Jumping on the bandwagon with both feet firmly in the easy fit jeans, Gap launched a Facebook “Born To Fit” campaign, driving off-line advertisement (print, tv, billboard, etc) viewers to their Facebook page.

With over 300,000 fans already, Gap would need to quickly learn how to handle the open social media platform.  Most of the comments on the wall are non-controversial and pro-Gap, like how much people love their jeans and what not.  But a comment from Eileen O’Brien:

“Should Gap Cos stop advertising on Fox which produces anti Obama shows like O’Reilly, Hannity and Glenn Beck? If so let them know now!”

How should Gap respond to that, if at all?  Maybe the comment won’t get anywhere, but what if it does gets picked up by others and starts to grow into a campaign?  How should Gap respond to that?  Social media is a fun place that could very easily and very quickly turn perilous.

Companies need to have a policy in place on how to deal with these situations.  But I am happy to see Gap and other companies (big or small) embracing the internet and starting a conversation with their customers.

You know the new idea as arrived and matured when old-school wakes up and make the new idea their own.  Time for the youngster to create something else.  So what’s the next New?

You may have heard of the 80-20 rule, but do you know about the 80-8 rule?  According to Bain & Company, 80% of the companies believe they deliver a “superior experience” to customers. But only 8% of the customers agree.

Ouch!

Do you believe you deliver superior service to your customers AND do your customers agree?  Here’s another question.  Do your competitors’ customers believe they get superior customer service from your competitors?

Seems like an opportunity for you to innovate and improve your service and gain bigger market share?

Speaking of Lite (as in Google Lite), Facebook got into the act and launched the Facebook Lite beta.  Don’t know what it is, but as usual plenty of speculation on the blogsphere.   For sketchy details, screenshot and plenty of debate by commentators, check out mashable.

But that’s not all the news fit to print on Facebook.  They also acquired FriendFeed and launched real time search.  Now even more reasons to glue your Face to the Book.

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I couldn’t figure out the difference between Google Caffeine and Google Regular.  Caffeine been out only a couple of days and there are already tools to compare the two.  Four at last count.

Facesaerch and CompareCaffine are similar in functionality, but I haven’t been able to compare since Caffeine is down for system maintenance.

But both Caffeine and Regular are too rich for my taste.  For now I will stick to Google Lite.

Revealed by Google of a super secret project they have been working on for a few months, completely overhauling the underlying infrastructure that would change the way Google crawl, index and rank web pages.

Matt Cutts claims the search results will still be very close to what they have been in the past.  But believing it to be a big enough change, Google opened a sandbox for users to try the new architecture.  I did, couldn’t spot the difference.  Then again, I was never good at spotting differences.

Give it a spin and if you get bored, surf on over to the hour and a half video of Wave, that would knock your socks off.

After months of love/hate tantrums thrown publicly, Microsoft and Yahoo agreed to hold hands, but only when strolling down Advertisement Avenue. 

A very non-giddy Bartz and Ballmer invited millions of advertisers to the party. Both mentioned the dreaded G word (yes, that would be Google), but no mention of the M word (Marriage/Merger).  And neither were seen in the same room, doing what couples newly in love do.  Hmmmm..makes one wonder.  If you are into celebrity snoop, here’s the tabloid.

More importantly, what does this mean to millions of businesses who are obsessed with getting to number 1 in the search engine ranking? Google is still the dominant player, but Bing (Microsoft’s new baby) is increasing its share. Perhaps time to look into optimizing your site for Yahoo/Bing as well.

But is SEO the be all, end all of online marketing? No. SEO is just one component of online marketing. How important that component is would depend on your particular marketing strategy. But don’t overlook social media, email, press release, media release, coupon, etc. They can bring substantial ROI to your marketing $,£, €, ¥, etc.

Last week UK’s Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) released a 20 page document on how government departments should use twitter. I haven’t had a chance to read it, just a quick look. Impressively enough BIS is allowing anyone to download (PDF) and modify the document for their own organisation. Doing what the government should do, openly sharing information.

But while the national government have been using social media for some time, what’s more exciting is that local authorities are getting in the act. I think that’s where the real power is going to be. Ability to provide real time information to local residents. Hats off to innovators in the government, you don’t see it that often. But when you do, we should celebrate it.

And here is an extensive list of twitters in government (most US based).

After watching Dave Carroll’s YouTube video, CaseXtreme, makers of hardened carrying cases for guitars made and released their video, offering a free case to Dave.

Nicely done. Now only if they can make their website a bit more appealing.

John Wells invited me to join the Institute of Business Consultants (IBC), West Midlands Region Committee today, which I accepted.  Attended the first meeting and was duly impressed by the dedication of the committee members.  There is a lot of excellent talent in the committee and indeed the overall membership.

Looking forward to working with the IBC members over the coming months.

Normal “great service” by United Airlines led to a damaged luggage and despite repeated request for compensation, the customer was left holding the bag (read the story).  So after a year of getting nowhere with United, Dave Carroll did what he knows best.  He wrote a song about his experience.  Then he made a video and posted it on YouTube.

Within hours the story got picked by the traditional media. That got United’s attention.  A year after the incident, United agreed to compensate for damage.  While the damaged luggage might be compensated for, United’s reputation has been damaged.  But then again, that reputation, due to lack of customer service, was damaged a long time ago.