A Week in Digital
Foursquare campaign brings in 33% more traffic to McDonald’s
McDonald’s announced last week at the Mobile Social Communications conference that they managed to increase foot traffic to stores by 33% in one day with a little bit of help from Foursquare.
McDonald’s offered 100 randomly awarded $5 or $10 gift cards simply by checking-in at one of its restaurants on Foursquare Day which was on the 16h of April. The results of this campaign speak for themselves: 33% more traffic on the day and a further 600,000 people went on to follow and ‘like’ the brand on a variety of social media sites.
E-Consultancy reported on this and the fact that the campaign cost a measly $1,000. For all those businesses that spends millions a year on advertising - it goes to show that any campaign, regardless of the budget can really have a huge impact.
There is a debate over whether it’s possible people “checked-in” from McDonald’s without actually going to a restaurant, however even if that is true McDonald’s feel there is a lot of value to the campaign and the results from it are nevertheless positive.
Facebook’s not building a phone, so what’s it really doing?
Today, Facebook came out and confirmed that the rumour that has been going around is infact just a rumour and they are not building a phone. Though that might mean there technically won’t be a Facebook-branded phone any time soon, some things they are doing in mobile is still be worthy of enthusiasm.
In its denial Facebook hinted at the things they are currently building: “everything from an HTML5 version of the site to apps on major platforms to full Connect support for deeper integrations with some manufacturers.”
The HTML5 version of the site is pretty obvious but still welcomed information as some mobile devices’ browsers don’t support Flash, which is currently utilised in some Facebook apps including the video player. Connect support comes across as a slightly strange choice because Facebook has said that it will phase out Facebook Connect in favour of its Open Graph system.
Facebook also said “Our view is that almost all experiences would be better if they were social, so integrating deeply into existing platforms and operating systems is a good way to enable this.” Watch this space!
Facebook Places goes live in the UK
Facebook’s location feature, dubbed Facebook Places, has finally launched in the UK on Friday approximately 1 month after the US.
Facebook is rolling out the feature for UK users gradually, meaning it may not be available for everyone immediately.
If you haven’t used Places yet, it’s a simple feature that lets you check into real-world locations through your Facebook profile, similar to the functionality offered by services such as Foursquare.
Facebook has been criticised over privacy issues but again points out that the users have full control, and that checkins are defaulted to friends only (unless, your privacy setting is “everyone”). Also, minors will not appear in posts or check-ins to anyone except their friends, and users can remove any checkin from their phone or the web. Facebook claim its just a development of what they already did.
