WOW! what a great deal!!

Wow! What a deal! For just $40 dollars you can have the amount of $200 to buy whatever you would like at Forever 21! I don't know about you but some girls love Forever 21 just because its cheap and cute at the same time, plus girls love sales. Anyways, Groupon is a social coupon firm which gives out great deals for a smaller amount of money. Now, after you buy this online they send you an email which has a coupon code and then when you go to checkout you either enter the code, or you print it out and give it to the cashier. Groupon has deals for many many cities, including but not limited to Palm Beach, Detroit, New York City,Cleveland, Cincinnati, and etc. Groupon also has an app that you may buy the deals from your phone.

Although dont be fooled, Groupon isnt the only social coupon firm out there, there are competitors, which also has great deals,offers etc. Livingsocial, GiltCity, BuyWithMe, Tippr, Etc. With the help of marketing this could make or break any of these coupon firms. But since competition is fierce Groupon might not make it as fast as they would want to, that also goes for the other competitors since there is much competition.

Talking about much competition, Google had tried buying Groupon for about $6 billion but Groupon refused. Since then Google was not going to let this coupon/voucher market get away without a fight, just recently Google has started talking about their own coupon/voucher deals called Google Offers which has not been taken into effect just yet, but it's going to work about the same as any of those coupon firms. They will also be connected to all the social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and etc.

This is a growing business and a win win situation for everyone included. The buyer of the deal gets a great price on something they want, groupon for example gets companies business, and the actual company gets more customers! What's not to love?

Stay tuned with the Future of Marketing for any updates.


References:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/11/groupon-competitors-guide/

http://mashable.com/2011/01/20/google-offers/

Credit Cards? Wallets?..That's soo old school. We use our phones to pay now.

That's right ladies and gentlemen the future of marketing and technology keeps evolving faster than we can keep up. Not too long ago Starbucks came up with a new app mobile payment system with NFC (Near Field Communication). Which involved just buying a Starbucks debit card and while using that debit card you transfer funds to it and may take it anywhere you go, and I don't mean in your wallet. Just by using your phone and waving your phone near a scanner at the register that's it! Your good to go with your cup of coffee in one hand and your phone in the other. Now you might be saying "Wow that's awesome!" But don't get too excited. There are ways for other hackers to capture this in just 90 seconds and then they pay with your mobile payment not theirs. Other thing is they can email it to as many people as they want!  But this only applies to this Starbucks app.

You think Starbucks was the only one to think about this? Think again. Google decided to step in the NFC world by trying to stomp on any competition or at least making it hard for others to compete. Google has started working with other credit card companies like Citibank and MasterCard in order to start trying this NFC technology on only the android phone (for now although Apple is not too far behind from starting this mobile payment system also).

Now one question that might come to mind is what ever happened to those mini credit cards that you could put on your key chain and just wave in front of the credit card machine at stores? Isn't it kind of the same concept? Yes, but it was not well marketed and these new mobile payments is currently only in about 2 states to test out the system but I'm sure this will be made public as soon as Google is ready.

Now as all of this is coming together my question is will it be easier for hackers to be able to invade into this new technology? Only time will tell..

Keeping you updated on the future of marketing!

Cristy

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication NFC

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703576204576226722412152678.html - Google and Mobile Payments

http://www.nearfieldcommunicationsworld.com/2011/02/09/35844/hacker-shows-how-to-crack-starbucks-mobile-payments-app/ - Hacking into Starbucks mobile payment system.

Hey, do you have a Myspace?..A what?..

Oh Myspace, how I have almost forgotten about you. Myspace used to be the hot spot (after AIM) where everyone used to get online and leave comments and put up pictures and decorate your background to get it to your liking and making sure your friends were happy with your "top friends" if not prepare to be last on their "top friends". Although learning how to do your background was a mission you had to learn from scratch how to do html codes in order to get a picture to certain side of your page, or center it etc. Which I appreciate it now but back then not so much.

Now Facebook on the other hand when I first started using it I hated it, I felt like I was stalking everyone, meaning I would see "Franchesca and Mike became friends" I was like ..who cares?? it was a bit different from Myspace I thought it was weird at first but then I started liking it more because I didnt have to make my page look "cute" because while being in college, studing, and working there is no time for that anymore, and it became easier to comment and upload pictures etc.
I believe Myspaces' mistake was not competing when it should have, or at least didn't do enough to make it an impact to keep their users. Now when you see Myspace it's like a copy cat of facebook you can update your status, tag your friends, etc. According to Michael Jones News Corp owned site says wrong they are just trying to focus mostly on social entertainment. I don't know how many people are going to agree with that but that would be a whole other topic.

As for the Future of social networking it is all up in the air only time will tell what will happen next. What do you think will happen next?


Links:
http://www.myspace.com/princess_cristy

http://www.switched.com/2010/10/27/myspace-new-redesign-not-compete-facebook/ - Myspace is not coping facebook.

http://memeburn.com/2011/02/conflicting-ideas-on-the-future-of-social-networking/ -The future of social networking.

Bringing more customers to your business

While creating a new business, you have a lot on your mind from financing, building a website, and how you are going to spread the word on your business besides using newspaper ads, TV commercials, and/or the radio. Now while building a website is useful for more detailed information some people don’t think about socializing through Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Myspace or many more. This tool has been very successful to make many businesses known. 

Now many small businesses that are already known might say that they are too busy with the amount of customers that they already have and have no time to be logging into each social media website. Well then consider Postling . It logs you in into all of your social media like Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and etc, and you can update your status and blog all in one place without having to sign in to each website. I don’t think having too many customers is a bad thing for your business. I also read an article the other day it was called 32 ways to use Facebook for business   that might also help you if you need help starting a Facebook for your business. If that doesn’t convince you look over the facebook statistics of how many people log on daily.

Although signing up might be easy, blogging about events at your store is easy, providing incentives are great ways to interact with all those customers who “follow” you on Twitter or “like” you on Facebook etc. If you don’t promote your business and catch consumer’s attention, it’s just like having a website just standing there doing nothing. For example, let’s say you want more customers and you have a sale going on you can update your status so others can see saying “ The first 100 people to like this status can receive instead of 20% off merchandise,  70% off merchandise!!”. This will not only create more customers but those who did not get it this time around are going to be looking at your page from time to time to see if they can catch it the second time around.

Thanks for reading!

Cristy

Links:

Facebook Statistics: http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

32 ways to use Facebook for Business: http://gigaom.com/collaboration/32-ways-to-use-facebook-for-business/

Postling: http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/08/postling-etsy-founders-do-social-media-for-small-business.php