Saturday 25 July 2009

SEO was so 2009 - how about SNO

Grwps.com (pronounced groups)
A new way to share, recommend, save and earn

Well we heard that Google made $1.21bn (£608m) last year, mostly from advertising.
A lot of businesses put their money into adwords and some tried to earn using adsense, but this scattergun approach left a lot of companies disillusioned about advertising last year.

Twitter and facebook taught us that it didn't matter what was going on in the 'real' world. Cyberspace is now our world, with almost total ignorance of conventional media space for some. Apart from michael jackson and swine flu, who noticed what else was happening except for my "facebook just for fun" groups and my twittering "world of me" ( @wofme ).

I even went through a stage of obsession with follows, just like I had been with hits since 1996 and came across twitter money makers which combined a way of increasing your following with amoney making engine.

All was good and when UtilityWarehouse came along and then Peter Lamb and Katherine Bamford, I really found that there were at least 2 like minded people this side of the pond (my previous was Lisa "Digital Signage Forum"
Jachimowicz from Seatlle.

Fast forward to July 2009 when I get on the plane ready for 10 days of relax in Madrid and and idea comes to me which combines everything I've learned / tried / wanted in the last 6 months.

Cue Grwps.com (pronounced groups) which takes a product or service and makes it SNO, not SEO.
Forgive me for going Tom Peters on you now, but..
SNO = Social Networking Optimisation
SEO = Search Engine Optimisation

Philosophy for Grwps..

Who cares what the search engine shows?
Our Facebook group is engaging with people and recommending stuff!

Who cares what AnyCorp plc is earning this year?
Our Facebook group is earning us money!

Who cares what XYZ corp charges?
When we buy through our network we get a discount, cashback and earnback.

I've been looking at various models for distribution and initially MLM seemed interesting, with my initial plan to make an MLM for MLM's or an MLM enabler for business. This seemed a little complicated and I started a cooperative of collective earlier in the year so this seemed to make sense to me.

So, here's what I have done.

Created a facebook group - Grwps.com

Created a website - Grwps.com
1. lists products (currently only 2) which offer discount, cashback and earnback
2. drives people to the facebook group
3. allows facebook comments to be added, allowing the community to extend to discussing products services and recommending them.

Here's how it works.

People join the facebook group.
People make comments on the products and services listed.
People recommend the site and facebook group to others.
Members of the group get invited to claim a share of the profits.

It's a very simple model where only products from vendors who are offering discounts, cashback or earnback can participate or list.

Why am I telling you this?

I need people to help me with this, to provide feedback, to join me in my vision and to take this forward. I need people to

Join the facebook group
Make comments on the products and services listed
Recommend the site and facebook group to others.
Share in the profits of this project.

And most of all make and share in the success of this project.

The facebook group: grwps.com