OverLinked

In the days ahead, managers and employees of the Hyatt hotel chain will be doing favors for some of their customers. Maybe they always did them, but these favors will be different: they will be what Hyatt Hotels’ C.E.O., Mark Hoplamazian, has called “random acts of generosity,” like unexpectedly picking up the tab for your hotel-bar drinks or hotel-spa massage. “Random” seems slightly off as a description, in that Hoplamazian announced this pending outburst of hospitality, and the months of consumer research that preceded it, in a guest post on a USA Today business-travel blog. But the idea is that the unexpected nature of the gifts will leave the customer not just pleased but also grateful. Gratitude is a powerful, and potentially quite profitable, emotion to inspire.

We see this “generosity as a business strategy” at work in and around social media. If you’ve ever seen a reply come in through twitter regarding one of your posts, it is likely someone just trying to help you find what you’re looking for – in hopes that you follow, friend, or just reply back to them. Many people (and brands) are now using a strategy of altruism online to build up a brand’s reputation as a do-gooder. Finally, perhaps, the nice guy does win…

Consumers 18 to 24 have come to embrace social networks but have yet to include Twitter in that hug, according to new research from the Participatory Marketing Network, a trade association promoting social marketing.

According to a study conducted in May on 200 Gen Y members of a PMN panel, 99% of the group said they currently have one or more active profiles on social networks such as Facebook or MySpace. But only 22% of that same group said they are actively using microblogging service Twitter.

The study was conducted by the PMN together with the Interactive and Direct Marketing lab at Pace University’s Lubin

This is an interesting research study that shows how young adults dominate social networks like Facebook. An astonishing 99% are on these networks and enjoy using them to communicate with their friends.

For marketers who are considering how to use these social networks, consider the headline “Twitter’s for Friends, Not Brands”. This cuts to the heart of your marketing strategy. Do not do branding on social networks. Do not copy your old traditional mass marketing strategies to a platform that is as one-to-one as door to door selling.

Instead, think back to how business flourished in the early 1900’s before radio and television. Salespeople themselves made a difference. Word of mouth made a difference. Companies doing public good made news (thus word of mouth too). I hope the new campaigns that we see out in the next couple of years on Twitter and Facebook keep this spirit alive and re-galvanize it, as we can learn alot from the past.

Cancel your weekend plans. At 12:01 am EDT on Saturday, June 13, Facebook will open the floodgates on a long-awaited landrush.

At that time, all Facebook users will be able to select a vanity URL (eg. www.facebook.com/username/).

According to the announcement on the Facebook blog:

Facebook usernames will be available in basic text forms, and you can only choose a single username for your profile and for each of the Pages that you administer. Your username must be at least five characters in length and only include alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9), or a period or full stop (“.”).

Once a username is selected, it cannot be changed or transferred.

Make everyone aware. The land grab is on Friday!

Craigslist, the “free classifieds” site that offers community advertising in 570 markets worldwide but charges only for a tiny percentage of its ads, will generate $100 million in revenue in 2009, the AIM Group / Classified Intelligence estimated today.

That’s an increase of more than 23 percent from Craigslist’s estimated revenue of $81 million in 2008, making clear that the company continues to grow significantly while many classified advertising publishers are reporting year-over-year drops of 50 percent or more in certain categories.

This is remarkable, as Craigslist climbs into prominence nationally, not just based on their lean operations (only 30 employees) but also using their own community, unpaid citizens who simply want to interact with each other for free, to build that prominence. I use craigslist often, and am often surprised at the high quality interactions that I have with other people who use craigslist. Typically, they are somewhat well educated, middle class people who are simply looking for a good deal.

From a business perspective, I did not realize that they had incorporated as a for-profit entity in 1999 (back before that when I worked in San Francisco, they were a non profit). As a business, they paint a picture of how to succeed during a recession – give people something they want (product/service listings) cheaper and faster than anyone else. Doing it with a streamlined team doesn’t hurt your bottom lines either.