs: It is interesting to see Nike and Golfsmith tag-team across Facebook and provide exclusive, high value offers to fans. That's just the first step: fans have to then "check in at the store": Golfsmith will have in-store Facebook "fan check-in stations" for fans to broadcast and promote their experience.

Considering the partnership, in-store program and offer (which is compelling to golfers) - there are several steps to the program. Screenshots and explanation are below:

Visit your local Golfsmith store on June 26th for the Nike National Golf Day event (10am - 6pm) and, from 4:30pm - 6pm, facebook fans get exclusive prizes, discounts, and come to win big in the Guess Your Drive contest! It's our way to say "Thanks" for joining the Golfsmith family!

THREE STEPS TO GETTING MORE

1.Follow this link to print your invite 2. Check In at the Store — Say hi at the Facebook fan check-in station. 3. Enjoy Your Bonuses — Meet your fellow golf fans, get free stuff, and win!

FACEBOOK EXCLUSIVE DOOR PRIZES AND ACTIVITIES:

• FREE sleeve of Nike golf balls - Limited to first 24 people. • 30% trade-in bonus when you buy new Nike Golf clubs** • Guess Your Drive Contest: Each local winner gets a $25 Golfsmith cash card and a chance to win the national prize, a Nike driver of your choice worth up to $399.99!*

Promotion on Nike Golf

First, Nike promotes the 'fan exclusive' to its ~200,000 fans - which in turn drives traffic to Golfsmith's page (which had ~40,000 fans going into the promotion)

RSVP to the Facebook Fan Exclusive

The feed post on both Nike and Golfsmith is an event RSVP to the June 26th Nike National Golf Day Event at Golfsmith.

Become a Golfsmith Fan

The first requirement is becoming a fan of Golfsmith... which you can't miss:

You Now Qualify for the Facebook Fan Exclusive

Foursquare Teams Up with NBA for Lakers / Celtics Finals

It's part Foursquare, part Fanpulse and part ESPN / vintage InGameNow: Foursquare has teamed up with the NBA to award Celtics and Lakers badges to fans who 'check in' tonight and shout either "Go Lakers" or "Go Celtics". It is different than your typical Foursquare 'check in' in that it is determined by content rather than location... but it will clearly be a big driver of traffic and usage. And clearly the NBA is getting behind the relationship: in 53 seconds, 186 Facebook users commented on the badges and 163 others liked it.

Facebook's New "Promote Your Post" Ads

Facebook has become very good at integrating revenue streams into key user flows.... effectively creating powerful upsell opportunities. For example, when you create a Facebook Page, you are promptly greeted with dynamically generated ads to drive fans.

Below is the newest upsell / integration: when page owners post to their feeds, a prompt is given to "create an ad to reach potential fans with your post. You only pay when people Like or click to your Page from the ad." The ad is customizable but is a combination of your post's content and your page's formatting. Also compelling: Facebook presents estimated reach of those ads based on the proposed basic targeting - namely users who are not already fans AND are friends of fans.

I have been preparing a blog post on what I call placing products "in the river"... more to come on this, but this is a great example of delivering simple product to the right audience / user at the right time:

As SERPs Get More Crowded, SEO Gets More Challenging (With New Opportunities)

Internet marketers used to optimize for the "first page" - in other words, being one of the top ten natural search results. While there was declining value with each search position, you could still derive significant traffic from lower positions. But as Google gets smarter and more sophisticated - the search page gets more and more crowded.... which significantly heightens the importance / impact of high rankings... and weakens the value of lower positions. Think about how Google's search results have gotten more crowded. Depending on the query and category, search results pages now include a mix of: photos, news clippings, product data, stock quotes, Twitter mentions, mp3 tracks, etc. SERPs have become more crowded, more colorful and - sometimes - distracting.

While the SERPs have changed dramatically and impacted traditional SEO, it also represents an opportunity for other creative traffic drivers. I have written about the SEO benefit of Facebook and Twitter, but there is significant, proven opportunity around photo, blogging, product and xml optimization.

Below are two screenshots of a newsworthy query (CJ Spiller - NFL Combine standout) and a product query (Tag Heuer). Notice how much of the SERP is not traditional "organic" results.