Digital Digest: Make the World Better

Digital Digest: What Edelman Canada is reading in digital marketing, technology and strategy. Fresh links served up Fridays.

In a hyper-connected world, brands and organizations that want to matter to their stakeholders must move from old thinking about differentiation to actually making a difference to people, communities and societies. “Real benefits that improve people’s quality of life,” is the key to winning hearts, minds and profits, says Umair Haque, an economist and consultant.

Too often brands get caught up in “active and loud brand promotion,” as SAP’s Michael Brenner says (see fourth item). That’s why this week’s edition of Edelman Canada’s Digital Digest looks at four organizations that are thriving by using the Web to make the world a better place for their customers and stakeholders, and one that is failing to do so.

Case Study: Socialblood Matches Blood Donors and Recipients

Socialblood.org, a four-month-old project in Indian, connect blood donors and recipients through a Facebook app and a series of eight Facebook groups (there’s one for each blood type). “A man who recently posted asking for blood for his daughter received 74 responses in 24 hours,” writes Liz Gannes of AllThingsD.

AllThingsD: Socialblood Taps Facebook to Match Blood Donors and Recipients

Case Study: Amazon Launches Vote for Discounts App on Facebook

Over and over again research shows that consumers across the globe connect with brands on social networks to receive discounts. Giving customers what they want, Amazon has launched a “demand-driven deal app” on the Facebook pges of its specialist sites Soap.com, Diapers.com, Wag.com (pets) and YoYo.com (toys). Visitors can vote for which brand they most want 30% off during the upcoming US national shopping days, Black Friday through Cyber Monday (November 25-28).

Social Commerce Today: Amazon Launches Vote for Discounts App on Facebook

Disclosure: eBay, a competitor to Amazon, is an Edelman client.

Case Study: Does your website have accessibility issues?

4.4 million Canadians are living with disabilities, according to the Federal Government. Accessify, an app that scans Web pages for accessibility issues and reports back to the website owner, may make browsing the Web easier for some.

Shopify Blog: Does your website have accessibility issues?

Interview: It’s All About Your Customers in B2B

Developing meaningful relationships with customers and prospects is the true promise of social media marketing, says SAP’s Michael Brenner. But it requires a certain customer-centric focus. “It’s counter-intuitive to think about your customers first, to try and help them before you try and sell them.”

MarketingProfs: It’s All About Your Customers in B2B

Case Study: Has Digg lost its most active community members?

In a stakeholder-driven world, a single misstep can cost organizations dearly. Digg, a once-popular news forum, has lost many of its most active community members to competing news forum Reddit, writes Frederic Lardinois for paidContent.org. Digg “used to be a darling of the Web 2.0 movement in its early days,” writes Lardinois, but the site “fell from grace when it made some misguided changes that alienated exactly those users it needed the most.”

paidContent.org: Digg’s Problems Are Much Deeper Than Traffic Numbers

Case Study: BunkiMunki Promises a Safe Social Network for Kids

Children today grow up online, so safety and security is a top concern for parents. BunkiMunki, a new social network launched by three mothers in Montreal and Toronto, hopes to offer a safe and age-appropriate space for children in exchange for a small monthly fee. Children can interact with each other through their monkey avatars, and earn “Bunki Bucks” which can be spent to decorate their avatar’s online home. But some youth advocates are concerned that the social network will train children to acquire, shop and decorate, rather than socialize.

parentcentral.ca: Social network for kids promises a small and safe site

Edelman Canada’s Digital Digest is a weekly bundle of links, served up on Edelman Canada’s Our Ideas blog on Fridays. It’s also available by email. If you know someone who would like to be added to the mailing list, have any questions or just want to share some thoughts on anything you read here, email me. Let’s get a conversation going. 

Digital Digest is edited by Matthew Hayles and Kareena Coelho.