Several social media best practices – particularly on Facebook – come from big consumer brands: Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Rockstar, Vitamin Water, etc. McDonalds is arguably the biggest brand, but….

Go to McDonalds.com and notice prominent links to follow them on Facebook and Twitter. There is more real estate dedicated to each of these than, for instance, to their restaurant locator:

Click on Facebook and a shadowbox pops up that asks, “are you sure you want to leave?”

It’s almost as though McDonald’s wants to promote Facebook / Twitter… but doesn’t like the consequence of having it occur on Facebook / Twitter. It is also bizarre because the call to action is clearly “Become a Fan on Facebook” – so if I have offered to do so, why ask me to confirm again?

The strangest part is the messaging below the Yes / No. The language is not particularly inviting…. nor does it suggest that McDonald’s itself is involved with their various accounts:

“You are leaving the McDonald’s Corporation web site for a site that is controlled by a third party, not affiliated with McDonald’s.”

… But we hope that eventually you do decide to follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

Gilt Group made its name around high fashion at low prices. In their words, “Gilt Groupe provides access, by invitation only, to Men’s, Women’s and Children’s coveted fashion and luxury brands at prices up to 70% off retail. Each sale lasts 36 hours and features hand selected styles from a single designer.” It is interesting how different the ‘inventory’ between Gilt’s vertical offering is (Gilt for women and Gilt Man for men).

For instance, true to their early success, Gilt.com currently has seven offers… all of which are fashion related. There are four promotional units that all also promote fashion:

Compare that to Gilt Man, which is predominantly travel and vacation related. Four of the six current offers are travel related; the remaining two are men’s fashion. There are also two promotional units – which are product related (mobile app and referral program):

Not sure whether it is a comment more on purchase habits or Gilt’s ability to drive demand and/or inventory… but the difference is certainly striking.

Whichever side of the spectrum the answer falls, fashion still sells on Gilt Man. Below is one of the two Gilt Man fashion boutiques; within 10 minutes, several of the items were full sold out:

I encourage you to read Eric Eldon’s piece on InsideFacebook about how Facebook’s most popular game, Farmville, now defaults to Facebook Credits and Payments.

As location and geo dominate the blog headlines (Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla), Facebook Credits has managed to stay relatively under the radar… but Facebook’s payments platform is important as it is going to be very big. And, despite being young, Facebook Credits is now exposed to Farmville’s 84,000,000 monthly actives… that’s quite the launchpad.

A big, exciting day for Brizzly (whom I have written about more than a few times!). Today they announce two major product launches:

1. Brizzly for the iPhone

It is a free iPhone App (download here) and has the same functionality and feel that Brizzly.com has. If you are an avid Brizzly or Twitter user – it’s a must:

2. Brizzly Guide

Brizzly has always included Twitter trends with crowdsourced definitions and color. In fact, they also have made it widely available with the Lets Be Trends API. Trending topics each get their own guide pages – which are archived – and feature relevant content from the community, Twitter, relevant sources, etc. You can also access historical information about topics. For instance, Chuck Norris is the #2 trend today (it is his 70th birthday) but you can also see that first appeared as a trend on Jan 16, 2010. In fact, Chuck has quite the robust Brizzly timeline:

You can now read more on TechCrunch: “Brizzly’s Been Busy — Buying Apps, Creating Guides, And Going On Picnics.”

At South-by-Southwest on Monday March 15th? Join a list of great folks at the Skip Intro party at 8pm at the Cedar St. Courtyard. It is hosted by Brizzly (Polaris portfolio company), Foursquare and Katalyst. It is also sponsored by Dogpatch Labs, Stickybits, Dailybooth, Mobile Roadie and Citizennet. Hope to see you there!

You can follow Skip Intro on Twitter.

Very excited to welcome Stickybits to the Polaris portfolio and to Dogpatch Labs (both New York and San Francisco). Founded by both Billy Chasen and Seth Goldestein, Stickybits are unique bar codes that can be attached to physical objects and read / shared with mobile devices. You can print off barcodes at Stickybits.com or order a booklet of stickers on Amazon.

How do Stickybits work?
1. Place the sticker on something (like a card or a flyer)
2. Scan the sticker with the free iPhone and Android apps
3. Attach digital “bits” to it (video, photo, music, etc)

The creative possibilities are endless and, when it officially launches at South-by-Southwest next week, we are all excited to see what users come up with. Here is a relatively uncreative example in action: I attached a Stickybit to my laptop – you can scan this specific barcode to see a photo and video of it… or to add bits yourself:

More about Stickybits and the launch:
TechCrunch:The Secret Lives Of Objects: StickyBits Turn Barcodes Into Personal Message Boards
Peter Flint: Introducing Stickybits
DogpatchLabs.com: The Launch of Stickybits

A ‘matchbook’ of Stickybits (order yours on Amazon!)

Stickybits.com: Register, Login, Track & Share

When discussing marketing and product strategies, I sometimes come across as a broken record! One of things I preach is the power of change. A button’s color, an ad’s call to action, or the placement of a marketing module can each have a profound impact on user interaction. Of course, the only way to understand is to test… and the only way to effectively test is to have proper tracking place (don’t yet? try KISSmetrics).

Here is yet another example of a relatively minor change that has had very significant impact. It should serve as motivation for web and product marketers to test, trial and iterate.

Facebook recently added a post-logout promotion for the Facebook iPhone app. Nothing fancy… and nothing that required real engineering effort:

The effect: in under a week, Facebook iPhone usage soared by 20% in under a week:

A handful of recruiting-related blog posts were published over the weekend; and whether you are hiring or interviewing, these are important reads.

First, in “Recruiting High Impact Employees“, Peter Flint of Polaris Ventures gives a list of questions to ask when hiring. Before joining Polaris, Peter spent several years at Ramsey Beirne Associates and is an expert in building senior management teams for early stage venture backed companies. Peter provides a detailed check list of important questions (attention job seekers: prepare for these!). Here are a few:

- Strengths and Weaknesses analysis: Delve deep and follow up any generalized comments by asking for examples. Also get specific examples of failures and successes. Everyone wants to give you just the strengths.
- If the candidate is being considered for a more senior role than he has played before, what challenges will he/she face?
- Ability to hire well: Get examples.
full list here

From a job seekers’ and perspective, both Jason Antman and provide advice on crafting job reqs to specifically attract engineers. The two most interesting takeaways:

1. Engineers should write the technical specs… and be very specific about critical skills and nice-to-haves.
2. Pay as much attention to the non-technical specs as the technical. Describe the job, the team and work environment, etc.

According to both bloggers, the majority of engineering ads fail these two bullets.

]]>

Vitaminwater has introduced its newest flavor: Vitaminwater Connect (named after Facebook Connect)… and they are giving away 100,000 free bottles of Connect to their 1.2 million Facebook fans. If you remember, over the last few months, Vitaminwater ran a major Facebook campaign that allowed fans to create their own flavors and vote on the best concoctions: “made by fans, for fans on Facebook”:

The announced flavor is Vitaminwater Connect… which will arrive in stores shortly and carry the Facebook logo on it:

As it prepares to hit shelves, Vitaminwater is giving away free bottles to the first 100,000 Facebook fans who request one. Users request their free bottle via their fan page and the coupon “tab”:

Once you request the bottle, two interesting things happen:

1. you are encouraged to share your discovery to your Facebook friends… which is how I found this offer

2. you receive a confirmation page that also changes the fan page’s logo to denote that you have accepted the offer (notice the “request accepted” portion of the graphic)

As we have seen time and time again, people love offers, samples and customized ’stuff’ (product, content, etc). With the Connect flavor campaign, Vitaminwater has effectively crowdsourced the flavor, marketing and launch.

Hurry and get your free bottle by becoming a fan at http://www.facebook.com/vitaminwater