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Leveraging the Power of the Community 243

efficiently, and grow by reaching the millions of potential
customers on Facebook”. One of Visa’s downfalls was that
the Facebook page looked very “corporate” – not in line
with the Facebook demographic.

And there was one other slight problem – new members
couldn’t navigate the process sufficiently to obtain the $100
advertising credit. This caused a flurry of bad press:

● “No Coupon.”
● “I signed up but same here … no coupon for me too.”
● “Still no coupon no coupon no coupon no coupon.”
● “This is ridiculous … how many folks have the same

complaint!!!”
● “I got mine immediately.”
● “No mention of ANY kinds of discounts or free offers

once I took the trouble to sign up and give Visa all my
personal info.”
● “Seems like nice service, but isn’t that just classic crummy
sales approach to sucker you in with something free and
then once you sign up, there’s no mention of, or any
links to, the offer. They just leave you hanging. I guess
we just put our faith in the big corporation and hope it
gets around to sending these coupons.”

This negative reaction was heightened by how much it asked
of its new members to participate informationally. To ac-
tually receive their $100 credit, new members had to allow
the Visa application to …

● Know who they were and have access to their
information

● Put a box in their profile
● Place a link in their left-hand navigation
● Publish stories in their News Feed and Mini-Feed
● Place a link below the profile picture on any profile
● Send them notifications via email.