I for one do belong to the “I Love LuLu Lemon” group on Facebook – and I am proud to be there!  Recently, the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg spoke to New York Ad execs about what he is dubbing “social advertising.”  He spoke about how Facebook’s new advertising programs will be “less commercial”  because advertising messages will be accompanied by comments from friends.  I guess my question is – how do you make a commercial for a product less commercial??!!  I guess Mark Zuckerberg has the answer!
As a re-cap – Facebook is going to allow companies to set up profile pages on the site, and will share with the advertiser information about the 50 million plus users of Facebook that will help them to target their messages to those already engaged in their brand.  It could look like this…if I buy a pair of my Lulu Lemon yoga pants on www.lululemon.com – I could be invited to broadcast my purchase to my network of 150 plus friends on Facebook.  Wow – talk about social advertising!  I am not sure that I am interested in receiving details from that many people about what movies they rented at Blockbuster and what jeans they just bought on gap.com.
Lululemon does not yet offer ecommerce on their website by the way – and when I did try to order something online I found it very refreshing that the first message I saw on the website was “Speak to a Real Live Canadian – At this point in time we don’t offer e-commerce on our website. However, we hope you consider picking up the phone and calling the customer education centre.”  How refreshing!  Guess they are doing things the old fashion way!

[tags]social advertising, sem, social media marketing, online marketing, facebook, social media, lululemon[/tags]

The host Michael has two co-hosts who are in other locations (one of them is calling from the car!  It is social media radio!) – and this episode is featuring Patricia discussing the impact of Web 2.0 on Travel marketing. Stay tuned and I will post live some comments about the discussions.

Here is a boiler plate of info. about Online Revealed Canada - a truely grass roots effort now in its second year!

Online Revealed Canada (ORC) is a provider of hands on training and educational workshops focused on Internet marketing for the Canadian travel industry. ORC offers a yearly conference in order to facilitate it mission of hands on education within the travel industry from a grass roots perspective. This years conference is being held in Toronto at The Sheraton Centre Hotel on May 28th and 29th, 2007. ORC is positioned around training individuals on how to plan pay for click campaigns,  portal exposure, paid search initiatives, key word buying, web site enhancements, content initiatives and tackling other extremely pertinent Internet marketing issues. 

This is a must attend event for Directors of Sales and Marketing, Revenue Managers, Hotel GM’s, Travel intermediaries, Destination Marketing Organizations, Provincial Marketing Organizations, suppliers, property owners, management companies and agencies looking to be on the cusp of emerging technologies that are changing the way that travel is purchased and experienced.  Please visit http://www.onlinerevealed.com for more information or to register for the event. We are looking forward to seeing you there!

[tags]Online Revealed Canada, online travel marketing, tourism conference, online marketing, Canadian travel professionals, search engine marketing workshops[/tags]