In March 2010, Foursquare had 750,000 members; today, Foursquare has over three million users. This rapid growth was thought to slow with the introduction of Facebook Places a couple of weeks ago, and instead, it was the day that Foursquare had its largest registration day ever. (source: Mashable)
While three million is just in a drop in the bucket compared to Facebook’s 500 million users worldwide, it is not something to ignore, either.
The Social Network. This trailer actually makes the movie look interesting. Looking forward to it.
Thanks to Blake’s Think Tank for passing this along.
Over the past two days, I have been reacting like one of Pavlov’s dogs to a bell every time @oldspice tweets a new video. The Old Spice “Smell Like an Old Spice Man” commercials are viral hits online. As a result, fans have shared, commented, and clicked play many times over the last several months. For the last two days, Old Spice has capitalized on that popularity by creating (so far) almost 200 response videos, in real time, to its fans. The videos are often less than 30-seconds, but in each one, the Old Spice Guy personally addresses a commenter (from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Yahoo, Reddit) and provides a clever quip, thereby endearing the brand to that commenter (as well as all their friends). The videos are coming so frequently and are so funny, it is quite easy to find myself clicking through to each one as it is posted. (And so are many, many others: YouTube’s servers are having trouble keeping up today.)
This idea is brilliant because it exploits the basic premise of social media: two-way communication and sharing. And it leverages the benefit of digital media: immediate communication and sharing.
As brilliant as the idea is, I am most impressed with the production coordination that must be going on behind the scenes to keep up the posting pace of these videos. I wonder how many people are monitoring the web for comments, then mining those comments for potential humorous responses? And, how many copywriters are standing by to write these hundreds of 30-second scripts on the spot? And, the clients must be on the set to approve on-site. Then there is the actual video production crew, shooting and transferring the video straight to the web. And there must be a person/people posting the videos and tweeting them out. This must be one large and fun team, but I bet they are getting tired. The production turnaround is impressive: I would love to see a behind the scenes/”making of” video after this stunt is complete.
This has been a successful scheme for the Old Spice brand: everyone is talking about it. Quite a brilliant idea, indeed.
Here are some of the responses I have enjoyed most:
C-SPAN recently announced a partnership with Foursquare, the geo-location social media tool that really took off at SXSW this year. From BrandChannel:
“Far from stodgy public access programming, C-SPAN has been embracing social media (and taking its shows on the road) as it pushes for greater public access through media coverage of the House and Senate and the Supreme Court.
“Now, Foursquare users who friend C-SPAN can, via Foursquare.com/cspan, access an abundance of C-SPAN content about U.S. public policy, politics, and government – a virtual tour guide to the inner workings of American democracy.
“If a user searches Foursquare for the U.S. Capitol, up comes a C-SPAN video with information about the Federal budget. Search for the White House, and view a C-SPAN interview with President Obama that was taped in the White House library.”
A partnership with C-SPAN solidifies the legitimacy of Foursquare and its potential in our increasingly digital and social world. By linking relevant (and educational) content to locations, the act of checking-in becomes more valuable to the consumer. And, C-SPAN is now exposing itself to a target viewer that might not otherwise have interacted with the media brand.
Unless you were hiding under a rock this morning, you are aware that USA beat Algeria in a World Cup game. I didn’t have to watch the game, I could just listen to the yelling right outside my office (where I have the unfortunate luck of sitting right beside the TV that everyone crowded around this morning). It was quite a victory and even I – not a sports fan – was excited. However, to a geek like me, one of the most interesting things about the match this morning is what happened online (stats courtesy of Mashable):
And, I think every status update on my Facebook news feed was related to the game. Yes, soccer has the power of influence this month. It will be interesting to see how that influence is capitalized on by marketers both immediately and in the coming months. Some of the lucky ones advertising during the World Cup coverage are even getting some of the chatter; a favorite among those I have talked to:
Enjoy the games.
Historically, six degrees of separation has referred to the idea that everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth. However, according to recent data, Twitter has now shortened our “degrees of separation” from each other: “On average, Twitter users have five degrees of separation between each other – meaning nearly everyone within Twitter is only five steps away.” Therefore, “on average, a Twitter user will encounter 83% of all other Twitter users by visiting everyone’s friends up to a distance of five steps.” So, in theory, it does not take a great number of “retweets” for a message to reach a large and diverse audience.
This is great news for marketers looking to justify a larger investment in social media as communications tools. The news is even better for those looking to communicate in local (i.e., smaller) circles: “if a user traces their friends, and their friends and so on, in 3.32 steps on average they will discover a follower of their own. This means there are many small, circular connections on Twitter.” At this point, it almost seems negligent of a brand to not have a presence on Twitter.
When looking to wade (or dive deeper) into the social media pool, take the five-degrees-of-separation fact with a grain of salt and remember these few tips:
The Today Show announced a partnership with Foursquare today (see video below). Watch out, world: Foursquare is going mainstream. Who’s next? Oprah?
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Several months ago, there was a video released revealing social media stats. Now there is a new one – see it below. These stats change so fast, we could have entire different video to watch next month. So, don’t get too attached to the numbers here. They will be greater next month. Social media is definitely not a fad.
Thank you to Roby Brock of Talk Business for the invitation to talk about building trust in this information age on his program. Check out the Talk Business site and watch the interview here:
Here are my full thoughts on the topic:
In the online space, we can find almost everything about almost anyone or anything. We are truly living in an information age. We are sharing information about ourselves, we are seeking information about others and from others. Everyone is doing it: consumers, businesses, and organizations. And they are doing it using social tools that allow for instant updates, instant sharing and easy searching. With all this information available, how do consumers know whom to trust? Do they trust the consumer reviews, or the expert analysis? Do they trust their individual friends or large organizations for information?
Whom to trust, as it turns out, is a bit of a moving target. Every year, Edelman conducts a trust survey. In recent years, with the rise of social media and online reviewing systems, this trust survey has indicated that the public is more inclined to trust “people like me” over corporate entities. However, the economic recession has led consumers to become cynical (more so than they were already), leading to a swing in who and how they trust: (1) the public now wants to hear from credentialed experts and (2) corporate trust and transparency are now just as important as the quality of products and services from that company. Today’s consumers are more skeptical, savvy and sophisticated when it comes to online information.
Facing this modern consumer is daunting to businesses vying for the trust of their audiences: “Though it’s easier than ever to reach your customers, it’s less likely that they’ll listen. Today, the most valuable online currency isn’t the dollar, but trust itself.” (Trust Agents, 2009) So, how does a business work to build that trust and become a favored brand? Here are some starting steps for establishing trustworthiness:
Executing all of these steps at once may not be feasible for a business just starting to engage with their online audience. It is okay to start out with one or two of these methods, then open up into full-on transparency as trust is established. As an example, one of our clients at Stone Ward recently decided to take the plunge into social media using a promotion as its diving board, but they weren’t quite ready for a full-time presence in the space. To introduce this new face to its audience, we created a microsite with a distinct URL separate from the home/traditional site. The idea was that this site would eventually become the community hub and live on past the promotion, but the promotion (sweepstakes) would help draw the initial audience to engage with the brand. Being new to the social media space, the client didn’t have the resources to manage a completely open site and respond as quickly or as completely as necessary to build trust. Given that issue, the site launched with a combination of pre-set content and consumer-contributed content, and allowed for question submissions to an expert. The pre-set content was a bank of “tips” that could be commented on by users, and encouraged user-submitted tips. New tips automatically generated a Twitter post and a Facebook post. The consumer-contributed content was a community forum where users could submit questions and get responses from other users. The “ask the expert” questions were posted with the expert responses for others to view. Additional engagement elements included a daily poll and music playlists that tied into the brand and promotion concept. Starting out with elements that didn’t require daily maintenance and monitoring allowed this brand to introduce themselves to the space, start building relationships and start establishing a basis for trust without risking alienation with an unavoidable misstep due to resource limitation. As a result, the site has lived on past the promotion end and the brand now has a manageable engagement tool that can be built upon when they are ready.
The bottom line: Provide honest and complete information to consumers and their trust will follow. Understand that making information available is necessary for social bonding and while it may feel like putting that information online makes an organization vulnerable to attack, there is a need to reveal that vulnerability to ultimately build trust and relationships. And, if you are not ready for the all the steps to building trust, start out small and build from there.
Thanks to Roby Brock of Talk Business for the invitation to talk about location-based services on his program. Click here for the Talk Business article and check out the interview here:
Here are my full thoughts on practical applications for location-based services:
Just when you were finally getting comfortable with Twitter, the social media geeks introduced FourSquare. I can hear you all mumbling, “FourSquare is stupid.” While location-based services, such as FourSquare, may not take off as predicted, at this point FourSquare is close to reaching one million users, with much of that growth occurring in the last few months. FourSquare even has its own day, which is April 16th of course. With its growing popularity, it is time to learn more about these location-based services and figure out how they might be beneficial to your business.
Location-based applications are services that allow the user to update his or her status (much like Twitter or Facebook), but attach a very specific location to that update, either with a dot on a map, a longitude and latitude reading, or a location defined and named by the users (a restaurant, retail location, ballroom at a convention center, etc.). There are several of these services available—FourSquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite, Google Latitude—but FourSquare is the service with the most members.
Initially, these services were created because people wanted to know where their friends were: approximately 55% of all text/SMS messages sent are some variation of “where are you?” (equating to almost 650 billion location-based service text messages in 2009). Now however, consumers are not adopting these location-based services because they want to announce to the world their every move, but because people are inherently social—they want to communicate, share and interact—and using the services, they can: find other people at the same locations at the same time, find out if friends have been there before, find tips for getting the most out of their experience at that particular location, and get rewarded for participating.
As a result of this activity, customers are putting businesses on the map, literally. Businesses can leverage consumer participation in location-based services to improve the customer experience. By giving customers reasons to check-in at a particular location, businesses encourage repeat visits and loyalty. Some examples of how businesses are using FourSquare are:
As an added bonus for businesses, customers are self-populating a contact and feedback database. Check out a business on FourSquare and you will see the names and faces of all customers that have checked-in there (and by clicking on the visitors you can view their profile and see where else they like to go). You will see their comments and tips they have left future visitors. You will see the total number of check-ins at that location and the person currently holding the “mayor” title. There is data to be found on sites outside of FourSquare, too. Go to Checkin Mania to see a map of all locations where check-ins have occurred in a specific area. You can filter by service to see those using FourSquare, Gowalla or Brightkite. This tool gives you a good indication of the location-based services application penetration in your specific area. Businesses can use this data to improve their service, reward loyal customers, determine if there are other businesses in the area they should cross-promote with to drive even more like customers, and reach out to key influencers to become ambassadors of the business.
The bottom line: location-based services offer additional opportunities to engage with existing customers and drive new customers. We are only just starting to see the possibilities for leveraging these new tools to the benefit of businesses.
With the Internet’s ability to reach worldwide for the brightest talent, we are starting to see an increased use of crowdsourcing to create the best products. Check out a great example of crowdsourcing a choir:
Check out Innovate Arkansas for the second part of my two-part introduction to location-based services based on sessions attended at South by Southwest.
Check out Innovate Arkansas for the first part of my two-part introduction to location-based services based on sessions attended at South by Southwest.
This was the last day of the South by Southwest (SXSW) interactive festival in Austin. The conference lasted five days and was been jam-packed with educational sessions about emerging technology. It was long, fun, exhausting, engaging, informative, crowded and worth every minute.
According to reports, the interactive portion of the festival outsold both the film and music portions. There were 12,000 interactive badge holders this year. For those that have been attending SXSW for several years, this number was almost too much to handle: they complained about the mass and accompanying lack of intimacy among the group. This being my first year, I was in awe of event and appreciated everything it had to offer. Maybe they are right and SXSW interactive has jumped the shark, making it less valuable than before, but that was not my experience.
The last day offered approximately 140 sessions, of which I attended the following:
“LBS 101: Geolocation on the ‘Horizon’” was a continuation of the location theme that was prevalent throughout the conference. This particular session focused more the technology aspect of the services rather than the user aspect. To emphasize the demand and opportunity for location-based services (LBS), the presenter started with the statistic that approximately 55% of all text/SMS messages sent are some variation of “where are you?”. That equates to almost 650 billion location-based service text messages in 2009. To further demonstrate the potential, the presenter revealed that of the 200 million mobile subscribers in the United States, 18.5% are smart phones with built-in technology for geo-location. However, for most of the market, downloading an app for updating location status is a barrier to entry. The benefit of using a location-based service will need to be pretty great to jump that hurdle with the mass-market user.
Today, location-based services are being used for navigation, family location (if on a shared mobile service plan) and friend finding through social media applications. The future of location-based services could include notification when friends are nearby, location aware advertising, location aware marketing/couponing, crowdsourcing traffic systems and fraud prevention. The technology already exists today for location-based advertising, but it is not being implemented. Just last week, Starbucks announced a partnership with FourSquare to award a barista badge to frequent visitors, but won’t be sending coupons or promotions through the service just yet. An example provided in the session for how location-based advertising/marketing could be used: the Starbucks on a corner in Austin is having a slow day so they push out a coupon for everyone within 25 meters for 50% off to bring in customers. Based on the amount of conversation at SXSW this year, it is safe to assume that we will see location-based services increasing in use over the next two years, both among business and consumers.
“Social Business” was a panel presentation from three communications people (marketing, PR, customer service) talking about how social media has impacted them. The panelists included David Meerman Scott and Captain Nathan Broshear of the Air Force. David Meerman Scott, a professional marketing and leadership speaker, as well as author, started the session. Scott presented many quotable one liners for this captive audience: speak to buyers in their language, not yours; create triggers that encourage people to share; the most overused terms in press releases include “innovate,” “unique,” “pleased to” and “leading provider”; lose control of your brand. Although his presentation style was engaging and entertaining, the content was pretty generic.
Captain Nathan Broshear is Director of Public Affairs for the Air Force. He talked about how the armed forces can use social media with every airman acting as a spokesperson using his iPhone and Flip cam as tools. The Air Force now allows members to post content to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, knowing that this assists in spreading the message about their work efforts and can help with recruiting. The embracing of social media has resulted in media calls to the Air Force to expand on intriguing stories, rather than the Air Force having to reach out to the media to “sell” their stories. As a result, the Air Force claims to have not issued a news release in eight years. The Air Force is using social media is used to humanize the organization.
Tuesday’s keynote presentation was an interview with Daniel Ek, CEO and founder of online music service Spotify. It was a nice transition from the interactive portion to the music portion of the SXSW festival. Spotify is a music sharing site that is not yet available in the United States. The site and service allows users to build playlists, access them from anywhere (mobile or online) and share them with friends. Because most in the audience was unfamiliar with the service, Ek did a demonstration and overview of how Spotify works both online and through a mobile app. Ek’s stated the Spotify goal as wanting “to make music like water” in its availability. He talked about the social nature of music and our human desire to share it with others.
“Interactive Infographics” was a session for designers to understand the impact of presenting data as interesting graphics. The panelists include designers from the New York Times and GOOD magazine, as well as a representative from Processing.org and Stamen Design. The majority of the session was spent showcasing the work of the four panelists as examples of the possibilities.
There was a lot to take in over the five days of SXSW. As we digest the information and figure out how it applies to our businesses, it will be interesting to see if and/or how the predictions hold true.
SXSW 2010 Flickr Photostream My Delicious Bookmarks