I was planning to blog about the new Old Spice campaign, in which Wieden + Kennedy’s creative team first seeded Social Media influentials with the idea of tweeting Old Spice pitch-hunk Isaiah Mustafa to ask for a personalized video – and then produced the video “responses” almost in real time. You can read about this amazing campaign here.

But I’m not going to blog about Old Spice. I’m going to blog about my fire, and about how ADT (and others) saved my house.

At 10:06 on Monday morning, ADT, which provides central station monitoring services, detected a fire alarm on the second floor of my home in New Jersey. They called the local fire department, which responded within minutes. Soon, firefighters from no less than 10 different companies – mostly volunteers – were working to put out the fire, which began when wires shorted inside a wall between a bathroom and a closet. No one was home when the fire broke out and none of the firefighters or police was injured.

Because ADT called in the alarm so quickly, the fire damage was confined to a relatively small space. The fire chief told my wife, however, that if we hadn’t had central station monitoring the house would likely have burned to the ground. Since my neighbors were either at work or on vacation it isn’t likely that anyone would have called 911 before it was too late.

As soon as the firefighters finished, we called our insurance company, Chubb. They dispatched a demolition and restoration crew immediately and by that afternoon a dozen people were working to clean and dry out the house. The amount of smoke and water damage is surprising for such a small fire, but while heat goes up, water goes down and smoke and soot go everywhere – especially on a hot day when the air conditioning is blowing. In fact, much of the damage isn’t even close to the site of the fire.

I’m blogging about my fire first, because I want to thank the firefighters and police who burst into a smoke-filled house on a hot July day not knowing what they would find and who used sensitivity as well as skill in fighting the blaze. They could have torn my house apart while trying to save it. Instead they put tarps over the furniture so it wouldn’t be damaged by water and falling debris. Our local firefighters are volunteers and they are at the top of the list of local causes my family and I support.

Second, I want to emphasize the value of central station monitoring. We use ADT and we credit them with saving our house, but any good central station company will do. We were pretty cavalier about our service because we looked at it mainly as a burglar alarm and the house is rarely vacant. And house fires happen to other people. At least we had fresh batteries in the heat detectors. We had changed ours recently and if the fire had happened only a couple of months ago it could have been much worse.

Finally, I think everyone should take a hard look at their fire and casualty insurance policies and make sure that (a) they are adequately covered and (b) their insurance company is willing and able to handle the kind of losses that a house fire can cause. One thing we learned from our fire is that different insurance companies have different perspectives on losses like ours. The Chubb adjuster and everyone else on the team assures us that they have seen far worse than ours. Their overriding message is one that we needed to hear: Don’t worry. Knowing that we aren’t going to have to fight over every penny provides enormous relief at a time of great stress. If you don’t get the same feeling from your insurance company, you need a new one. And if it costs a little more to be confident that you won’t have a battle on your hands if you make a claim, it’s probably worth it.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Central station monitoring can save your house – and perhaps your life.
• Fire insurance isn’t a commodity – get the coverage and service you need and deserve.
• Firefighters are amazing – they deserve everyone’s respect and support. They certainly have mine.

Thomas Jefferson

The Court doesn’t handle patent cases very often, both because the legal issues rarely become Supreme-worthy and because the underlying facts are often very technical. Bilski is an exception on both counts, as the issue is extremely important and the facts aren’t very difficult.

Bilski filed for what is called a “business method” patent, in this case a procedure for instructing buyers and sellers how to hedge against the risk of price fluctuations in the energy sector. The patent application was originally denied because the Appeals Court held that a “process” was patent-eligible only if it either was tied to a particular machine or apparatus or physically transformed a particular article into a different state or thing (think of a process for cutting a diamond or desalinating seawater). This is called the “machine or transformation” test and it played a central role in the Bilsky decision.

No one can patent natural phenomena, laws of nature or (and this is critical) abstract ideas. In fact, the Supreme Court held that the Bilski patent was properly denied not because it failed the “machine or transformation” test – the Court rejected that as a litmus test for process patents – but because it was an abstract idea. The problem for business people is that the Court explicitly refused to define what kinds of business methods could both fail the “machine or transformation” test and pass the “abstract ideas” test – and thus be patent-eligible.

Why is this a big deal? The purpose of patent law (which was pioneered by Thomas Jefferson) is to encourage innovation by granting inventors who disclose their invention a monopoly over the subject of the patent. Some inventors don’t like that bargain: the formula for Coca-Cola has never been patented because its owners think disclosure is too risky – they worry that flavor chemists could reverse-engineer the formula and come up with something that tastes like almost like Coke but doesn’t violate the patent.

With business method patents the risk is the opposite: that despite disclosure businesses could inadvertently infringe on a patent just by conducting their business. Although the patent described in this famous Onion article would never be upheld, Congress was nervous enough about business method patents that in 1999 it enacted a specific defense against certain infringement claims relating to business methods. Even with this defense, however, businesses will have to choose between investing in resources to effectively monitor both new patents and their own business to prevent infringement or take the risk of possible litigation. Either choice is risky and potentially very expensive.

The fundamental question about business method patents is whether they help or hinder innovation. Another way to ask the question is whether the absence of patent protection would deter inventors from incurring the cost and risk of invention. In science and technology, the benefits of patents are clear: no one would invest in drug discovery if the results of their efforts immediately had to be shared – for free – with drug companies that hadn’t put any time or money into the research. On the other hand, methods of doing business have been competing in the marketplace for centuries without patent protection.

Using a similar analysis, four of the nine Justices concluded that business methods should not be patent-eligible, but they were outvoted (all nine agreed that the Bilski patent was too abstract to be eligible). The Court’s opinion has received critical reviews, since it was so narrowly decided that it leaves the important questions unanswered. Yet it seems inevitable that the Court will have to grapple with the issue of business method patents before too long. The lines are blurring between technology that is clearly patent-eligible and abstractions that clearly are not – a factor, perhaps, in the Court’s non-decision – and the risk to both businesses and inventors is great.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Whether methods of doing business are patentable is an important question, one the Supreme Court should have answered yesterday.
• If you are developing a novel way to do business, think twice before investing in a patent. Bilski didn’t kill the business method patent but it didn’t offer a strong endorsement, either.
• It’s not impossible that someday you will be on the receiving end of an infringement claim. If it happens, find the best patent lawyer you can and don’t give up hope – you may be able to beat the claim or even the patent itself.

via Rusty Boxcars

Adding an element of game play is one of the latest trends in marketing. At first blush, game play might not seem likely to resonate with adult consumers, but we all engage in competition in one form or another from a very early age. The viability of game play can be seen in the popularity of virtual games such as Farmville, which has almost 65 million monthly active users on Facebook. The location-based social network Foursquare also has a significant gaming element, with users earning points and “points” for specific activity.

Why should game play increase marketing effectiveness? The rationale is that encouraging the audience to participate and be rewarded helps a message earn attention in an increasingly noise-filled environment. Game play also is consistent with consumers’ increased expectation of control over the marketing messages they encounter. One result of meeting these expectations is that consumers not only pay more attention to messages presented as games, they have better recall of messages presented in games.

For small businesses, introducing game play into marketing programs can help level the playing field with competitors that have larger budgets. And it doesn’t require a lot of cost or complexity. The key is to figure out how to get the consumer involved in the message. We took a simple contest model and tweaked it by rewarding referrals. Social media platforms make game play even easier to implement. We plan to run a video contest on YouTube later this year, and the cost to us, apart from prizes, should be minimal.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Marketing messages that have an element of game play increase awareness, attention and effectiveness.
• The key to game play is user involvement, not expensive technology.
• Small businesses can and should add game play to their marketing.

via Noah Scalin

BP itself is providing a real-time video feed from a dozen cameras of the oil spewing out of the wellhead. This feed is becoming the defining imagery of the disaster, the constant flow representing for many the helplessness of the “experts” on the surface a mile above. BP also maintains a YouTube channel. BP has supplied its wellhead video feed to the web site of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which has maintained a steady flow of press releases focusing on BP. In addition to video, BP’s own site contains maps, claims forms (in English, Spanish and Vietnamese) and, of course, press releases.

BP is also trying to participate in the conversation on Social Media, but does not appear to be having much success in overcoming anti-BP sentiment. The “Boycott BP” page on Facebook is liked by more than 450,000 users, although it is unclear whether this movement will be able to affect BP’s business. On Twitter, an anti-BP impostor has amassed almost 140,000 followers while BP’s own Twitter feed is hovering at about 12,000 followers.

Much like Toyota several months ago, BP cannot expect to be portrayed other than as the villain. All BP can do is communicate openly and actively, and if its mea culpas come off as somewhat self-serving, at least the company isn’t stonewalling. The difference between the recall and the oil spill is, of course, scale. Toyota fixed the problems with its cars relatively quickly and was able to begin to rebuild its reputation. BP faces a much greater challenge, because the spill has not been contained quickly, the environmental impact may be enormous, and as an oil company BP did not start out with the kind of reputation Toyota had among the public.

So far, BP has demonstrated a certain sophistication in not trying to shut down the parody Twitter feed or the flow of satirical treatments of the company’s logo. In March, the environmental activist group Greenpeace provoked Nestle into overreacting to critical videos and Facebook postings that included modified versions of the Nestle logo. BP hasn’t fallen into that trap. Nor has it attempted to co-opt the fake Twitter account. This is a wise choice, since if trying to shut down the account would be bullying, trying to fold it into the company’s own communication strategy would seem, um, slimy.

The Zavee takeaway:

• In a bad situation, openness and honesty really are the best policies.
• The better you do at solving the problem, the easier it will be to rebuild your reputation.
• Frustrated people need to express their frustration. Don’t try to stop them.

• Merchants – More than 200 merchants are now members of Zavee, and more are joining every day. We have attracted businesses from a wide variety of categories and from all over our Northern Broward – Southern Palm Beach launch market. Many Zavee merchants are taking advantage of opportunities for increased social media exposure by “liking” Zavee on Facebook and following us on Twitter. Later this year we expect to add new features that will make your marketing even more effective.
• Shoppers – We have completed development of the shopper portion of the Zavee platform, and have ramped up our consumer marketing accordingly. As every business owner knows, it takes time for consumers to learn about any new business – even one as cool as Zavee. The Zavee site is now fully optimized for search engines and we have an active online advertising program through both Google and Facebook. We will be launching our email marketing program in the beginning of June and already have begun our PR campaign. We expect thousands of shoppers to join in the next few months.
• You Should Become a Shopper, Too - One way to increase the number of Zavee shoppers is for merchants to activate their shopper accounts at www.zavee.com. That’s right – every Zavee merchant is also a Zavee shopper. So next time you log in, click on the shopping bag icon and set up your shopper account. Your customers are earning cash back rewards, why not you? Another way to add merchants is for you to suggest Zavee to your customers. Almost 80% of consumers trust personal recommendations. Your recommendation of Zavee is almost certain to be effective.
• Causes and Care Shares – Our team also has completed the portion of our platform that lets causes sign up, communicate with other members and receive Care Share contributions from shoppers. We are beginning our outreach program to causes and have been gratified by the response. If you are a member of an organization that you think would be right for Zavee, please invite them to contact us or let us know and we will take it from there. Since causes earn contributions through shopper transactions, it is in your interest as well as theirs for causes to join Zavee.

In fact, we want you to let us know what you think about the Zavee site and platform. Please do not hesitate to contact me at 561-290-0388 ext. 302, or our COO and co-founder, Ron Stack at 561-290-0388 ext. 301, with any questions, comments or suggestions.

We thank you for joining us, and we thank you for your continued patience and support as we roll out a social shopping platform that will help you grow your business through smarter marketing and a stronger local community. We’re glad you’re part of the Zavee community.

And if you’re a merchant in Broward or Palm Beach Counties and you aren’t a Zavee merchant yet, hit us up online or call Jerry Horowitz at 561-290-0388 ext. 501 and learn how Zavee can get you marketing smarter today.

The Zavee takeaway:

• We are ramping up marketing to shoppers and causes, so the Zavee community is poised for exceptional growth.
• You can help the community grow, by becoming a shopper, by recommending Zavee to your customers and by telling Zavee about your favorite cause.
• Thanks, Zavee merchants – you’re the best!

One of the recent changes to Facebook has been a great expansion of the “Like” concept which, among other things, replaces the “Fan” concept.  Yelp and other social networks have followed suit.  At least for now, Zavee is still inviting shoppers to become “Fans” of merchants they haven’t yet shopped at and not just “Like” them.  Why?  Because we think that, on some perhaps subtle level, being a “Fan” implies a higher degree of emotional engagement than merely “Liking” someone or something.  How substantial is that difference? It’s hard to tell.  If you follow sports you might agree that there is a difference between liking a team and being a fan.  If you follow the New York Mets or the Miami Dolphins you almost certainly do.  At Zavee we are considering changing the “Fan” concept to something completely different – something that retains a high level of engagement but provides greater flexibility.  More news to follow on that new feature.

One thing we didn’t think about when we were debating “Fan” versus “Like” was whether a lower level of engagement might make it easier for users to be less than candid about what they say they “Like”.  Would people really do this?  And why?

Starbucks Barista Badge from Foursquare (via pbende)

Like much about social media, behavioral targeting presents legitimate privacy issues, and they need to be worked out. However, if advertisers lose faith in the accuracy of consumers’ self-descriptions the effectiveness of social media for marketers is likely to decrease. For small marketers who are drawn to social media marketing by, among other things, its low cost and high effectiveness, this could be a very unfortunate result.

It’s probably true, as Scoble says, that advertisers have ways to verify, at least in part, the accuracy of the things we claim we like.  But the deeper point is that the value of social media as a communications tool for users in the network depends in large part on the credibility of other users.  A user who creates a false or misleading social persona may only lose personal credibility within the network, but if enough users do the same thing the credibility of the network as a whole may suffer. A recent paper about dating sites reports that deception in profiles is rampant. The paper suggests that one reason is that users understand what makes them desirable to potential mates, and create profiles to reflect those expectations. Dating sites like to advertise their successes, but they may have become just one more system to game.

Whether Zavee stays with “Fan”, changes to “Like” or goes in a different direction altogether, the principal means by which Zavee shoppers communicate the quality of their shopping experience is by writing reviews. It takes more effort (and commitment) to write a review than to click on a button, but that very fact gives proportionately more weight to the reviews and less to a simple “Fan” designation. One safeguard we put in place expressly to improve the accuracy, timeliness and fairness of reviews is for the system to accept a review of a merchant only if the reviewer has made a Zavee purchase at that merchant within 30 days.

We hope that social networks and their users develop means to limit the influence of false social personsas, not to protect advertisers but to protect the networks themselves and to permit them to continue to deliver valuable, relevant experiences to their users.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Once it becomes trivially easy to create a social persona, that persona may itself become trivial. The problem is that those personas are taken seriously, both by advertisers and by other users.
• It’s natural to present ourselves as we’d like to be seen, but invented personas can make the the network as a whole less valuable to users who rely on other users for timely and accurate information and opinions.
• Local businesses will suffer disproportionately if social media marketing loses credibility, because it’s a particularly attractive tool for them in an environment where conventional alternatives aren’t nearly as cost-effective.

Mark Zuckerberg at f8 2010 (Washington Post photo)

In his op-ed Zuckerberg admits only to “mov[ing] too fast” to introduce privacy tools that “were too complex”. Zuckerberg goes on to say that Facebook’s intention was to provide “lots of granular [privacy] controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted.” The ability to fine-tune privacy settings seems like a good idea given the wide variety of content available on and through Facebook. However, the risk of missing something significant and inadvertently setting a control incorrectly may well outweigh the value of granular controls.

However, Facebook’s recent history of introducing, then modifying, changes to the platform, along with its enormous size and influence in the social media space, has created an environment in which not everyone is willing to take the company’s statements at face value (the comments on almost any post on the allfacebook blog are instructive). We believe that it is in the interest of everyone in the space – users as well as networks – for Facebook to get a better handle on how to develop, introduce, explain and refine significant changes to its platform.

It is axiomatic that users should control the amount of personal information they share, and with whom. I’m not sure there is one best way to ensure this, and granularity versus ease of use for privacy controls seems to me a debate worth having. Zavee is oriented toward the ease of use end of the spectrum. We provide very clear but fairly granular choices about who gets to see what information. Furthermore, all of our privacy settings default to the most limited distribution, which minimizes the downside risk for the user.

In addition to receiving credible assurances about the privacy of their personal information, users of social networks – especially social shopping networks – need to be completely comfortable that any financial information they provide will be maintained and transmitted with the utmost security. Platforms such as Mint ask for a wide range of personal financial information since Mint’s model is to aggregate that information and make it easier for the member to use. Blippy and some other sites require registration of a credit card, as their model involves sharing purchases over a social network. Zavee also requires registration of a credit card, although unlike Blippy Zavee does not share purchase details over the network.

Zavee has a number of safeguards in place to protect users’ credit card data. First, we use Secure Sockets Layer technology from industry leader Verisign to provide secure access to the platform for every Zavee user. That’s why our URL starts with “https://” and has a distinctive green band in the address window. You can see the Verisign seal in the footer of our site and can click on it to learn more about Secure Sockets Layer technology.

Second, we only collect the minimum card data necessary for the Zavee platform to function. Anyone who has ever made a purchase online, or even over the phone, knows that the merchant is required to collect not just the the card number, but also its expiration date and security code, and sometimes the zip code for the billing address. Zavee only needs the card number, so that’s all we ask for. Anyone who improperly obtained that information would still be unable to use the card for an unauthorized transaction.

Third, Zavee itself never collects or stores any credit card information. The card registration page may look the same as other pages on the Zavee site, but it isn’t actually on our site at all. When a user registers a credit card the card number is automatically encrypted and sent directly to our data provider, a company called TSYS. TSYS is one of the largest credit card processors in the world and maintains secure credit card databases for, among others, VISA itself. Once TSYS receives and registers the card number it sends a secure, unique identifier back to Zavee. Our system is set up to use only this identifier when we process shopper transactions, so the actual card number remains within TSYS’s secure environment. Our databases are stored in a secure facility in the US, but if anything happened to the card identifiers we would simply get a copy of the relevant database from TSYS.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Overly complex privacy settings may have the effect of inadvertently decreasing actual privacy. No one should find that acceptable.
• Zavee is a simple platform from a privacy standpoint and has simple, intuitive privacy controls that are designed to minimize user risk.
• No one should ever be in doubt about the security of their financial data. Zavee uses industry best practices to protect the credit card numbers that members provide.

Taglines act as a shorthand for communication about a business and its products (or a product). There is only so much a tagline can do without smart strategic thinking and powerful creative execution around it. And, of course, it has to be true to the product and the brand. BMW‘s “Ultimate driving machine” tagline has retained its power for 35 years not just because it promises exactly the experience that its buyers want, but because the company and its products deliver.

35 years and counting

I think of taglines as existing on a spectrum between purely product-oriented messages and purely brand-oriented messages. Messages about your product involve what it does and the benefits it provides. Think of Miller Lite‘s “Tastes great, less filling.” Messages about your brand involve what your company is and what it stands for. IBM’s “Building a smarter planet” is mostly if not entirely about the brand; if you weren’t familiar with the company you couldn’t tell what IBM actually does. Snapple‘s tagline, “Made from the best stuff on Earth”, combines a message about the product with a message about Snapple’s corporate values. Creating a tagline that is right for your company should involve a careful and candid analysis of how both kinds of messages fit into your overall consumer value proposition.

Two things to bear in mind when thinking about taglines are positioning within your space and differentiation vs. similarly positioned competitors. Positioning is about the different high-level choices that you make about how you want consumers see your business. The matrix of choices is different in every category and every business in the category occupies a unique point on this matrix – even when there are only limited functional differences among different companies’ products. In fact, the fewer the differences between competing products, the more important positioning can become. Car insurance is a prime example. At one end of the spectrum there are value-positioned companies like Geico with product-focused taglines (“15 minutes can save you 15% or more …”) and at the other there are premium-positioned companies like Allstate whose messages evoke more of a brand than a product promise (“Are you in good hands?”).

However, multiple businesses within a category may position themselves similarly. When this happens, businesses may try to differentiate themselves on the strength of their creative, and the tagline can be part of that. Charles Schwab‘s “Talk to Chuck” campaign is a novel approach to communicating a client-focused positioning. A more strategic approach, however, is to try to find something differentiating in either the brand or the product that had not previously been taken advantage of. A well-known example in the very crowded breakfast cereal category is Wheaties, which used its heritage with athletes to differentiate itself as “The breakfast of champions.”

Small businesses are frequently advised to focus on product benefits when creating a tagline. Is this good advice or is it too limiting? I think all businesses should use the same process: analyze your product and your brand to determine what is credible, compelling and differentiating; understand your positioning choices; and be aware of what your competitors’ messaging is. Consider Avis. Back in the 1960s, Avis was an upstart compared to industry leader Hertz. It couldn’t compete on the basis of its rental fleet, prices, or number of rental locations. Instead, Avis embraced its positioning as a challenger in a way that also communicated a key brand attribute: commitment to customer service. The Avis tagline was an instant classic: “We try harder.”

What about our tagline? Once, when we were asking ourselves what we wanted Zavee to be, someone put three words on the whiteboard: Simple. Local. Social. Ease of use, focus on local communities, and social networking are key features of our platform and we wanted to make sure that everyone at Zavee kept them top of mind. Making those three words our tagline was almost automatic. Why didn’t we focus on brand messages? In one sense, we did: our commitment to helping local communities become stronger is our most important brand attribute. But in another sense, we don’t think open social networks like Zavee really can (or should try to) create a brand other than organically through its members. I don’t see much brand communication from either Facebook or Twitter and I think they have the right approach.

The Zavee takeaway:

• A tagline is only a tagline. It isn’t your entire marketing campaign.
• Understand what sets your product and your brand apart. Understand the same things about your competitors.
• Positioning involves making difficult choices but it’s the only way to truly differentiate yourself. Focus on the differentiators when you are looking for your tagline. It’s in there somewhere.

The Greater Delray Beach (FL) Chamber of Commerce has been kind enough to ask me to speak about how businesses can use Twitter – and why they should. My presentation, which is part of a “Tech Talk and Coffee” about Social Media for Business, is scheduled for Tuesday, May 18 at 7:30am. Other speakers will cover Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. The session is open to the public as well as to Chamber members and every local business should find it useful, even businesses that haven’t considered adding Social Media to their marketing mix.

By now most people have heard of Twitter. Oprah uses it. So does the White House. It’s a free micro-blogging service that lets users publish short notes (called “tweets”) of up to 140 characters in real time. There are smartphone applications for Twitter, so it is a fully mobile service. Users can “follow” other users and see their tweets in their Twitter stream. Following and being followed is how users build a community on Twitter. Users also can search by keywords or topics to find relevant tweets. Users can reply to tweets, forward (“retweet”) them, and include links to web sites or other media. Engaging in these conversations is a good way to attract followers.

Broadly speaking, there are at least four ways businesses can use Twitter.

Listening Post. Twitter’s most significant benefit to business is its immediacy. When US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River in January 2009 there were posts, including photos, on Twitter within minutes. If you want to know what your customers, competitors, vendors, etc. are thinking right now, Twitter is a great way to find out. Listening on Twitter is also a great source of ideas and information. Using Twitter’s search functions can widen any business’ horizons.

Brand Builder. Tweeting regularly with timely, relevant information creates interest in you and your brand. This works best when most of the tweets are on a subject that relates to your business but does not overtly promote the business itself. For example, if your restaurant wants to be known for its fresh produce, you could tweet about sustainable farming, its local purveyors, and even the weather. You will attract followers on Twitter who might become customers themselves or retweet your posts to others. Media outlets have become big Twitter users and you could find your restaurant covered in the newspaper just by using Twitter adeptly.

Lead Generator. Twitter lets users form, and join, communities. Twitter’s search functions make it easy to identify other users with similar interests or in similar businesses. Mutual following puts a business’ tweets in its followers’ streams and vice versa. You can get leads from Twitter communities built on common interests both by reading relevant tweets and simply by asking for help.

Help Desk. Twitter is an outstanding platform for providing customer service. Responding in near real time to a tweet that asks for assistance – or jumping in to solve a problem you see on a tweet from a customer even if it isn’t directed to you – not only helps your customer, it helps cement (or improve) your reputation as a business that cares about its customers. One of the earliest business adopters of Twitter was Comcast, a company not known for the quality of its customer service. Comcast now has a full-time staff that monitors Twitter for customer complaints and responds almost immediately. When you ask your customers to follow you on Twitter you are not just gaining access to them, you are providing access to yourself. Since all of your followers will see these interactions the potential benefits of using Twitter to help your customers quickly are huge.

At Zavee we try to use Twitter for all of these functions, and we continue to learn as we go. Here are a few suggestions for getting started with Twitter:

• If you don’t feel comfortable putting your business name out there right away, start with a personal Twitter account.
• Listen first, then start asking questions, make suggestions, and in no time you will be part of the action.
• Pass along stuff, including links and retweets, that’s timely, relevant and interesting, but don’t overdo it. Original material is more useful and will result in more followers.
• Most important of all, be yourself.

According author Geoff Livingston, who follows social giving closely, social giving can be a source of both new donations and newly engaged donors and activists. Social giving also can engage consumers in corporate philanthropy campaigns.

• In the wake of the elections individual Iranians used Social Media to get news out of the country after the government had restricted conventional media access.
• A post on Philanthropy Potluck discussed campaigns the author called “social giving contests”, in which consumers determine how companies distribute funds as charitable contributions. The post cites campaigns by Target and Tom’s of Maine, in which the public got to “vote” for potential recipients of donations.
• Immediately after the quake in Haiti, the American Red Cross and other organizations launched texting campaigns that raised over $30 million from individuals who sent a text message that automatically added a donation to their wireless bill. More than $20 million was raised by the American Red Cross alone, a sum unlikely to be raised as quickly, if at all, by conventional solicitation methods. The Red Cross using the same text2give program to raise funds for victims of the earthquake in Chile.

Zavee’s social giving feature combines several social giving concepts. Like the social giving contests, Zavee shoppers control the distribution of the 20% of our fees that we have committed to donate to civic and charitable causes that have joined Zavee. The mechanism for directing Zavee contributions is called Care Shares(tm). In addition to their cash back rewards, Zavee shoppers earn points called Care Shares based on the amount of each purchase from a Zavee merchant. Zavee shoppers periodically select which causes will receive their Care Shares. Zavee contributes cash to those causes based on the Care Shares allocated to each cause, which means that shoppers who purchase more control a larger slice of the contribution pie. (Yet another reason for shoppers to purchase from Zavee merchants.)

Santas Race for Charity (via Lincolnian)

Shoppers make their own decisions about how to allocate their Care Shares, but the networking features of Zavee encourage shoppers to discuss the various causes in our program. We take networking a step further by putting the causes themselves in the network. That means that they can engage directly with shoppers to provide information, answer questions, announce events and otherwise enrich shoppers’ understanding of the value they provide to the community. The benefit to causes of communicating effectively is clear: greater awareness and understanding by shoppers can lead to greater allocations of Care Shares, which means greater contributions by Zavee. Causes also can encourage their own members to join Zavee, who presumably will be inclined to allocate their Care Shares to the cause to which they belong.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Causes may not be as far up the curve as companies (to say nothing of individuals) when it comes to Social Media, but events like the Iran elections and the Haiti quake response demonstrate the potential impact Social Media can have for non-profits.
• The non-profit sector is likely to develop uses for Social Media that are both creative and effective. Businesses should be watching.
• Programs like Zavee, which combine the consumer-business integration of the social giving contest with the active participation of the causes themselves on the network, will be one way to for causes to gain a great deal of value from Social Media.