Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

Mentos UP2U, its first stick gum sold in this country, the initial advertising efforts will be focused in social media like Facebook.

For instance, the new gum already has a Facebook fan page, at facebook.com/up2u, which more than 95,900 people have indicated they “like.” The first 1,000 visitors who clicked on the “like” button got free gum in a promotion that began on June 13 and ended on Wednesday.

Plans call for an invitation to be made next month on the fan page, asking those who “like” the new product to provide the name of friends they would want to receive samples.

How many free social media mentions can you get out of one stick of gum? Let's wait and see. What's your company doing to make creative use of custom Facebook pages and online buzz to promote your brand, product or services? Need help developing a social media strategy? We can help. Contact us at http://www.stirsolutions.com/social-media today.

Facebook has launched a new feature in Canada that allows mobile users to claim discounts through smartphones by “checking in” while they are shopping at certain stores.

AMC Theatres, Chapters Indigo, H&M, Joe Fresh and Telus are among the companies that have signed up for the beta launch of Facebook Deals, which is now active.

If users are at a store offering a deal, they can use their phone to “check-in” through an app or Facebook’s website, and then show a cashier an onscreen coupon to get the discount.

Gowalla 3.0: All-In-One Check Ins Are Here

By Allie Townsend on December 2, 2010

Yes, you can now check in to your Foursquare account with your Gowalla App.

Will I stop opening both my Foursquare AND Gowalla Apps on my iPhone now when I want to check in somewhere and just use Gowalla's nicer-looking new interface instead? Or will I be lured back to Foursquare? Or will I simply gravitate towards only using my Facebook app and just check in there where I have a larger base of relationships? Maybe once Facebook Deals arrive in Canada and if Facebook can give me the option of also checking in to Foursquare and Gowalla then I'll let Facebook have a chance at being my one geo location app that rules them all. Until then I'll continue to open the Gowalla app and be tempted to try to remember what my foursquare email/password is so I can skip opening Foursquare all together.

As a social media marketer I love to see competition growing amongst the social networks and to see an increasing number of people learning about location based games and checkins and deals. What's your favorite location based application? Have you claimed your business in Foursquare and Facebook? Need help figuring out how to use social media marketing to promote yourself or your business? Contact me today for a free 30 minute phone consultation at http://stirsolutions.com/consultation

According to the final edition of ExactTarget’s “Subscribers, Fans and Followers” report, the differences between email, Facebook and Twitter also include their influence on customer loyalty.

Daily Twitter users who followed a brand were more than twice as likely as daily Facebook users who “liked” a brand to say they were more likely to purchase from the brand after becoming a social media follower. What’s more, Facebook fans were the most likely group to actively disagree with the question. Subscribers to opt-in marketing emails fell in the middle.

Retailer Urban Outfitters has made the Facebook Like button central to the way the company is marketing its products online. Visitors to the Urban Outfitters web site are now greeting by a large thumbs up asking them to “See our most Liked items.”

The company had installed the Like button by its products on the company web site and this new feature is essentially a grouping of the most Liked items into one place.

What's not to like with the Facebook Like button. It's great to see creative new uses of the Like button. Soon, I'd guess, smartphones will be able to sense other smartphones around them and you'll be able to click "Like" regarding that person who's in the same physical space as you. For now, however, we're stuck liking web pages and and sweaters.

IKEA Canada has launched an advertising campaign and contest that encourage consumers to share their favourite images from the home furnishing retailer's latest catalogue.

The campaign includes television, print, online and out-of-home creative touting the arrival of IKEA's 2011 catalogue. Each execution also alerts readers to IKEA's "Capture the Page" contest, an online initiative that invites consumers to upload pictures of their favourite images from the catalogue to a microsite,

So when you're reading through the Ikea catalogue and it asks you to take a picture of a page and then email it to win 10k will you take the time to do it? Maybe they should encourage the same thing in their Ikea stores -- take a picture of yourself with the thing you see that you like in the store and email it to enter to win that item. Instead of "Capture the Page" maybe Ikea can get permission to use "Swede Yourself" from Be Kind Rewind fame. Do you think a whole Sweded version of the Ikea website would draw any viral or grassroots attention? I'd visit it and watch submitted videos of people swede'ing non-ikea-purchased furniture or things in their life (whatever that might mean).

Even before Michael Farah opened the doors to his first Berry Chill store, he was working the social media scene to create awareness of his frozen yogurt.

"Before we opened our business, we created a Facebook page," Farah said. Then he added Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare to the mix.

Two years later, he hasn't been disappointed with the results. Berry Chill has more than 10,000 Facebook fans and about 3,000 Twitter followers, Farah said.

Many consumers are learning more about their favorite businesses through social media networking sites.  What does this mean for your local business?  If you are not participating in social media, you are missing a critical way to engage with current and new customers and boost your online identity and visibility.  

Offerpop, a software development company for social media applications, has launched a new marketing app that lets retailers and brands bolster their Twitter and Facebook profiles for maximum impact. Only the Twitter application is currently available to the public, but the company is accepting beta testers for its Facebook version.

AllFacebook said the statement and the search results were indicative of Facebook moving forward on a plan to build a semantic search engine, where "likes" would replace inbound links as a measure of a particular Web page's ranking. The blog concluded that SEO operative would soon begin using "like baiting," as opposed to link baiting, to attract traffic.