Exercise 1 - Groupon

Groupon is a company that offers discounts to customers if enough buy the deal. Hence "Groupon" not "coupon". The beauty of the site is that everyone wins, consumers get great deals, while businesses see an increase in customers. I personally love the site. I went whale watching for 17$, saw see caves for 30$, went to a PGA event for 17$, and have a four hour outdoor rock climbing class for 40$. The savings truly are tremendous. Moreover, they have a formidable presence in the social market.

Groupon has strong connections in Facebook and Twitter. But they also didn't make the Coke mistake and just push their products. They get their users involved with a suggestion page and a job listing page. They also have a campaign going called "living off groupon". They select one person and have them live off of groupon for a year. You can follow it on their daily blog post.

In summation, Groupon uses social networks to keep users involved with what is going on in the company and the direction of the company.

Here is "Good Morning America" explaining Groupon:



But then a funny thing happened when I was researching the Groupon company, the Superbowl. Apparently Groupon aired a controversial commercial starring Timothy Huttton that makes light of the strife in Tibet. Here is the commercial:



The backlash on Facebook has been large. Here are some comments from Groupon's Facebook page:

"Absolutely HATE your ads. They are in such poor taste that I am dumping you on FB and removing myself from your email list."

" i love groupon, but i'm seriously disappointed in the ads. i found them to be tasteless."

This type of event is exactly what we were reading about this week. How does a company like Groupon, who lives off of social media, respond? Exactly how a transparent company should, honestly.

The CEO, Andrew Mason, responded in his blog that "Our ads highlight the often trivial nature of stuff on Groupon when juxtaposed against bigger world issues, making fun of Groupon."

The humor behind the commercial might have been ill-advised, but the intention wasn't. In tweets and blogs, Groupon responded furiously to their contingents. They did not apologize, rather they wanted people to know their true intention; that Groupon donates portions of what they make to these charities, such as the Tibetan problem. they offered links in all their blogs and tweets to let consumers know about their charity known as "savethemoney.org".

When you look at Groupon's Twitter page, their are many followers thanking them for letting them know about the charity. Here's a taste of the activity:

@chanler Thanks for spreading the word about the Save the Money charities!

@TravelFit Thanks for the Tweet!

@MsVanessaS You're welcome. That's not the experience we want people to have.

@DashTreyhorn You can check out the story behind the commercials and donate to the charities
here: http://gr.pn/f2TMmv about 4 hours ago via Sprout Social in reply to DashTreyhorn

@joewescott Thank you.

@martinize Understood. Glad you're supporting the cause.



Socialmention registers more than 300 positives and only 30 negatives in sentiment. They turned it around just as fast as users turned on them. Social Media is 24/7 and it is impressive how quickly Groupon responded.

Here are some articles on the subject:

www.clickz.com

Groupon Blog

Green Celebrity