McDonald’s is on to something.
An interactive billboard in Stockholm, Sweden encourages participants to play a game to get a free drink. As long as you have a mobile device with GPS identification and the ability to visit a website, you can play.
You are never asked to like the company on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. The social networking icons are not flashed on the screen.
Is this a game changer in how brands market themselves with technology? Are Facebook and Twitter less important in 2011 as they were in 2009?
When none of the sessions at a recent nonprofit conference dealt with the two social networking sites, how crucial is their involvement in social marketing today? Geoff Livingston opines on the evolutionary change:
For some, there will always be a need for the basics, particularly about Facebook, which seems to change its interface and features every month. But it seems that the need for this type of information was not needed, at least in the DC Nonprofit 2.0 community. Not last week.
This was refreshing. It marked a line in the sands of time. Maybe it was an anomaly. Or maybe it is finally time to start talking about the pragmatic use of these tools rather than the basics. As a blogger who has covered social media use for more than five years this feels really good, providing a sense of the sector’s arrival.
Do Geoff’s views echo your own?
Do you find less people asking questions about setting up and using Facebook pages and more questions around utilitarian technologies; perhaps ways to use Facebook through third-party systems?
Peruse through this list of 25 New York start-up firms. From Neverware which enables your old computer to use cloud software, to Kohort which enables groups to talk about common events, to SpotOn which tells you where to go based on where your friends go, to Quartzy which helps scientists manage their inventories, you will recognize few of them involve accessing your Facebook friends or Twitter followers. Yet they are all popular and have venture capital backing.
There is no denying Facebook and its ilk are important but when are 600 million users too many to stay on one website? When is it the right time for you to branch out and evangelize other social tools?
