We just had an interesting email from CBSNEWS. We know, already it doesn’t sound that interesting. Sure it’s just an email. Sure, it’s for an American Channel who have possibly bought our email address. But that’s beside my point.

CBS News mail out

What’s interesting is not the dull blues and greys. It’s how focussed the mail is on selling direct links to their twitter & facebook pages. But not their main CBSNEWS site.

Can you see how the lady, katiecouric, is always mentioned with an @ symbol (for her twitter feed) & the most prominent logo you can see is the facebook icon.

There is no direct mention of the CBSNEWS site.

So are some bigger companies more interested in getting people connected through their Social media sites rather than their own site?

Something to ponder while Thought Den wrap up their next MySpace app for aMap and plan a  twitter game =)

What does it take to increase the uptake of a competition after your mail-out?

That’s the question we were asked, to improve the Eat Out’s current 12 Days of Christmas promotion. (Below)

First-out, brilliant competition, wicked prizes but the page was behind on some simple basics. In-fact we’ve coined another phrase to use when things need fixing, TDISS (Thought Den Is Simple Stupid).

So here’s a few points we were able to solve…

1. Make it easy to enter. The aim of the competition was to convert new site visitors to leave reviews on the site. So… have a big fat button that allows a new user to do just that. “LEAVE A REVIEW HERE”

2. Make it easy to read. The prizes are wicked but the structure is difficult. The users really want to see what shiny things they can win. So…. make it easy for them to see the instructions separated from the prizes.

That was a simple run-down, but the Eat Out team took it and twizzled out something really nice.

Go check it out, maybe even win yourself a Spa day!