Facebook and Hurricane Sandy

When Hurricane Sandy hit social media sites buzzed like crazy (at least for those who had power).  On Facebook, there were thousands of pictures of the aftermath of the storm .  Before the storm even hit there were several groups that anyone could join for constant updates on how to prepare and what areas would be hit the worst.  Groups like this helped spread the word before some news sites even covered the information, and got everyone on the same page.
Once the storm was over the groups and pages became a way of showing the massive destruction caused by the storm from the everyday person's point of view.  Also little by little once the rebuilding and damage control was taken care of, the groups became a way to try and get supplies and other necessities to those who needed them most.  If someone had an extra mattress, they could go on the group page and find someone needing one.  This way of connecting created a sense of community among group members and built up the trust and reliability of each other.

Groupon Improvements

The reason Groupon seems to be struggling is because they are a plan B.   When a struggling business tries to make one last effort to get customers, they go to Groupon and give away free stuff to attract attention.  But guess what? They wont be coming back to Groupon any time soon because they wont need to.  Their strategy either worked and they are having some more success, or the idea was a failure and they lost more money than they made and had to shut down.  Groupon will make a little money by selling the free coupons to the business, but in the long run they aren't getting anywhere.

A new and improved Groupon would need to have returning businesses coming back to Groupon to but more coupons for their customers.

Maybe if they reached out to successful businesses they could have more success.  For example, if they contacted a business and offered to give them a deal on coupons that might help them get started.  If the business likes what they see Groupon might have a long time customer.  From that point they can post coupons on the businesses Facebook page or Twitter and more and more fans of the business will go to Groupon to get coupons.

Groupon could also advertise their product to the public on different social media sites.  On blogs they can advertise specific coupons that they have based off what the blog topic was.  If they found a really popular blog about pets, they could set up an advertisement telling about the deals they have on pets. It would be a good way to spread the word about Groupon to the public, and create business for the companies that they will be giving coupons out for.