Turn Foursquare Into a Money Making Machine

As I am sure you know by now, Foursqaure is one of the more new forms of social media that is taking the world by storm.  If you have been neglected of what Foursquare is, I will give you a brief description.  Foursquare gives you the ability to "check in" to a business that you are at on your smart phone.  Other friends are able to see that you are checked into that business if they are friends with you on the app which is great for businesses.  The more you check into a business the more badges you get.  These badges could give you discounts and other incentives.  If you check in enough you can become the "mayor" of that location and then it becomes a competition with other people who check in their to come and check in more often.

But how can Foursquare make small business owners money?  According to Carmin Gallo, there are seven potential ways to make money or increase your ROI.

The first is to connect your brand.  You should be creative with it and not just offer the same old coupons that other businesses use.  The more creative you become, the more likely people with buy in and become more competitive to receive badges.

Second is to harness new fans.  Businesses that offer specials are highlighted on the list of near buy places on the user's screen.  If you are a small business and trying to get your name out, this is a great way to get people to come and try your food.  Being a college student myself, every time I hear of a great deal I go check it out even if I have never been there before.

Third is to engage your followers.  An example that I heard in class was from an old town that uses Foursquare to give historical information for every place you check in.  This is a great interesting way for costumers to check in to a business or location.

Fourth is to create awards.  As stated above, the mayor is the person with the most check ins.  If you offer better specials for the mayor then more people will start checking in to become mayor and take advantage of the specials.  This would be a great way to get the costumer involved also.

Fifth is to knock out the competition.  In this example Gallo states that you need to out smart your competitor, not out spend them in advertising.  An example is if Subway offered a free cup of soup for every footlong.  This could potentially take away costumers from Quiznos.

Sixth is to incintivize your costumers.  You want to give your costumers a reason to check in over and over.  A way to do this is to offer better incentives for every visit one makes.

The last way that Gallo gives us is to never stop entertaining.  An example is for a user to take a picture of a location and then show them to the cashier of the business offering a special offer.  This could be a great way for businesses to help their partner in business.

These are some great ways that could help a business, mainly small business, to create not only new costumers but also help in increasing repeating costumers.  For myself I do not use Foursquare but after seeing some of the possibilities for companies to get more costumers involved, I can see myself using it.  I mean, It can only save the costumer money.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/7-ways-to-make-money-on-foursquare_n_1033681.html#s447057&title=Never_Stop_Entertaining

Are Company's Doing Away with Social Media?

In my past blogs, I have talked about the importance and the incentives of company's using social media. I have also talked about how much social media has become an every day part of our lives.  But according to the University of Massachusettes at Dartmouth, company's using blogs, Facebook, and Twitter accounts have become stagnant.

According to the research, only 23% of fortune 500 company's in 2011 with blogs actually have a post within the past twelve months.  That number is up from 2008 but fortune 500 that have started to start blogging has stay relatively the same for the past three years at around 21%.

Twitter is also another area where usage has plateaued.  In 2011 62% of fortune 500 have an active Twitter account with tweets within the past thirty days.  That may seem like a lot but that is only a 2% increase from last year.  Most of these numbers are from the top 200 company's though.  Of the bottom 300 company's, only 34% have tweeted within the past thirty days.

With Facebook, it is about the same as Twitter with the top companies having up to date profiles and the bottom 300 varying.

The question is, why?  There are many possible reasons but one main reason is that fortune 500 company's were not the only ones that were studied.  Fortune 500 had the lowest numbers compared too Inc. 500 and higher education.  Maybe the fortune 500 company's just haven't found it worth their while.  Maybe they do not believe ROI is substantial enough to continue using social media.

In my opinion, these companies are just being complacent.  This is not a good thing though.  Research has shown that for many company's that keeping up to date in social media has a positive affect on their company's.  I believe that these f500 company's need to give social media another chance,  more than likely it is not going to hurt their business.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lisaarthur/2011/11/01/are-corporations-giving-up-on-social-media/

When Social Media Is Bad for Business

Usually, social media is a great tool for businesses to use to connect with consumers.  One of the best things about businesses or corporations on Facebook are the testimonials.  If someone is happy with their experience with a company, it is great when they go to the homepage and post about their experience.  On the contrast, when they are unhappy you may get some not so happy testimonials.

That is exactly what happened to Bank of America recently.  Bank of America purposed to place a five dollar charge for when a users debit card is used.  This news did not set well with Bank of America costumers and they went straight to their Facebook page to BofA how they felt.  From November 2010 to October 2011, 80% of comments on Bank of Americas Facebook page were negative.  Bank of America decided to drop the idea of a five dollar charge after an overwhelming amount of negative feedback.

Besides the terrible testimonials that this caused, I guess you can look at this in a good way.  Costumers are getting what they want.  Only a few days after announcing the idea of the huge debit card charge, they dropped it from having no support from their costumers.  This could actually be a great way for companies to communicate ideas with their costumers.  Except not do like Bank of America and say "hey we are going to charge you an insane amount" and have to wait until so many people complained and then drop it.  They could post on their walls an idea and then see the type of responses they get.  This could have been a great idea for Netflix, I would hate to see their facebook wall.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2011/11/01/report-social-media-users-hate-bofa.html

Be Careful Where You Tweet

Just like Facebook and Foursquar, Twitter is a great way to connect with friends, clients, or family members.  What you may not know is that it is also a great way to get yourself robbed.  You may just tweet that your at the mall or on vacation but other may see this as an opportunity to make an unwanted visit to your property.

According to Mashable Social Media out of fifty ex-robbers in the UK, 80% of them used a form of social media to target where they would rob.  Too me, that stat is very disturbing.  What was more disturbing is that 73% said they used Google street view to see the property or house that they would later rob.  Not only do they know when you are out of the house or town, they can find out the best way to get into your house just by sitting on their computer.

There are five easy steps to improve your safety from these social media using thieves.  First set your Facebook privacy setting to only where your friends can see.  Two, only add friends that you actually know and feel comfortable adding.  Another way is not to announce too the world you going on vacation.  Four, don't post photos that show your address or other places of your house that could be used to help thieves.  And lastly, don't post pictures of expensive nice things at your house.

I know people like to let the world know what they are doing,  but help yourselves out.  After seeing these numbers, I know I am not going post every time I leave my house.

http://mashable.com/2011/11/01/social-theivery-infographic/

Mobile Marketing

I am sure everyone already knows, Facebook is one of the best ways for peers to interact with one another. It is also a great way for businesses to interact with potential costumers.  Businesses are taking this interaction further than Facebook, though.  Foursquare and Groupon are also potential outlets for businesses to attract costumers.

Many of these social media outlets have apps which allow you too check and update social media from a smart phone.  One of the features of these apps is the ability to check into a location.  Businesses have jumped on this feature as a way to market their business.  The person checking into your business has already done the work, they check in and everyone can see that they are there.  Others see it, they are interested and may visit.  But businesses are taking it to another level.  Businesses are starting to give discounts or deals for checking into the place of business.  Lets say you check into Red Barn and you get 25% off on Busch Light.  Thats a deal one can't pass up!  It is a simple, easy way of marketing which pretty much lets the consumer do all of the work.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11271716/1/how-to-mobilize-your-social-media-marketing.html

Is Google Plus the New Facebook?

With Facebooks new changes causing a profound amount of un-satisfaction within its users, many are making a change to its new contender Google Plus.  Google+ is a new type of social media that was launched last week that is supposed to rival Facebook.  With a 1,300 percent increase of users over the span of one week, Google+ is looking promising.  There are stark differences between the powerhouse Facebook and Google+ though.  For instance Google+ does not have a "wall" where users can communicate with each other.

Google+ is looking promising, but it is a little bare to say the least.  This is not a surprise though with the new outlet being in its infant state.  A code writer curious with the new social media discovered a few possible updates in Google+ that would close the gap between it and Facebook.  The first discovery was an implication of voice capability that allows users to communicate by voice like a phone call.  Facebook has a similar feature after they partnered with Skype where users can communicate through video.  Another feature Google+ may implicate is "Google Experts".  This feature allows users to conduct a Q & A similar too Yahoo Answers.  This is a feature that Facebook does not have.  There is also a potential for Google+ to add a "wall".  This wall will be different from Facebooks "wall" because only the person receiving the wall post can see it, making the post private.  With Google+ completely lacking in the photo area, where Facebook strives, a possibility of more photo options are coming in the future so they can compete.  Lastly, like any social network, privacy settings are the most important asset to protect users.  Google+ is looking too simplify its privacy settings.  They look offer four options from completely open to completely hide all content posted by a user to the open web.

All though these features where found in the code of Google+, it does not mean that they will all be added.  Google is looking to experiment with a number of settings before making it their final product.  But with Facebooks constant changing to only more complicated layouts with the same features, Google+ is seeming to become what Facebook used to be.  A simple, user friendly way to connect with ones peers that is....cool.


Sources:  http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/09/27/5-upcoming-secret-features-discovered-in-google/