Fresh

When it comes to Facebook, Dunkin’ Donuts does it right.  They have well over 1 million fans and they have carefully crafted their profile to accomplish wide spread support.  I recently went to a PAF event that was led by Kevin Tate from StepChange Group.  He did a rather large feature on why Dunkin’ has found such success on Facebook and I personally found it really interesting.

One of the first things you’ll notice about their profile is that it opens on the News/Promos tab which features simple things for fans to do.  This is important for a couple reasons.  The first is that most companies seem to have success on Facebook if they give their fans something to do.  Dunkin’ Donuts has a callout for people to dunk themselves in chocolate and another for people to enter a contest (located off Facebook as you now must pay to host a contest within Facebook).  The second is that they didn’t over-complicate it.  You’re decorating a donut and dipping yourself in chocolate – both very much on brand as well as easy and fun.

If you go a little deeper into their profile, you’ll notice that their profile picture is a “Fan of the Week”.  This is a really great approach to having their fans do the marketing for them.  Each week they pick a new photo and the person who is selected will most likely brag on their own profile about being the lucky choice.  This accomplishes two things:

1. They’ve reaffirmed their relationship with that customer.
2. That customer’s friends are most likely going to become their fan because they want a crack at the “Fan of the Week”.

It’s a perfect domino effect.

I think the biggest takeaway I had from the presentation was to not over-complicate anything when it comes to Facebook.  It doesn’t need to be elaborate or overly processed.  It can be super grass roots and organic.  After all, that’s why people are on Facebook.  They don’t want marketers throwing things at them but they do want the opportunity to interact with their favorite brands.

I think it’s time for me to go dunk myself in chocolate. Care to join me?

The Portland Advertising Federation (PAF) put on a great lunch yesterday.  It was a talk given by Mike Byrne from Anomaly. The topic was about how his agency re-thought their business model. He included a lot of interesting tidbits that had me scribbling notes. Some of the things he mentioned had me thinking, “how can they possibly get away working like that?!” while other points had me nodding furiously in agreement. Even though the talk was geared towards running an agency, I thought his points could be applied to one’s day to day work, and life in general.

Here are some of my key take-aways from the talk:

“Strive to be Stupid”

(More heart and feeling, less relying on rational thought.)

-Stupid ain’t dumb

-By being stupid you can be brilliant

-Smart is business as usual

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