Last week, Compucast piled into Jenny’s trusty RV and took a day trip to Avery Island, LA, to visit the Tabasco factory! The island is about 140 miles west of New Orleans; the drive took about 3 hours, but good company made it feel shorter.
We know all of our clients are familiar with Tabasco–the bottle’s signature green emblem and fiery red contents can be found on just about every restaurant table from here to Gulf Shores. But did you know that the salt used in Tabasco comes from the island’s underground salt mines? In fact, the island itself is made of salt. This was just one of the many things we learned on our tour of the Tabasco production plant, which has been located on Avery Island since its founding in 1868.
Judy with some of the Men of Compucast!
After the tour, we explored the island’s Jungle Gardens, home to hundreds, if not thousands, of snowy white egrets (Michael notes that the most memorable moment of this part of the trip was when an alligator almost–but not quite–snapped up a low-flying egret). Then it was back to the RV for a sleepy ride home. We’re looking forward to our next company trip!
Conan O’Brien offers video F*Cards, a humorously snarky alternative to e-cards for his Facebook fans. What can businesses learn from his efforts?
Do you ever get annoyed by your friends’ constant Farmville updates? Or maybe you are looking for just the right way to let your former schoolmates know that you’ve aged more gracefully than them. Enter the F*Card. It’s kind of like a friendly e-card except it’s a video of Conan O’Brien delivering a message instead.
While the videos are laugh out loud funny, the Conan O’Brien show reaps benefit from your viewing. In order to access these humorous videos, you first have to “like” his page. Now, you will see updates from his Facebook page in your news feed indefinitely unless you later “unlike” his page. This access to future messaging of interested viewers is a huge marketing win. Also, if you’re like me, you’re going to look for opportunities to send these videos to your friends. After they receive them (and hopefully chuckle), they are going to go to Conan’s Facebook page and look for the rest of the videos. Of course, to be able to see those videos, they will have to “like” his page as well. And the cycle continues.
Conan O’Brien has had a strong social media presence ever since the whole “late night time slot” dust-up on NBC with Jay Leno, but he does not sit back on his initial success. With humorous innovations like the F*Cards, he continues to gain new followers.
How Can This Work for Me?
It’s great that Conan O’Brien can be funny and get more people to watch his TV show, but how does it help you, the business owner?
Well, what “shareable” content can you create for Facebook / Twitter? What would your current and potential customers be interested in seeing? More importantly, what will those customers like so much that they will want to let their friends know about it? Maybe it’s a coupon for a free service. Maybe it’s great advice on how to perform a common task relevant to your business (“The Best Way to Change Your Oil,” etc.).
Maybe you can create something funny. With social media, you don’t always have to create something that directly leads to the final sale. If you can get a visitor’s attention and a click on the “like” button, you’ll have the chance to give the more direct sales pitch at another time. Nobody wants to look at advertisements all day long, so give your visitors and customers something fun or useful in between those ads. Invest in your customers so they will invest in you.
You’ve been working hard all week, right? It’s time to take a quick break with Compucast’s first Friday Fun update. Each week, we’ll look for something interesting or funny about computers, website, or social media to share with you in quick bites. After all, we don’t to mess up your streak of fabulous productivity!
Our first Friday Fun bit is brought to you by a Compucast favorite, Weird Al Yankovic.
