METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR PROVIDING ONLINE PROMOTIONS THROUGH A SOCIAL NETWORK-BASED PLATFORM

• US 20120271706A1
• Filed: 07/02/2012
• Published: 10/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Wildfire Interactive, Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Ransom, Victoria, Chuard, Alain
• Granted Patent: US 8,538,846 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/14.36
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0251 Targeted advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0277 Online advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1859 adapted to provide push services, e.g. data channels
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/21 for social networking applications

Abstract

Systems and methods for providing online promotions integrated with social network-based platforms are disclosed. Promotion details such as rules, offered prizes, incentives and descriptions, survey questions, display banners, terms and conditions, privacy policy, and social networks to integrate the promotion with, are provided by the sponsoring organization to a server. The server generates a custom promotion application and/or widget for integrating with the organization'"'"'s social network webpage and/or webpages external to social networks. A participant enters the promotion through these webpages or other links and lists friends in the social network to receive an invitation to enter the promotion. Viral features such as friend invite features, newsfeeds, minifeeds, other features that display online activities of users and people in the users'"'"' social network, notifications, requests, and other social network-based platform features to deliver messages to members of the one or more social network-based platforms further spread the word about the organization'"'"'s promotion.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method of running a promotion integrated with one or more social network-based platforms, comprising:

receiving a first information about the promotion; and

generating a promotion application responsive to the first information that integrates with the one or more social network-based platforms, wherein the promotion application provides a way for a participant to actively interact with the promotion to enter the promotion, and further wherein a second information associated with the promotion is disseminated by one or more viral features provided by the one or more social network-based platforms.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the promotion application advertises the promotion.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the second information includes information about an organization associated with the promotion.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the second information includes information about a good or service associated with the promotion or the organization.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein actively interacting with the promotion to enter the promotion comprises providing promotion entry data, and further wherein promotion entry data includes one or more of:

name, email address, address, city, state, zip code, country of residence, birth date, gender, survey responses, and selected friends to be invited to join the promotion.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the one or more viral features include at least one of a group consisting of:

friend invite features, newsfeeds, minifeeds, other features that display online activities of users and people in the users'"'"' social network, notifications, requests, other social network-based platform features to deliver messages to members of the one or more social network-based platforms, and an indication of a user'"'"'s selected applications on the user'"'"'s social network profile page.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first information includes one or more of:

rules of the promotion, requirements for entering the promotion, offered prizes, discounts, other incentives for entering the promotion, promotion start and end dates and times, terms and conditions, a privacy policy, one or more social network-based platforms to integrate the promotion with, and banners.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the promotion permits the participant to upload participant-generated content, and the participant-generated content is integrated with the one or more viral features.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing software for establishing an entry point to the promotion, wherein the entry point is external to the one or more social network-based platforms.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein the software comprises software code that displays a widget or one or more interactive webpages for interacting with the promotion.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein the entry point is a banner or link to the one or more interactive webpages.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the widget or the one or more interactive webpages integrates the promotion with the one or more viral features of the social network-based platforms and accesses data contained in the participant'"'"'s social network-based platform profile.

13. The method of claim 12 wherein the widget or the one or more interactive webpages does not require the participant to migrate away from the widget or the one or more interactive webpages.

14. The method of claim 1, further comprising accessing personal data contained in the participant'"'"'s social network-based platform profile to pre-populate a promotion entry form or create other methods to simplify interactions with the promotion.

15. The method of claim 1, further comprising using the participant'"'"'s social network based-platform profile data to suggest other promotions related to the participant'"'"'s profile data.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising using the participant'"'"'s social network-based platform friends list to provide the participant with information about the participant'"'"'s social network friends'"'"' interactions with the promotion and other promotions.

17. A tangible computer-readable medium storing processing instructions for implementing an operation performed by a computer, the operation comprising:

receiving a first information about the promotion; and

generating a promotion application responsive to the first information that integrates with the one or more social network-based platforms, wherein the promotion application provides a way for a participant to actively interact with the promotion to enter the promotion, and further wherein a second information associated with the promotion is disseminated by one or more viral features provided by the one or more social network-based platforms.

18. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising providing software for establishing an entry point to the promotion, wherein the entry point is external to the one or more social network-based platforms.

19. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 18, wherein the software comprises software code that displays a widget or one or more interactive webpages for interacting with the promotion.

20. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the widget or the one or more interactive webpages integrates the promotion with the one or more viral features of the social network-based platforms and accesses data contained in a participant'"'"'s social network-based platform profile.

21. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 20, wherein the widget or the one or more interactive webpages does not require the participant to migrate away from the widget or the one or more interactive webpages.

22. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 17, further comprising accessing personal data contained in the participant'"'"'s social network-based platform profile to pre-populate a promotion entry form or create other methods to simplify interactions with the promotion.

23. The method of claim 17, further comprising using the participant'"'"'s social network based-platform profile data to suggest other promotions related to the participant'"'"'s profile data.

24. The method of claim 17, further comprising using the participant'"'"'s social network-based platform friends list to provide the participant with information about the participant'"'"'s social network friends'"'"' interactions with the promotion and other promotions.

25. The method of claim 17, wherein actively interacting with the promotion to enter the promotion comprises providing promotion entry data, and further wherein promotion entry data includes one or more of:

name, email address, address, city, state, zip code, country of residence, birth date, gender, survey responses, and selected friends to be invited to join the promotion.

26. The method of claim 17, wherein the one or more viral features include at least one of a group consisting of:

friend invite features, newsfeeds, minifeeds, other features that display online activities of users and people in the users'"'"' social network, notifications, requests, other social network-based platform features to deliver messages to members of the one or more social network-based platforms, and an indication of a user'"'"'s selected applications on the user'"'"'s social network profile page.

27. The method of claim 17, wherein the first information includes one or more of:

rules of the promotion, requirements for entering the promotion, offered prizes, discounts, other incentives for entering the promotion, promotion start and end dates and times, terms and conditions, a privacy policy, one or more social network-based platforms to integrate the promotion with, and banners.

28. The method of claim 17, wherein the promotion permits the participant to upload participant-generated content, and the participant-generated content is integrated with the one or more viral features.

29. The method of claim 17, wherein the promotion application advertises the promotion.

30. A system for running a promotion integrated with one or more social network-based platforms, comprising:

a communications module configured to receive a first information about the promotion; and

a promotion generation module configured to generate a promotion application responsive to the first information that integrates with the one or more social network-based platforms, wherein the promotion application provides a way for a participant to actively interact with the promotion to enter the promotion, and further wherein a second information associated with the promotion is disseminated by one or more viral features provided by the one or more social network-based platforms.

31. The system of claim 30, a data collection module configured to collect data provided by the participant when entering the promotion.

32. The system of claim 30, wherein the one or more viral features include at least one of:

friend invite features, newsfeeds, minifeeds, other features that display online activities of users and people in the users'"'"' social network, notifications, requests, other social network-based platform features to deliver messages to members of the one or more social network-based platforms, and an indication of a user'"'"'s selected applications on the user'"'"'s social network profile page.

33. A system for running a promotion integrated with one or more social network-based platforms, comprising:

means for receiving a first information about the promotion; and

means for generating a promotion application responsive to the first information that integrates with the one or more social network-based platforms, wherein the promotion application provides a way for a participant to actively interact with the promotion to enter the promotion, and further wherein a second information associated with the promotion is disseminated by one or more viral features provided by the one or more social network-based platforms.