Kelly Mooney's blog about the online shopping experience from the customer's point of view -- MooneyThinks.com

P&G Social Media Experiment a Success

Thanks to all of you who rallied your networks to participate in P&G's social media experiment. You support (and insanely great twittering!) helped my team WIN! The competition was firece with each of 4 teams pounding away online; blogging, digging, twittering, tagging, emailing, uploading videos, creating banner campaigns, negotiating editorial features, updating social network profiles and more. It was an awesome experiment which demonstrated the power of social media in action. In just 4 hours, we raised over $50,000 for charity and helped P&G expose its' marketing directors to new and different ways to think about marketing. Lots of lessons learned and a ton of fun. You can get the highlights in Jack Neff's article.

Pickens Plan Delivers its Message Via OPEN Media

While the campaigns have been occupying the airwaves, it's exciting to see that presidential candidates aren't the only ones advancing their causes and engaging consumers with web 2.0 technologies.

If you haven't already, meet T. Boone Pickens, billionaire, oilman and founder of a plan that proposes the building of windfarms (with turbines 410 feet tall) to help the US diminish what he describes as our addiction to foreign oil. Headquartered at PickensPlan.com, Pickens is using dozens of OPEN vehicles to explain the plan, share the plan and push the plan.

The site offers a truly on-demand experience that gives people ease, control and efficiency. It's also very networked--making it easy to "join," "talk," "share," and "organize" around the cause. And it ties into more than 30 services (Del.icio.us, Twitter, Digg, MySpace, Ma.gnolia, etc.) through which you can bookmark and share the plan itself.

Of course, the Pickens Plan isn't just about the site, the octogenarian is networked through Facebook (T. Boone has 3,611 friends and the Pickens Plan has 2,952 fans.), MySpace, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn.

While T. Boone Pickens is focused on teaching the world about the power of wind, the way he's gone about it can teach marketers a lot about the power of the engaged consumer.

VS PINK Winning Facebook Popularity Contest

In what he described as a quick audit of Facebook Pages, blogger radical trust cited our client, Victoria's Secret PINK, as the most popular brand on Facebook, with 384,177 fans. (At the time of his audit, PINK was number 3 in terms of all Facebook Pages, behind Barack Obama and Chris Moyles.)

Through its Facebook Page, PINK excels at all four quadrants of our O.P.E.N. framework, creating an experience that makes it easy for PINK fans to get closer to the brand they love (On-demand), gives them a sense of belonging (Personal), entertains them with digital goodies (Engaging) and, of course, connects them with other fans (Networked).

While the experience has cool perks, like a Flash feature to get fans' attention at the top, and a mobile opt-in they can do right from the Facebook Page, PINK is popular because it's impressively relevant to young women in the collegiate set. PINK has radical appeal because it's focused on getting its merchandising right--and creating a center of gravity online and  off.

A Social Outlet for Sports Fans

I am continually amazed at the consistently high expression of passion that comes out of true sports fans. The love of an athlete, team or sport seems to foster a level of energy that could run a medium-sized city. (Ever visited Columbus during Buckeye football season???)

What I love is when that enthusiasm is harnessed for good. Take Bleacher Report, a blog that was written up today on Marketing VOX. It's a sports pub, blog, wiki and social media site--all mashed up into a destination it describes as "where the sports bar meets the press box."

The basics:

• Sports fans can create a profile and "contribute analysis on the sports stories that matter most to you"
• Edit and rate articles
• The right to refuse edits made to your own articles
• The ability to "build your reputation" by commenting on articles, develop a fan base and improve your writer ranking (They've apparently just amped up their stats offering, something fans asked for, that helps you track your exact readership, among other things.)

I really like how the site truly gears itself to its audience. In addition to standard profiles, Bleacher Report has something called "The Short List" (on each member's profile page), which it describes as "facts and information" about the individual. More than just the expected favorite athletes, favorite teams, The Short List has, "Ruth or Mays," "Unitas or Montana," "Jordan or Gretsky," and "Pele or Maradona".

I can see Bleacher Report is in for a strong, winning season.

Great Details from GoodReads

While the huge impact of the social networking (site) phenomenon is impressive, what I find the most interesting these days are the properties that target niche audiences around passionate topics.

Category giants like MySpace and Facebook have more focused origins, but today their ubiquity is overwhelming. Nothing wrong with wide appeal, but it makes destinations like GoodReads stand out.

I love how GoodReads has captured book lovers' passion for books. And frankly, it's a lot about the little details. When someone friends me on Facebook I get an email from "Facebook" with the subject line that So-and-So has added me as a friend on Facebook. It never bothered me, in fact, it's nice and straightforward. But then I saw the ones from GoodReads (I'm not a member but one shared this with me). The email comes from your friend and the subject line reads, "Let's compare books". Same process, just slightly different approach.

I also saw the site's monthly newsletter and I love its take on personalization. More than the "Dear (insert name)" approach, and not so far as to give me that Big Brother feeling, GoodReads personalizes its email with the recipient's name, a reminder of the book that person last said they were reading and the question, "Do you have any new books to share with your friends?" How smart. Because if you're a book lover you know the next best thing to reading a great book is sharing it with someone else--anyone else.

Wildfire Updates Twittering Across California

Sometimes I'm overwhelmed with the vast array of information channels available to me. Call. Email. Chat. Blog. Facebook. Text. Twitter. Digg. Or, oh my, speak face-to-face.

But I keep discovering (personally and through news accounts like the one I'm about to share) the value of this expanding network. And from what I can tell, a lot of southern California residents were pretty thankful as well. Earlier last week as the wildfires burned around San Diego, the mainstream media couldn't always provide the most up-to-date information.

Individuals were using Twitter, the microblogging application, to share news about evacuations, meeting points and supplies, and local NPR station KPBS turned to it as well when its site went down due to web traffic that was 36 times the normal amount.

Resourceful reporters sent news updates via Twitter and built a Google Maps mashup to plot and track fires, evacuations and updates on shelters and hospitals.

Kudos to the creative folks at KPBS for keeping the much-needed information flowing.

Loyalty Pays at BustedTees.com

Ever wish the brands you were loyal to were loyal right back? Ever heard of BustedTees.com?

The e-retailer of jokey, retro-styled T-shirts doesn't just want you to buy their tees, they want you to love them--love them enough to sell them on your Facebook page. Don't worry, they know that's premier real estate, so they're willing to pay you for it--$5 for every shirt purchased from your page.

But wait--there's more. BustedTees.com knows that, collectively, your friends are worth even more than your Facebook page, so they're paying YOU $1 for every shirt YOUR FRIENDS sell on their Facebook pages! Now that's a profitable network.

If BustedTees.com's jokes are on you (and your Facebook page), you may make money. They call it the T-shirt Money Maker. I call it tapping the exponential potential of individual consumers and online niche communities. No joke.

Online Retailers Shoppers Like Most

I often share my favorite and not-so-favorite experiences about top retail sites. But, you might want to know what other people think too. Take this list of the top 50 consumer favorites from this month's Stores magazine. Not surprisingly Amazon.com ranks at the top, followed by eBay.com and Wal-Mart.com. Personally, I'm surprised that Gap.com is only 26 and that FashionBug.com even made the list. ; ) Check it out for your favs.

POLO Makes Great Sport of Interactive with Rugby.com

When Ralph Lauren sets its mind on digital marketing it does so with the energy of a team that plays to win.

A recent email from Polo introduced me to its new concept and web site, Rugby.com. Wow. What a compelling, engaging and personal way to sell an entirely new concept! Note that I had visited the NYC store last summer and discovered that 2 of the preppy yet chic sales associates were from my hometown and remarked, "Oh my god! You're the same age as my mom!" Uh....exit stage left. Wrong store for me. ; )

I digress.

Anyway, I like the section called Around the Corner. It's a monthly video featuring a customer and his or her city. I sat there for minutes watching a customer named Sherwin talk about his favorite restaurants, bars and music store in New York City. He wasn't just selling Rugby clothes, he was selling me the lifestyle, or  the "whole package," which made the clothes a necessary part of an experience a consumer might be yearning to have.

The site is chock-full of great content and beautiful interaction design. Some of my other favorite parts:

• A page of Rugby store associates modeling their favorite Rugby clothes and telling why they loved them.
• A playful blog on "what's hot and what's not"
• The Rugby collection, which is a dimensional delight to navigate through, oh, and informative
• A style guide with quick little videos that really do guide you
• The history of the rugby shirt, which tells a great story and tells you how to make your own at one of their stores

Interesting, that they're bold enough to request a mobile phone number on the home page. Now, I have to test that experience. More later.

With such a strong online experience out of the gate, Rugby.com is sure to win a crowd of fans.

del.icio.us Leaves Sour Taste

I signed up for del.icio.us last spring when I began working on my book. Used it a bunch of times but hadn't been back for a couple of months since we've been crunching on the final editing of the manuscript. Anyway, I wanted to add some articles tonight and was prompted to log in. Since I often use more than one email address and surf from work and from home, I couldn't remember which user name and hadn't been cookied on this computer to retrieve my password -- so I had to sign up again. It took 7 attempts to get a new account. Don't you hate that? First, it was the unavailability of my selected user name. Three times. Then, my password was too short (7 characters, not 8). Then, I mistyped the re-entry of my password. Twice. But I only realized it after I hit submit. Last, due to my failing vision, I missed the interpretation of the security test. No assistance along the way like the folks at Stylehive and other groovy sites provide.