Apple's Passbook, Dunkin Donuts & Facebook Offers

An example of the potential power of Apple's new Passbook for:Brands (here Dunkin Donuts) Platforms (here Facebook / Facebook Offers) Consumers (simplicity, speed)

Dunkin Donuts running a week-long promotion for their holiday bagel using Facebook Offers:

Upon acceptance, Facebook shares socially and then emails users steps for redemption:

Users then have to print the coupon (per below). But this could pass through to Passbook or into a Facebook Offers Book / application. Thus keeping everything mobile, eliminating friction, and adding tracking throughout the entire process:

Expanded Facebook Ads: Like + Related Posts

Below are two screenshots from Facebook ad units that I think are noteworthy. The screenshots combine two ordinary components: - friend X likes page / brand Y - a popular or most recent post from brand Y The interesting part is that these actions are combined into a single unit: "Ryan likes Bing" sits atop of Bing's most recent post. This of course makes the action more relevant - but it also makes the unit far more prominent... particularly for certain content types (like Bing's photo).

Taco Bell's Instagram Doritos Locos Tacos Commercial

I love Taco Bell's new television commercial for the Doritos Locos Taco. It features a series of user-uploaded Instagram photos of Doritos Locos Tacos: "no matter how hard you try, pictures just don't do it justice." It's fun, social, and conveys how popular and unique the product has been. The Doritos Locos campaign has been a smash success - and social promotion has been a key part. Creating a television campaign atop that activity (on Instagram no-less) is terrific. [youtube value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvgGgQ_6a6s&w=560"]

Side note: the new taco has indeed been a smash success. Roughly 30% of Taco Bell orders include the Dorito's Taco and same store sales up 6% after launch. Taco Bell even responded to my tweet: "The people have spoken. And the people love #DoritosLocosTacos." (a very, very proud moment for me)

Jetsetter Mobile App: Effective App Promotion & Conversions

Jetsetter is known for great design (see here). Here is a good example of good design and effective mobile promotion. I have written before that promoting mobile applications via the web is challenging: for instance, conversions are weak due to web to download and data is limited (device, OS, etc). SMS and email are powerful ways to promote applications because they are consumed directly on the device. Good examples by: Sparrow, Redbox, Groupon and Gilt.

Here is another good example by Jetsetter (whose parent is Gilt). Login and you get the following promotion: - awesome slogan: "travel made, travel sized" - good looking promotion - big action item of downloading the app via SMS (enter your cell number)

Much cleaner for users and more powerful for the brand.

Facebook Homepage Ad Takeovers - eBay Example.

Facebook homepage ads have begun. They are effectively static full page takeovers with a Facebook module overlayed in the bottom right corner. In this example you see an ad unit for eBay's summer electronics event. On the right corner is a mini-Facebook ad unit (as you would see it on the right column of a logged-in page): it contains the copy / creative and like / share buttons. It's prime real estate and a huge unit... even if on the log-out screen. The interesting note however is that, when users are logged out, the social features are obviously not as effective... for instance, users cannot like, share or comment with a single action because they are not logged in. I suppose this is a necessary consequence of taking over the homepage. To solve this, you would need to prompt users much more intrusively: on their feed page.

Nike and @NikeSF Demonstrate Rich Promoted Tweets on Twitter

As you can tell from the screenshot's time stamp (June 8), this one has been sitting in my blog queue for quite some time. It's still worth posting though!

Here is a screenshot from a Promoted Tweet by Nike San Francisco. It's notable beyond the interesting fact that 1) Nike has a geographically driven social campaing (@NikeSF), and 2) they use these accounts to handle local customer service and promote national campaigns (interesting mix) With regard to Twitter... and more importantly... this is a great example of the power of a Promoted Tweet: - hyper targeted (in this case, local) - drives awareness and social activity: follows, replies, retweets, etc - but most importantly, its bigger than just Twitter actions (ie followers and retweets): YouTube is integrated directly and eventually this could be a registration form or purchase widget, etc.

That last point is quite powerful because advertisers do not have to value the campaign purely by Twitter-activity. That will (and should) be included - but it's potential is far bigger.

Game of Thrones + Facebook

I saw this sponsored post atop my Facebook feed the other day: - 64 Facebook friends like Game of Thrones - 1 of those is Mark Zuckerberg - I had not yet liked Game of Thrones, despite thinking its the single best show on television

It's a reminder that: - Cocial relevance is powerful - Klout as a concept is extra powerful (Mark Zuckerberg as a Game of Thrones fan carries a little more weight!) - Content is still king. Great content will draw large, connected audiences (64 friends are fans - most within a 7 hour window) - Game of Thrones on Facebook has grown rather strongly - adding 100,000 fans / week, 250,000+ likes / day, and improving their reach ratio

Google Search Results Looking More Like Facebook: Layout and Ad Units. Starbucks Example.

For specific queries, Google's search results pages are looking less and less like traditional Google pages and more and more like Facebook. The below example for the query "starbucks" promotes Starbucks, local maps and news results in the core results. On the right column, there is a Google+ follow button (in 550,000+ circles) and recent Google+ posts by Starbucks. This is strikingly different than the traditional AdWords unit - and a tie in between search, AdWords, and Google+.

Announcing PostRocket.

Last week we announced an investment in Spindle. Today, I am excited to an investment in another seed-stage, Dogpatch Labs, social media company: PostRocket. PostRocket optimizes Facebook content for brand and page owners. It's a problem those users know too well: 1,000s of fans - often $1,000s of dollars spent - and yet only a small percentage are reached. PostRocket looks at the content, fans, and engagement habits to help brand / page owners create better content, publish more effectively, and ultimately drive deeper engagement. It's also a problem this team knows well: they are smarter about Facebook's EdgeRank algorithm / logic than any non-Facebook employee I know.

It's a big, important idea because it's a big, important question for the majority of Facebook brands and advertisers. I have eaten my own dog food and tested PostRocket with the DogpatchLabs Facebook page. The early results are really outstanding: over a 2.5x improvement in fan engagement.

PostRocket is opening their doors soon. You can register for the beta here. And follow them on Facebook and Twitter. More on TechCrunch.