FACEBOOK FRIDAYS- The Report

It’s Friday and Facebook is going to be loaded with people connecting with friends, searching for events to go to, joining groups and like a voyeur reading their personal entertainment magazine-the daily news feed to get the latest on their friends. Nothing new there but let’s grab some highlights.

Let’s talk Caribbean facebook apps. 

We had previously reported on Caribbean facebook apps, but as of this week the count is now four- the latest one to toss their sombrero into the ring  is Caribbean Connection from the Caribbeanaxis.com, the flagship Yahoo like portal from the TrinJam power posse  at CaribbeanIdeas.com.  This app is the most elaborate of the ones out there right now. The app pulls the top stories from its news, professional and lifestyle sections of its site and adds a large lexicon of Caribbean terms and slangs, a trivia section to test your knowledge of the region and of course a tab to invite your friends to join in and take the Trivia challenge. I’m now listed as an Executive level with 1645 points, no real challengers for me yet. Bring it on baby!

That said, the three previous apps are live and doing their thing, the one definitely to watch is Jamaicanjokes.com which has had 33,000 users add it to their profile pages since going live in December ‘07. And while idletribes.com’s app maybe eating a little dust right now, don’t count it out, the site itself has 17,000 members and has some next level shit coming. The very first Caribbean app was by a bunch of Trinis, lawks dem first di Jamaicans dem. This app however was seasonal. Simply Intense Media had created VoteTnT, a virtual facebook election for the November ‘07 Trinidad elections. You could add the application to cast your vote for the Government of Trinidad & Tobago. It tracked the votes,gathered them everyday to display on your Facebook profile. It was added over 2000 times and has over 1000 votes cast to date, according to the report on Allyuh.com. With only four Caribbean facebook apps out there, we’re hoping for more out the door this year.

Facebook Groups and what are they up to.

When I joined facebook.com about a year ago, yeah yeah I know. Seemed like I was late right? But man, so many more of you came so late after.LOL. Back then I could count the number of Jamaican, Caribbean groups on there, but now, I’d need most of the fingers and toes resident in Kingston to keep count. Anyway let’s dive into a group and how they are using facebook for marketing and another using it for well, galvanizing support.

First up the group-Blackwell-Fine Jamaican rum – A classic example of how Facebook can be used for marketing purposes is what BlackWell Rum did for its official launch event. They launched with a group, but did so with a purpose. They produced a video that told the story of the Blackwell Jamaican Rum product, the man behind it and what the brand stands for.

The Group admin tagged a bunch of people, friends in his network and others. What this does is show up in your news feed and inbox that you’ve been tagged and your friend’s too and every time someone comments on the video, you get a message to your news feed. So even if you ignored the first invitation to view the video, the constant reminders that come to you, sparks if nothing else curiousity and you are likely to click the video. Bam! That’s simple, powerful social marketing works. So,you’ve now watched the video, the story of Blackwell rum and so have your friends. You are again likely to join their facebook group, go back to view pictures. For them, Mission Accomplished. The Next Step would be -How do they then leverage this group of people, its assets of video and pictures to the next level of engagement and conversion?

Defenders of Olint/David Smith Group.It was bound to happen given that it’s top of the news this week. Olint’s doors have been forcibly closed by Turks and Caicos and US Authorities. Many believe LeeChin and his NCB bank conglomerate who’s been battling with Olint in court and losing so far were the ones to flip the switch. So many who see mainstream media as pawns and friends of the big men, took it to the Net and directly to facebook.com- Defenders of David Smith/OLINT facebook group is born.

The group’s mission and intention is summarized quite well in it’s group description. It says: “If you are like us and sick and tired of the #@%$ing rumours and the vampires who are trying to destroy David Smith and OLINT, join this group and let us tell the world all and his detractors GO DIRECTLY TO HELL, and do NOT PASS GO! The man has way better intentions than most, and is believe it or not is fighting for more Jamaican to make some $$$.”

Mi done!

If you liked this post, why no Subscribe and get Silicon Caribe Today by Email