FREE FOOD - 10 Tips for Mobile Apps

A conversation with a friend leads to this "helpful hint" post.

I usually only eat "fast food" as a last resort, rushing to or from an airport, or stuck in one. But McDonalds promoted their mobile app with the offer of "download the app and get a free sandwich." Not bad. How many apps offer to pay you the equivalent of $3 - $5 to download their app. I thought I'd download, get the freebie and delete it. But... so far, it's paying off... A few weeks ago Alice got to use her app (scan) coupon twice, scored about $8 free. (Mine only worked once. $4 for me.) But I noticed they had two offers expiring today, "buy one, get one free" breakfast and regular sandwiches. So, for dinner...I got a Quarter Pounder Deluxe, Buttermilk Fried Chicken Club, 2x Sausage McMuffins, large order of fries and a large Diet Dr. Pepper.... for $10.29! 4 meals for under $11. I enjoyed the Quarter Pounder, most of the fries, and half the drink for dinner. I stuck the rest in the fridge for later.

Here are a few tips if you download this, or similar apps...

1. ONLY buy when it's a “true” 100% discount value (or better value). "Buy one, get one free" with no other strings attached. You aren't getting a deal if they make you buy a drink, etc.

2. Don't be a sucker. Avoid the "Buy 5 get one free" deals. (Like the lame McCafe offer.) That is only a 20% discount at best. It costs them about $0.25 to sell you each $3 drink.

3. Want to redeem more than one offer on the same visit? Then make more than one transaction. Place your first order, pay for it. Then get back in line or simply say "I changed my mind, I want this other thing too." If they say no, find a different franchise because a manager that won't take your money in this circumstance is likely such a cheapskate that he/she underpays and mistreats their staff as well. *This does not apply to the unfortunate managers and teams whom work for a "cheap jerk" owner. I'd still leave, but be nice to the team. They’re just trying to pay the bills.

4. Never pay for something that is not properly prepared. Don't be afraid to ask for a "do over." Tonight my fries weren't sufficiently fresh. I only eat those things piping-hot, fresh from the frier. So, I drove around from the drive-through and stepped inside and asked for a "do over." I waited about 3 minutes to get the fries replaced, fresh from the frier. It is...always...worth it. 

5. If you go to any chain restaurant (or store) EVER, understand that you rarely have to pay full price if you educate yourself before you pull up to a drive-through or step through their doors. There is a deal offered every week. If you don't have their app, just ask if they are running any specials.

6. Cognitive Dissonance: I have great disdain for fast food restaurants in particular and chains in general. And I "know," yes, it's McDonalds...and yes we should stop eating beef altogether...and yes I loathe their scary marketing in schools, etc. but I'll fight those battle separately.

7. Read "Fast Food Nation." (yes, there's a movie too.)

8. Watch "Supersize Me."

9. Cook. Try to eat food that takes more than 5 minutes in your kitchen to un-package and heat.

10. Make an effort to enjoy food in an environment that allows you to look into the eyes of the person you cooked for, or who cooked for you. (If you live alone like me, don’t do this. It’s incredibly weird eating soup in the bathroom.)

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Connect with GoalBusters     

Jim Anderson      GoalBustersJim

Alice Ferris      alice.ferris

Fast Food Nation (book)

Fast Food Nation (film)

Super Size Me (film)

Social Media Management in 15 Minutes or Less a Day

At the Association of Fundraising Professionals International Conference on Fundraising in San Antonio, Texas, in March, I did a very short presentation on how to manage your organization's (or your) social media presence in 15 minutes or less. My presentation was actually 9 minutes long, and they started shutting off the lights in the exhibit hall as I wrapped up!

So, now here's the presentation in blog form. The video presentation is even shorter than at Conference: it's FIVE minutes. So there.

Here are the primary tools I mention:
Content aggregator: Feedly
Content queue: Buffer
Feed management: Hootsuite
Follower management: CrowdFire
Email filters: I don't go into a whole lot of detail here, so check out DottoTech for great tutorials on Gmail.

And the deck was created in HaikuDeck.


Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app

Enjoy!

You are a Person NOT a Company - "BAD LinkedIn Connection Requests"

I NEVER accept a Facebook friend request or a LinkedIn invitation to connect from a company. DUH! You are not a company. You are a person that incorrectly set up your LinkedIn profile. 

Please feel free to copy and paste my standard response below as a reply email to anyone who sends you an email to become friends on Facebook with or connect on LinkedIn with their "Locksmithing Company" or "Real Estate Agency." It's written for LinkedIn, but minor edits will make it apply to most social media platforms.

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Hello, I received an invitation to "connect" with your business. Your have incorrectly set up your LinkedIn profile. Businesses can't have personal LinkedIn "connections." Businesses should create company or organization "pages" and you as an owner should have a personal profile where you are identified as an individual, by role at the company and THEN you can invite others to connect with you personally and/or "follow" your company. Your profile isn't a person's profile it is currently set up as basically a Yellow Pages ad. Businesses who set pages up as "people" either don't understand Linkedin's policies, or worse are purposefully attempting to use LinkedIn as a direct mail/spam marketing device. LinkedIn is designed to be a networking tool for people, NOT a solicitation tool for companies. If you want to connect as a person, please send me another invitation from a person's profile.

Also, some companies and individuals send bulk direct messages to their contracts. If they are sending unsolicited marketing or sales offers, they are spamming their contacts and they are violating anti-spam laws, they are in violation of LinkedIn's Terms of Service and they are abusing their relationships with their contacts. There are staff members of a Northern Arizona radio station that are notorious for this egregious spamming practice. I hope this is not one of your practices.

Good luck with your business.

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Feel free to edit the above message to fit your circumstances and degree of annoyance.

Marketing With Facebook Photos

I often see organizations and individuals "repost" their existing Facebook photos duplicating the photos. This is unnecessary and ineffective unless you're reusing an existing photo as a Cover Photo or Profile Picture in which case duplication is unavoidable. However, if the goal is to "borrow" content from the past to add current visual content to a post today, there are few more efficient/effective ways to do that. 

 

The ultimate goal with Facebook is to increase engagement with audience. A person can't be engaged if they don't see your post and they won't see your post unless it shows up in their Facebook News Feed. How likely something is to show up on a person's News Feed is determined by "Facebook's feed prioritization algorithm" formally called "EdgeRank."  This algorithm determines which posts show up on in a user's news feed, how high in that feed and for how long.  Facebook execs claim there are as many as 100,000 variables that produce the News Feed. The three original EdgeRank elements, Affinity, Weight and Time Decay are still  part of the evaluation and interactions (likes, shares, comments) are very important.

If you repost an existing image or video as a new timeline update as opposed to sharing it from it's existing/previous location, you LOSE ALL previous interactions, meaning that new posts starts from "zero." If you do not want "waste" prior engagement and interactions there are a few more efficient ways to use existing content.

1. Share a link to an existing photo album. It will generate a post that looks identical to an original "new" post. AND it retains ALL captions, links, photo credits AND MOST IMPORTANTLY...it retains all the engagements...likes, comments, shares, etc. Those "engagements" are gold in increasing the post's rankings in Facebook's prioritization system. You can use Facebook's "share" feature or share the link by copying and pasting the url for the album.

2. Share a specific photo from an existing Facebook album. This allows you a wealth of photos you can post as you work to generate buzz for specific recurring events or ongoing topics while retaining all the engagements as mentioned above. It will navigate the user to the specific photo within the album and they can explore the album and your Facebook page from there, all while building your overall engagement. You can use Facebook's "share" feature or share the link by copying and pasting the url for the photo. 

3. Add new photos to an existing album. When you add photos to an existing album, the photos appear as a new post on your timeline and are a part of the existing album so viewers might explore previously posted photos. Also, when you add photos to an existing album that album "jumps" up to the top of the list of your photo albums because it has been edited with new content. 

TIPS FOR MARKETING WITH FACEBOOK PHOTOS

 

Improve Engagement When posting photos to Facebook that are suitable to create an album, ALWAYS try to post 4 or more photos. An MTV comparative test demonstrated that posting 4 or more photos generated 1200% more clicks than a single photo posted. To create ongoing interest and engagement you might choose to post 4 or more photos from an event over a period of days creating serial storytelling experience.

Be Strategic. Select your album's Cover Photo carefully. And think about how you organize your photos within the album to place the most dynamic photos first in the album to generate interest, even if that means putting some photos out of chronological order. You can always go back and rearrange the photos to be chronological later if that's important.

Tag People. When you tag someone, you often draw attention to your event or organization from people that are completely unaware of you. But don't over do it. Only post flattering photos and only tag a person in a few photos within a given album. Group photos are a great way to get a conversation started. Tag a few people and they or their friends will tag others.

Honor Privacy If you want to make someone aware of a photo but don't want to leave the tag "public," tag them and then immediately remove the tag. They'll get a notification, but it won't show up in other people's News Feed. 

Tell Stories and Provide Information. Always add captions, links and photo credits to your photos. Your goal is to create visual storytelling with your photos and your captions and links provide information and entertainment for your viewers while delivering "thank you" value to the people and organizations in the photos. It's just common courtesy.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due. If you are posting someone else's photo, be sure to ALWAYS give them credit. When possible post a link back to a website, blog, or social media site that they would want promoted.

Photos can be your most effective posts in creating social engagement, I hope some of these tips help you better engage your communities.

Here are some additional training resources.

Fundraising Success:  Creating Your 'Virtual Porch'

Advancing Philanthropy:  Social Media - You’re Not Herding Sheep, You’re Tending a Garden

ONLINE Prezi Training by GoalBusters, LLC Plug In! Social Media for NonProfits

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Connect with GoalBusters     
Jim Anderson      GoalBustersJim

Alice Ferris      alice.ferris

The Best Way to Use Social Media in Fundraising

By ALICE FERRIS, CFRE, ACFRE 

This was a "Guest Blog" originally written for AFP Toronto

Social media is not the best tool to solicit a gift. There. I said it. So what’s all the fuss about? Social media is a very good tool for cultivation and stewardship. It has been said that social networking has created the largest cocktail party in the world and you can interact with any number of people without an invitation!

Here are some quick tips on what to do with your online presence:

• Plan your content. You don’t want all your messages to be about selling something or about you—the majority of your posts should be information that establishes you as an expert in your sector. Your posts should also, on a regular basis, include references from other content sources so you don’t sound like you just talk about yourself.
• Be consistent. Post something every day. There are many free apps available to streamline and schedule your posts, so you don’t have to be tied to the computer every day. If you’re not in someone’s stream on a regular basis, they will forget that you are there.
• Establish your voice. Show some personality so that people want to be connected to you! Remember, you’re cultivating a relationship—try to make your organization likeable online.
• Use positive reinforcement. If someone in your online network shares your information or advocates for you in some way, thank them for it. You don’t have to do this for every post, but periodically call attention to the fact that you’re paying attention. Also, regularly interact with people online. They need to know that you’re interested in them too.
• Use calls to action sparingly. If you have a well-established relationship with your online connections, you can mobilize them, but if you’re asking all the time, they will tune you out. Calls to action should be time sensitive—deadlines that aren’t too far away will be most effective.

Most organizations cannot afford to ignore social media, but understand that no one will “get rich quick” using these tools. Position online networking tools to augment your existing marketing, cultivation and stewardship programs.

Alice Ferris is the founding partner of GoalBusters, providing philanthropic leadership services such as outsourced development operations for small shops; strategic, development and marketing planning; board development and staff training. Join her session at Congress 2012 and follow her on twitter @aliceferris

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Connect with GoalBusters     

Alice Ferris, ACFRE      alice.ferris
Jim Anderson      GoalBustersJim