Live Tweeting the Digital Publicity in an Election Year Panels

Ernesto Gonzalez from the IAB Caribbean has asked me live-tweet tomorrows Digital Publicity in an Election Year Panels. I'm really excited for the opportunity to join this conversation. As I tweeted yesterday, I think that as it happened in 2008, I believe that next year's elections will be a tipping point for social media in Puerto Rico.

If you're not registered to go yet, I think you should drop everything and give Jessica a call at 787-289-8703! This may be one of the pinnacle events that finally starts the Internet marketing dams to start to crumble. As my good friend Don Dees has mentioned before, the advertising agencies have successfully held back Internet marketing in the Puerto Rico market. I'm convinced MC Don Dees is right, and 2012 just might be the year for that to happen; propelled by the role social networks play in the elections.

However, as I think we will hear tomorrow, all of the major politicians are in a race to dominate the local conversation on social networks. What I think will become clear to the political parties and candidates, is that advertising as we used to know it, will not produce the kind of engagement necessary to win the donation race and win elections. At this point, the only place to find the type of supporter engagement is on Twitter and Facebook.

Top 5 brands in Facebook for Puerto Rico

According to the social metrics analysis site, SocialBaker, the island has 1.45 million Facebook users. This represents a %36.47 poluation penetration of the inhabitants of Puerto Rico. Curiously, the site is also reporting that %149 of all Puerto Rican Internet users access Facebook.

Top Puerto Rico Facebook Brands:

1. Medalla Light Official
   
2. Burger King Puerto Rico
3. Doritos PR
4. Ticketpop
5. Smirnoff Puerto Rico

Conclusions

There's an old meme that is still very pertinent today as it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago. It's called the paradox of choice. The paradox is that we believe that having a lot of choices makes things better for us, when in fact, more choice instead causes fear and indecision.

SocialBaker is one of 20 or 50 web sites trying to cash-in on the desire for social media metrics. From Klout to Kred, they are all trying to help people make sense of the madness that is social media marketing.

So the paradox of choice reigns when it comes to the entire mess that is social media marketing. Which social networks to use? Which metrics to focus on? Which tools are best? But perhaps, most importantly, how can I use social media to gain more customers, increase my revenues, lower my costs, and increase my profits. For me, those are the real questions to be asking.

However, always remember this, your results may vary. Every situation is unique. What might work for one company may fail horribly for another. There is no one size fits all solution. It's all about trial and error, measurement, and iterating towards your business goals.

It's all about where you live: Ten BPPR applications for Facebook

Recently a few of our more vocal anonymous readers suggested that someone connect electrodes to my gonads and crank up the juice for dogging Banco Popular for not having a Facebook application. Of course, NO WHERE, did I mention that they create a banking application or anything similar. What were those comments again? Oh yeah Corporate America said,

"I bet that no financial institution is interested in creating a facebook app since it serves no purpose to their line of business nor does it serve their clients' needs. "

And francisco had this to say,

"What for? Who needs Facebook banking?"

So what's the point? Why does BPPR need Facebook?

My two least favorite expressions in Corporate Double -Speak are "Everyone is in Marketing" and "Everyone is in Customer Service." However, the more I've studied marketing (read Seth Godin), I know they're right. Which is not to say that every employee has to be thinking about those functions, but someone in every company had better be thinking about how the functions those employees complete impact marketing and customer service. Which if you want, for simplicity's sake, you can combine to say that customer service is a subset of marketing, so let's just call it marketing.

I thank an old start-up boss of mine for pointing out the fact of adapting your contact with customers to where "they live." For instance, if someone uses e-mail as their primary communication medium, then the best way to reach them is through e-mail. Sure it sounds obvious, common sense even, but sometimes companies ignore common sense and expect their customers to adapt to what suits them, what saves "them" money, and that's wrong.

So let's take Facebook as the newest place where people "live," and more and more, Facebook is THE place where most Puerto Ricans spend their time. Then it should follow that any company interested in effectively marketing to this group of people MUST have a presence on Facebook.

First let's start with Facebook Groups and Pages. There are plenty of banks already with a presence in each of these Facebook features. I hope that no one would suggest that it doesn't make sense for BPPR to be there as well. But what about applications, if not Facebook Banking, what could BPPR do in Facebook?

Ten applications that Banco Popular could build for Facebook:

1. A Newsletter - Every, I repeat EVERY, major company has some corporate double-speak news that want delivered into their customer's hands, I bet an ROI analysis would demonstrate a Facebook application as a cost-effective way to accomplish this task.
2. Financial Instrument Tacking - Is there any more effective way of keeping customer's engaged then providing them with the tools that adapt to where "they live?" There is a lot of valuable information available to include in an alert application. Users wouldn't even have to be BPPR customers.
   
1. Mutual Fund
2. Stock Market
3. Loan Rates
   
4. CD Rates
   
3. Customer Service - Having a problem, issue, or questions? Why not jump over to the BPPR Cusotmer Service application and create a ticket? Chat online? whatever...
   
4. Branch Locator - Heading out to Utuado and want to make sure you know where to go if you need access to your account? Why head over to the BPPR site if you're already in Facebook?
   
5. ATM Locator - On your way to Arroyo for a weekend vacation and want to be sure you know where a saca-chavo is, just in case?
   
6. Video Player - You know all of those nationalistic commercials BPPR cranks out? Wouldn't it be great if people could watch them right in Facebook?
   
7. Financial Planning Calculator - Thinking about refinancing your home to consolidate payments, wouldn't a calculator that factored in all of the closing costs, including the new notary fees, come in handy?
   

Gee, that took, me all of about 5 minutes. Now what company wouldn't want their brand constantly showing up in front of hundreds of thousands Facebook users, who happen to also be Banco Popular customers. Done correctly any of these applications would update the Facebook user's News Feed and sent out to all of their friends.

Many suggest, and I completely agree, that traditional marketing, as many used to know and trust, is dead. One of the new realities is that as a society we have become very good at ignoring advertisements, so new marketing has to become part of something we want to see, want to use, or want to hear. Hello? In-movie, -tv, -game product placements anyone? That's where applications come in. In my opinion, any company that has the resources to create a Facebook application, but chooses to run advertisements in Facebook is probably wasting its money.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: grittycitygirl

Discrediting Eye Candy Facebook application claim

Have you ever had some one take credit for something you did? How did that feel? Was it your boss? Maybe a coworker or maybe even a competitor? What did you do about it? Did you stay quiet and just suck it up? Or maybe you made a big deal about it and everyone thought you were a sore loser? Well it's happened to us and guess what? I have no boss, and I have no peers, and I've got this pistol finger loaded and I've got the balls to fire it.

You know Jose and I are big time geeks. We love what we do and try to bring to market the most excellent software we can possibly make. Ultimately that's what we are, software developers, and DóndeEs.com is essentially a software development company.

I know it doesn't seem that way, but that's the truth. We love software and we love even more trying to use the latest and greatest technologies that are available. So when someone claims that they've developed the first "professional" Facebook application built in Puerto Rico, well it burns my britches.

This week I saw a press release from a company making just that claim. The only problem? Well we launched our Eventos PR Facebook application back in October of 2007. So I think Eye Candy is a little late to the Facebook application party. In addition, we have over 5,000 users of our application, and they have, snicker, 274 users.

But you know what? It's cool, because first I wouldn't consider a Flash application software development. So really are they really application developers? But more important, we've got something cooking at the DóndeEs.com Labs that's going to rock the Puerto Rico Facebook network like nothing it's seen before. Pretty soon, we're going to invite everyone to share in the sweetness that we're cooking up, so you know like, what eeeeever. We know you can tell shit from shinola, and we're about to lay down a shoeshine like you've never seen before. Then we'll see who owns this playground.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: It'sGreg

Facebook in Real Life

OMG, is this just too classic or what? Austin is "Yeah baby party naked!" Just imagine going through one day emulating these actions. People would think you were totally insane.

FaceBook In Reality

For those of you out there who haven't yet "fallen for" the whole social media bug, this hilarious video from Idiotsofants.com should give you a really good idea of what it's like. Well that is, if you were like surrounded by savants and very special friends.

Anyway, for those of you who have Facebook, you should get a really good kick out of this video and the next one I found. Enjoy!

New Facebook Page - Win Islander Tickets

It's been pretty hectic here lately. What with the contest going on and everything, so it's pretty crazy, but we wanted to setup a new page using the relatively new Facebook Pages.

Launched back in November of 2007, Facebook Pages allows you to create a business presence to engage with your customers and fans on Facebook. Facebook Pages work almost exactly like a regular user profile. The only difference is you become a fan of a Facebook Page instead of friends. Users interact with Facebook Pages exactly as they are accustomed to, so they don't need to learn anything new; plus their actions are, now, automatically generated into social stories. In addition as an owner of a page you can add applications, expanding on where groups leave off.

As I've mentioned before, and many on the island agree, Facebook is going to be one of the most important media channels over the next five to ten years. Currently with nearly 420,000 Facebook users in the San Juan, Puerto Rico network, behind the El Nuevo Dia (including elnuevodia.com) and local television, there is no other media channel that comes near.

So you'll be seeing more and more investment from DóndeEs.com in this new treasure trove of word of mouth marketing. Our Facebook Page is just the next step. Of course we've been on Facebook for quite a while now. We were the first local company to launch a Facebook application with Eventos PR. We also have a group, but will probably phasing it out. There is no need to have a group and a page. So Facebook Pages are the new groups.

Expanding Puerto Rico Islander Ticket Contest

So to celebrate the launch of the new DóndeEs.com Facebook Page, we're going to extend the Puerto Rico Islander ticket contest onto Facebook. If you become a fan of DóndeEs.com before 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, you'll qualify to win two tickets to Thursday's game. It's just that simple.