With Facebook’s IPO expected to take place tomorrow, there are a lot of mixed opinions about the investment potential of the company. Many analysts have raised concerns over the social giant’s long-term sustainability given its revenue model, mobile strategy, and Mark Zuckerberg’s own leadership.
There are others, however, including Christian Taylor, that believe strongly in the company and its CEO. Taylor, who is the CEO of the leading Facebook ecommerce platform Payvment, told WebProNews that the social network was quickly becoming “engrained into the fabric of the entire Internet.” As he explained, the people that view the company as simply Facebook.com are limiting its true potential.
In addition to advertising, Taylor also sees a big future in the ecommerce side of Facebook. He built his company on top of the Facebook platform for the different type of ecommerce experience it creates. According to him, this new shopping environment will carry ecommerce into the future.
In terms of the company’s imminent meeting with Wall Street, Taylor said he has “no worries” at all. In fact, he expects Facebook to accelerate in every way.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on May 17th, 2012. Comment. 
Last week I had the privilege of speaking at the Mashable Social Good Summit. I wanted to share the video with you as many people had requested the slides and hearing the dialogue may help you use them most effectively. My topic was ‘Building a Private Sector Pillar of Social Change,’ and if you don’t have the slides but would like to download them, click here. Each case study is hyperlinked so you can explore them further.
I also wanted to share two more presentations that were very inspiring. One is by Scott Harrison, the founder of charity: water (@scottharrison) who gave a dramatic example of how social media can be used to generate community fundraising and support for a non-profit. The third video features by Alec Ross, senior Advisor for Innovation at the State Department (@alecjross), who explained how emerging technologies are being used to address global crises and international diplomacy. Seen together, the three videos give some idea of how for profit, non-profit and government agencies are using social media to build a better world.
Finally, thanks to Mashable for creating an inspiring day and generating amazing online buzz around critical social change.
Filed under Internet Marketing by on Sep 29th, 2011.
Good, creative marketing can be simplified into "four E’s": engage, educate, excite, and evangelize. That’s how former Kodak Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Hayzlett presents it anyhow. Obviously, each of these "E’s" can get complicated in themselves, but if you really want to look at it in the simplest form possible, this is as good a place to start as any.
Hayzlett, who also authored a book about this stuff called "The Mirror Test," advises that you look at who you are in the mirror for inspiration. "Who are you in the mirror?" he asked. "Look pretty in the mirror….You can’t be cool and look like Elmer Fudd."
"A brand is nothing but a promise delivered," said Hayzlett. "The promises that we deliver are different." In other words, figure out what you want to promise consumers and go from there. You may have a similar product to your competitors, but you can still take a different angle on your promise that can make them look at you in an entirely different light.
He also recommends keeping your "elevator pitch" to 118 seconds at most. After listening to many pitches on the exhibit hall floor at at:tech NY, Hayzlett said, "Many of you must be in much taller buildings than I am."
You get "8 seconds to hook me, 110 to close me. No more," he said.
If you’re a marketing leader in your organization, you should be creating tension, he says. "Shouldn’t we be causing tension in the operation…getting into healthy debate?"
Tension generally arises when there are risks involved, but that’s ok. "What happens if you make a mistake? No one’s going to die," he said. Learn from it.
Hayzlett had some interesting things to say about social media.
"Social media’s been around forever," he said, adding that people frequently say that the people are now in control, but that they were always in control. "Now they can actually write something and you’re paying attention to it."
And you better be paying attention to it. If someone is cursing your brand, you’re going to want to know about those conversations. The ROI of social media is constantly questioned within organizations. "You tell me what the return on ignoring is, I’ll tell you what the return on investment is," said Hayzlett.
"It is isn’t about building eyeballs and ears," he declared. "It’s about building hearts and minds."
Filed under Social Media by on Nov 5th, 2010.
