I recently saw an announcement that 1-800 Flowers was launching a new marketing strategy on Facebook to capitalize on the social networking phenomenon. I’m not 100% sure of everything the application does, but the major focus is on rewarding Facebook users for referring friends to the 1-800 Flowers website. The application also rewards their best customers for various activities on the social networking site. I think this is a great move for 1-800 Flowers. They are an incredibly innovative retailer and one of the first movers into the social networking space. There is an opportunity to engage Facebook users with their brand. I think that more and more companies will join the fray as they try to understand the social networking opportunity and how they can take advantage of it. Over time, Facebook users will likely become disenfranchised as more brands try to compete for their limited attention. But I think that until that happens, 1-800 Flowers will be see real benefits from engaging customers through social networks.
