Earlier today I posted a Tweet about an article I read in eMarketer, titled “Big potential For In-Store Mobile Marketing”. A few minutes later, a reply came in asking me what I thought it meant for SMBs.
The entire article is fascinating, but I found this part the most insightful:
As more in-store shoppers—especially millennials, who are used to turning to their mobile phone to stay connected anytime, anywhere—become mobile web users, demand for an in-store experience that takes advantage of web capabilities will only grow.
Developing and executing an in-store mobile marketing strategy can be expensive, which is why it will mostly be done by larger companies with numerous brick and mortar stores. However, opportunities exist for small and medium-sized businesses to develop a more cost-effective strategy for developing an in-store mobile marketing strategy.
When talking about social media with a skeptic, I like to remind them that social media has been around for about 10 years, and blogs have been around for closer to 15. Only in the last two years has social media become commercially viable. I whip out that line whenever I hear people dismiss a new evolution in the social media space as being a ‘fad’ or purposeless.
The latest evolution in social media, geolocation, has dealt with the same withering criticism by non-users. The difference is that the commercial applications of geolocation are much clearer than they are with Facebook or Twitter. There are many companies and services vying for geolocation users’ hearts, but right now that crown belongs to Foursquare.
Geolocation’s early adopters who saw the commercial appeal included Starbucks, who signed a deal with Foursquare to promote their Frappuccino Beverage by offering a discount to the “Mayors” of individual Starbucks locations.
Now it has begun to trickle down to SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses), who are also beginning to offer discounts and benefits to customers who “check-in” at their store.
Here are some tips that SMBs can use to engage their customers, encourage them to check-in and get them to tell their friends:
When I say “social media training,” I don’t mean teaching your employees to be sitting at a computer, monitoring conversations and replying to people. Instead, what I’m talking about is ensuring that their actions are bringing attention to your company’s social media presence.
In Wednesday’s post I made reference to our client III Forks — Jacksonville. I’m going to reference them again, because they’re a good example of the opportunities that exist in ensuring that your employees are working to nurture the company’s online communities.
In a restaurant setting, the opportunities for using social media are great and applicable across almost every area of the restaurant operations. III Forks is a dinner-only restaurant, which changes things a bit. Here are some examples of how social media can be implemented across the restaurant operation:
One way to know if your brand or company is doing well is if a community of customers exists around it online. In the pre-Facebook days, identifying the existence of a community around a brand was not easy. But now, thanks to Facebook and other social platforms, it has become easier.
During a meeting this afternoon with our client, III Forks — Jacksonville, we discussed their Facebook Fan Page, which has attracted 670+ local fans. We discussed ways to create a greater sense of community for its fans, and ways to deliver more value to them.
If you own an iPhone and have a Twitter account, chances are good that you’ve used Twitter to complain publicly about something AT&T has done, or in some cases, has not done. It may have seemed like no-one from AT&T was listening. We now know that is not the case.
Today Ad Age published an article detailing AT&T’s new social media plan, aimed at helping customers and ultimately turn negatives into positives. From the article:
On a normal day, AT&T has 10,000 mentions on social networks, but during stressful moments like these they rise precipitously. The marketer is out to calm those twit storms by staffing up its social-media customer-care corps. The team, led by its first-ever social-media strategist for customer care Shawn McPike, has been building steam since August of last year and is now poised for full-scale launch.
AT&T has the opportunity to duplicate the success that Comcast has experienced with @ComcastCares, and in the UK, BT (British Telecom) with @BTCare. With a company the size of AT&T, there will always be upset customers. But when you add social media to the equation, customer discontent is amplified and spread very quickly.
