Tag: Location

Image representing Facebook as depicted in Cru...
Image via CrunchBase

If you’re a business owner and you’ve heard the recent news about Facebook’s attention-grabbing new feature for location-sharing and checkins, you’re probably itching to find out what Facebook Places can do for your business and how it can help you reach out to would-be customers and loyal regulars in your community.

While Facebook isn’t ready to announce any special brand-platform relationships or tie-ins just yet, one Facebook ad exec told us that the company does have plans to integrate Places with its larger marketing offerings for SMBs. The best thing a business owner can do to prepare for those offerings is get familiar with the ins and outs of Facebook and location marketing now.

Here are a few pointers for how SMBs can use Facebook Places and other marketing tools starting today.

via mashable.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

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Consumers More Likely to Use Businesses Active on Social Media

Image representing Yelp as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Seven out of 10 consumers are more likely to use a local business if it has information available on a social media site, says a new study.

The annual study, called Local Search Usage Study: Bridging The Caps, From Search to Sales, is a joint effort of comScore and TMP Directional Marketing, a local search marketing firm. It includes an online survey of some 4,000 consumers, plus data gleaned from observing one million consumers who agreed to have their online searches monitored anonymously.

Having a page on Facebook is a start, but it’s not a one-time effort: 81 percent of consumers using social media say it’s important for businesses to respond to questions and complaints. And for the record, you do need to worry about reviews and ratings – 78 percent said they’re important when deciding what to buy.

What else do you need to be doing with social media? Nearly four out of five (78 percent) of users want special offers, promotions, and information about events, 74 percent want regular posts about products, and 72 percent want posts about the company itself. (Wondering about posting those photos of the company office—or picnic? Two-thirds of those surveyed want to see them.)

If this all seems too daunting, the survey also suggests a simple starting place: make sure there is correct information about your business in as many places online as you can (Google, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). Social networkers are 67 percent more likely to buy something than general searchers, but one in six searchers is frustrated by the lack of reliable information about small businesses on the Web – either it’s not there at all, it’s incorrect, or it’s confusing or disorderly. One third of searchers give up on a business when they can’t quickly find the information they’re looking for.

via inc.com

Wow. Just wow. You can follow the ‘via’ link if you’d like to read the rest of the article. Comment, call or use the contact form to connect and discuss how this applies to your business. Thanks to Dana VanDen Heuvel for tweeting this…

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7+ Tools for Turning the Tide

I had the honor yesterday of team teaching a social media ‘bootcamp’ with super smart social media guy Dana VanDen Heuvel [I know! Why was I team teaching with him?!]. Apparently Dana finds some value in my ‘practical, tactical’ approach to social media implementation so he asked me to share it with the class…

Me? I think people who believe that social media marketing could be valuable for their business are immediately faced with the question of ‘how do I add social media to my overflowing plate and still get home for supper?’. If that’s true then we need a simple toolbox to help us go from being overwhelmed by data to effectively managing and producing it. This is my current thinking about the ‘7+ Tools for Turning the Tide’ [the plus is for retail destinations that would also benefit from location-based social media]…

http://www.mindmeister.com/maps/public_map_shell/71029957/7-top-tools-for-turning-the-infotide?width=550&height=400&zoom=1&live_update=1

Before you tweet back that this is way oversimplified, remember where most aspiring thought leaders are at! That’s why I use three maxims to guide my choice of tools:

  • “Things must be made as simple as possible but no simpler.” Albert Einstein
  • “Never use two tools where one will do.” Paraphrase of Thomas Jefferson
  • “The tools must be ‘good, fast and cheap’, completely cross platform, and available anywhere/anytime [which means they are web and mobile based].” Todd Lohenry

This mindmap is a revision of my now ‘world famous’ series ‘The Top 10 Tools for Tightening your Tribe‘ — the missing technology toolkit for Seth Godin’s book ‘Tribes‘. You’ll see that some of the tools have changed [I’ve moved to Chrome from Firefox, for example] but the principles are enduring and many tools have stood the test of time over the past year — a lifetime in the social media space…

Questions? Feedback? Comment, call or use the contact form to connect so we can talk about how this applies to your business…

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4% of online Americans use location-based services

In its first report on the use of “geosocial” or location-based services, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life project finds that 4% of online adults use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby. On any given day, 1% of internet users are using these services.

Location-based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla use internet-connected mobile devices’ geolocation capabilities to let users notify others of their locations by “checking in” to that location. Location-based services often run on stand-alone software applications, or “apps,” on most major GPS-enabled smartphones or other devices.

via pewinternet.org

But which 4% — are they key influencers or just geeks & weirdos or both? Follow the ‘via’ link to find out…

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OpenTable Seated 15.4 Million Diners in Q3 2010

Image representing OpenTable as depicted in Cr...
Image via CrunchBase

Online and mobile reservation service OpenTable released its third quarter financial results, which showed significant year-over-year gains in revenue, restaurant installations and total seated diners.

Most notably, the publicly traded company posted $24.5 million in total revenues for Q3 2010, a 44% increase over the same quarter last year.

OpenTable is also reporting a 52% increase in year-over-year diners with 15.4 seated diners for this past quarter. The company now says it has a client base of 13,025 restaurants in North America — a 26% increase since September 30, 2009.

via mashable.com

Yeah. Hmmm. 15 million people were seated using social media? Now tell me again why restaurants should care about social… :-D

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49% of Small Business Owners use a Smartphone

“Over the past few years, it seems that a few mobile devices — laptops, Bluetooth headsets, and increasingly, smartphones — have become ubiquitous among business people. The days of the pager are gone. Small business owners seem to be outpacing the rest of America in smartphone adoption, according to a recent survey of nearly 10,000 small business owners. While only 17% of Americans own smartphones, according to a recent Forrester study, a whopping 49% of small business owners are reported to own smartphones. Of those smartphone owners, 35% own BlackBerrys, 33% own iPhones, 25% own Androids and 7% own Windows Mobile devices. While the study didn’t include a comprehensive look at how small business owners are using their smartphones, we suspect that merchants are turning to mobile devices to stay on top of everyday business needs through e-mail, scheduling and calls. We’ve heard success stories from business owners who also tweet on the go, see the importance of location-based services, and are investing in mobile advertising.

If you’re a small business owner looking for a smartphone, don’t fall victim to the hype — know why you’re doing what you’re doing and make a smart decision. Here’s my perspective on selecting a smartphone…

#1. In many ways, the cellular provider you pick is more important than the phone you use in many cases. If you live in a large metropolitan area, this is kind of a non-issue but most Americans live in non-metropolitan or rural areas. An iPhone is worthless where I live because AT&T is worthless where I live. Before you select a smartphone, review the coverage areas of the network you intend to use and make sure coverage is good in all the areas where you do business and live…

#2. Having selected a network, the services you use should dictate the phone operating system you select. imho, all small business owners should select Google Apps for their business. Period. The Android phone operating system is developed by Google and optimized for Google Apps. BlackBerrys, iPhones, and Windows Mobile devices can all benefit from Google Apps but Android works best. My advice is that small business owners use Google Apps with the most powerful Android phone available from their carrier. Get the best phone you can afford…

#3. Having selected a carrier and a phone, find a rep at your cellular provider who has a clue. You may laugh, but finding a good rep can be a bit like Diogenes searching for an honest man. For me, my carrier is Sprint, my phone is an HTC Evo, and my rep is Cindy Otley at the Oneida Street store in Green Bay. For me, Cindy IS Sprint and she is a primary factor in my decision to stay with that carrier. She’s smart; she knows her company, their policies and the options they offer and she’ll work hard to help you select the plan and phone that will work best for you. I don’t make a move with Sprint these days without talking with Cindy. YOU need a rep like her, especially if you’re not sure about #1 and #2…

There was one more juicy tidbit in the post…

While only 12% of respondents said that they currently market their businesses through mobile — via mobile ads and apps, for example — other reports point towards an upward trend in mobile advertising budgets. In fact, spending on mobile advertising is set to grow nearly 50% to top $1 billion in 2011, according to eMarketer.” Source: 49% of Small Business Owners Use Smartphones [STATS]

More about that later…

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Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare

A McDonalds in a Toronto, Ontario, Canada Wal-...
Image via Wikipedia

According to a current headline on TechMeme, McDonalds saw a 33% increase in foot traffic to its stores when it ran a promotion during Foursquare Day earlier this year. At that time, the fast food chain offered users who checked into McDonald’s a chance to win $5 and $10 gift cards. On the Econsultancy blog, Meghan Keane reports that McDonald’s head of social media Rick Wion claims that, “with this one little effort [$1000 in gift cards], we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores.” These numbers, however, simply don’t add up.

There is clearly some confusion here about the numbers that Wion was talking about. Keane reports that McDonalds saw a 33% increase in check-ins from the day prior to Foursquare day and a 40% increase in check-ins for the week the special ran. Then, however, she goes on to quote Wion as saying that he “was able to go to some of our marketing people — some of whom had never heard of Foursquare — and say, ‘Guess what. With this one little effort, we were able to get a 33% increase in foot traffic to the stores.'” It seems clear that Wion was talking about check-ins here and misspoke when he claimed that this campaign increased foot traffic by 33%.

Some of our colleagues, however, then took this number and ran with it – after all, a 33% increase in foot traffic to one of the world’s largest brands because of one of the most over-hyped social media companies sure sounds like a good story.

via readwriteweb.com

You can follow the ‘via’ link above to go to the source and read the rest of the article if you’d like to dig a little deeper…

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Are location-based services overrated?

Image representing Foursquare Solutions as dep...
Image via CrunchBase

Please consider this…

“Despite the buzz around location-based services, I have been ambivalent, if not skeptical about the technology.As much as social media has encouraged people to share information, I have not been convinced there is the same amount of enthusiasm for broadcasting your location.There’s the issue of privacy, as well as few “rewards” for telling the world your location.

In many respects, however, being unconvinced about the potential of location-based services has been like a Don Quixote-like experience, particularly when you’re an enthusiastic member of the social media community. The idea that you don’t really buy into the next new thing seems almost sacrosanct.

It was interesting and, to be honest, encouraging to read Joshua Brustein’s column in yesterday’s New York Times about whether the excitement surrounding location-based services is being driven by technology companies and investors, while consumers only seem modestly interested.

Brustein’s column came on the heels of a Pew Internet and American Life Project survey that discovered only 4% of Americans use location services like Foursquare and Gowalla, compared with 5% last May. Even among smartphone-toting 18 to 29-year-olds, only 8% use location-based services.

It may just be that location-based services won’t be widely embraced. Or it could be that location-based services have yet to find their sweet spot. However you want to explain it, the reality is location-based services have failed to live up to lofty expectations as social media’s next hot thing.

Perhaps Facebook’s entry into the market will change things, particularly if consumers are attracted to the link between the company’s Places and Deals services.

Or maybe not. It could be that most people have no use for location-based services despite the best efforts of companies and investors.

After all, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” Source: Do Consumers Really Want Location-based Services? | Social Media Today

When I teach ‘curation’ as a form of blogging, I usually say that the author’s comment can be ‘yes, no or maybe so’. In this case, my response is a ‘maybe so’, but I’m leaning toward no. Let me tell you why…

Something like 87% of Americans have cell phones. Of that, 25% have smartphones. That number is projected to grow to 50% in 2011. The default mapping application on the two fastest growing platforms is Google Maps. Google just released a new product called Hotpot that makes it easy for patrons to write reviews directly on to Google Maps. Think about the implications. Say someone’s driving through Algoma, WI on their way to Door County and they’re looking for a place to grab a bite. They check Google Maps to see the options and as they try to decide, they check the reviews from Hotpot directly on Google Maps. Unfortunately, earlier that week someone had a rare bad experience at one of their choices. Do you think that won’t have an impact?

Michael Moon quoted Peter Drucker astutely in his book ‘Firebrands’ over a decade ago when he said that we’ve moved beyond the information age to the aged of ‘trusted relationships’. I believe that tech-savvy people with smartphones are going to change the face of American retail business by holding retailers accountable through mobile tools that allow them to report good or bad experiences immediately as they happen. These ‘trusted’ mobile ‘relationships’ will have the power to guide purchasing decisions at the mobile ‘point of sale’ like an endcap in a grocery store, directing potential customers to the ‘right’ place. Smart business owners will keep an eye on this trend…

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