Jump on the Social Coupon Band Wagon

First, we had Groupon, then came Living Social and now Facebook is jumping into the one-day deal social coupon business. According to an article on Bloomberg.com, Facebook is planning to test the coupon idea in order to increase ad revenues & engage local businesses. The test will launch in five select cities including Austin, Atlanta, San Francisco, San Diego & Dallas.

Facebook will employ it's own staff to sell the deals to local businesses and offer coupons via partners like ReachLocal, GiltCity, homerun.com and PopSugar City. The service will expand the Facebook Deals functionality that is already built into Places. It's still not clear if Facebook will employ a minimum number of purchasers before offering the deal yet. The current strategy according to Emily White, Facebook's Director of Local Operations, will be to focus on those offers that users are inclined to do with friends - dining, concerts and outdoor activities.

Maybe that part in the movie where Zuckerberg stole someone else's business idea isn't so far-fetched after all? Or maybe it's like everything else on the world wide web, find a business model that works and make it better. Who wouldn't want to find a way to get on the action in an industry that is expected to reach $3.73 billion by 2015?

Facebook is Driving Ad Revenue, Are You?

In a recent eMarketer article about social network advertising to account for 10.8% of online market, this year U.S. marketers will spend $3.08 billion on social media advertising. To the average marketing analyst, that's not surprising. Social network advertising, especially on Facebook, has skyrocketed in the past year. More and more companies are jumping on the "social media bandwagon", and some brands on Facebook are doing a fantastic job at it.



Many brands want to know - what's in it for me? Let's take a look at the increasing growth in social network advertising over the years.



According to eMarketer, "Spending will be up 55% over the $1.99 billion advertisers devoted to social networks in 2010 and will rise by a further 27.7% next year to reach nearly $4 billion."

2011 and it's dramatic growth will bring social media advertising spend to 10% of the total U.S. dollars dished online. According to the eMarketer study, "Worldwide, where social network ad spending will rise 71.6% to $5.97 billion, that proportion will be somewhat lower, at 8.7%."

There is no doubt that 2010 was the year of Facebook. Did anyone hear of that little engine that could, The Social Network?

”2010 was the year that Facebook firmly established itself as a major force not only in social network advertising but all of online advertising,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson, author of the upcoming report “Worldwide Social Network Ad Spending: 2011 Outlook.” “In 2011, its global presence is something multinational advertisers can’t ignore.”

Want more proof of how powerful social networks are driving ad revenue? Go to http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008180.

Mobile Social Networks Will Be the Rage In 2009

As more people upgrade their mobile phones, such as to the iPhone, Blackberry, or Google Phone, I believe mobile social networks will be noticed more this year.

With Facebook and MySpace having their own mobile version of their sites, many newly created mobile sites are already hoping to be the next best thing. A site meant to use on the go is Brightkite, which allows users to post updates from wherever they are, as well as ‘Check In’ from a specific location. This may be interesting for those who want to meet the people nearby and see what they’re doing at a particular point in time. Privacy is very important to Brightkite and allows their users to control who sees what.

ZYB is another interesting mobile social network site that allows you to sync your contacts’ phone numbers and other information, as well as their social networking activity all in one place. You can also share calendars and photos and see what your friends are up to. You can set any data to be visible to the public or only show information to the friends in your ZYB contact list.

Right now, I’m sure many people are hesitant to join such websites due to privacy reasons, so make sure the mobile site you are thinking of joining really stress that. Otherwise, skip it.