On Wednesday this week Steve Jobs and Apple announced a number of new products and concepts at an Apple event in California. Among them was the launch of Apple’s first foray into social media, called iTunes Ping.

I was listening to the event on my iPhone and following the commentary online via Twitter. There were lots of interesting instant-reaction Tweets by industry types. I found this one, by Kara Swisher, columnist for AllThingsD.com, to be quite interesting:

Apple Ping is “vertical Twitter” says Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky, sitting next to me at launch event in SF

At the time of reading, I hadn’t used Ping yet. My first thought was, Oh, I’m Not Sure This Is A Good Idea. Apple is an utterly closed company, making its living off of closed platforms. There is no sense of openness, of encouraging sharing, that is required in today’s social media landscape.

However, I wanted to reserved judgement until I had the opportunity to play around with it for myself. I downloaded iTunes 10 and created my Ping profile ( iTunes link).  Ping profiles do not work with browsers. Everything must be done within iTunes.

I come to Ping as a five-year user of Last.FM (formerly Audioscrobbler), which can be accessed via browser and is an open social network.

First off, if you have an Apple/iTunes account, then by default you have a Ping account. You’ve just got to activate it and pick a photo for yourself. Once that’s done, you can find “friends” to “follow” (similar to Twitter) and talk about music.

How you do that, though, is the tricky part.

The entire purpose of Ping is to make people spend more time in the iTunes Store. Every action requires that you wade through the iTunes Store. Want to write about an album? Find it on the iTunes store, then click “Share”. Just want to “like” a track (a la Facebook)? Find the song and click the tiny arrow next to the price.

After you “share” an album or song, or “like” something, it appears in your stream as recent activity. It always appears in such a way to make the album or song easy to purchase, should the mood strike.

Sound weird? It should. I believe GigaOm sums it up well:

Ping is essentially an e-commerce platform for music disguised as a social network.

An industry standard for new social platforms is that they all must connect to the other existing social networks in some way. Tweet this, Post to Facebook, etc. You can’t find much of that in Ping.

Facebook is nowhere on Ping, either. Currently, there is no linking, sharing or participation of any kind with Facebook–or Twitter or MySpace–on Ping, which will work only on the iTunes software on computers, iPhones and iPods.

Despite that, people are joining. iTunes has 160 million users worldwide, so odds are in Apple’s favor that they will be able to make some significant gains.

However those gains could be wiped out if Apple is not able to get Ping’s spam problem under control.

Ping really is a “social network inside a walled garden”, as GigaOm’s Paul Sweeting calls it.

Just because you’re a wildly successful tech company does not guarantee success in social media. Just ask Google. They know all about that.

Image credit: Bruno Pedro/Flickr

You’ve got a Facebook profile, claimed your business on Google Maps and Foursquare, and you may even have a Twitter account. So far, your businesses is well situated to use the internet and social platforms to generate business and raise awareness of your brand.

But there is one other platform where your business is absent: Blogs.

The natural inclination of businesses is that blogs are time-consuming and labor-intensive. I won’t dispute that — blog posts require time and effort to write and publish.

But the benefits to maintaining a company blog are considerable. Consider the following:

1. Distribute content. Having presences on social media platforms is great. In addition to communication platforms, social media are also distribution platforms. Post your blogs to Facebook, Twitter and anywhere else you are active.
2. Improve SEO. The more of your content that search engines have to crawl, the better your search engine results will be when someone searches for your company
3. Advertise products. Blogs offer businesses a place to advertise and discuss their products.
4. Build reputation. Use a company blog to cement your company’s and your own status as an expert in a field, via informative posts.
5. Create community. Use your company blog as a gathering place for customers. Stick to a content schedule so that customers are waiting for your next post.

There are more reasons to do it than just the five above, but that’s a good start.

In the rush for businesses to get on Facebook and Twitter, some are forgetting about the value of blogs to their business. When developing an online and social media strategy, don’t forget to include a company blog in the planning.

When used correctly, company blogs can become an asset to the company’s presence online.

Talking about how great new innovations in social media are, is fun and easy. You can do this and you can do that. Isn’t it great?

More often, however, the difficulty comes in when trying to explain in clear terms what the benefit of these new social platforms is to business. Businesses want to know: What’s in it for me, how can we use it and how long will it take to see results.

Each of those questions is tough to answer definitively, because a certain amount of trail-and-error is required to know for sure.

Then I came across this simple four-step process for explaining the business value of Foursquare, developed by Ogilvy PR Worldwide. What’s interesting about it isn’t what they’re saying — any social media marketer worth their salt already know this — but rather how they are saying it

Take a look at the image below. Click here to see it in full-size.

Every strategy needs to be unique to an individual company’s needs. So trying to use the above figure as your company’s plan for geolocation/Foursquare would be a mistake.

Instead, use the above figure to start the conversation on the right track. Determine what you want to get out of the services, how your customers might already be using it, and set some goals for what you’d like the outcome to be.

Geolocation services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, loopt and now Facebook Places, offer businesses a lot of great tools to engage both current and potential customers. But each services is different, as is each business. In order to get the most out of them, it’s important to have developed a clear strategic approach.

Photo source: Team Sticker Giant/flickr

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduces Facebook Places

Last week Facebook debuted their latest product, a geolocation feature called Facebook Places. In the months leading up to the formal announcement, there was a lot of talk that Facebook was developing it, just no-one from the company would say so in any official capacity.

At the moment it is only available to Facebook users who have the iPhone application. Users had to download the latest update in order to get the new Places feature, which now appears directly in the middle of the menu screen on the application.

I had the opportunity to begin using the new feature on Thursday last week, while out with friends. We visited a few different locations, so I was able to try a few things out.

Facebook Places works two ways: You can check yourself into a location, or your friends can check you in. The latter is causing some uproar, because of the privacy implications. When someone checks in on Facebook Places, they are given the option to “tag” whomever else is with them. The problem is that discretion is entirely up to the friend, who can check you into a location without you even *being* there.

Early on, I ran into this problem. I was at a pizza place with one friend, waiting for another. I went to “check-in” on Facebook Places and tagged her as being there with me. I didn’t think much of it, but in fact she hadn’t arrived yet. She saw the tag and then untagged herself. She did not like other people checking her into places, which then shows up in her personal timeline on Facebook.

Count this as a “lesson learned the hard way” for Facebook after past privacy slip-ups. When they launched Facebook Places, they included an opt-out for letting other people tag you. It’s somewhat buried in the privacy settings, but it is there. Over at ValleyWag they’ve published a “how-to” for ensuring that friends don’t check you in places.

Once it launched, talk soon turned to whether Places would kill other geolocation services like Foursquare, Gowalla and loopt. My opinion is that it will not. Places is an interesting service, and I’m sure it will create greater interest in geolocation as a whole, but it’s a one-trick-pony as geolocation applications go. Plus on the day that Places launched, Foursquare recorded record one-day new user sign-ups.

It seems that the one-dimensional nature of Facebook Places was intended. Here’s an interesting quote from CEO Mark Zuckerberg about that very thing:

When asked about checking-in to watching television shows or the like, Zuckerberg joked, “there’s a lot of stuff we’re not doing.”

Like with Foursquare, businesses can claim their spot on Facebook Places. However, unlike Foursquare, businesses using Facebook Places aren’t shown any meaningful analytics. You are shown how many people have “checked in”, but you aren’t able to see who they are. This could be an instance of Facebook being gun-shy when it comes to potential privacy flare-ups; however in this case it’s something that is needed.

Since Places is only available to Facebook users who access the site via iPhone, it is difficult to determine the overall success rate with any accuracy. Only a fraction of my friends are using it — most of whom are already Foursquare users — so the case for “mass acceptance” is not there right now. And since Facebook hasn’t released any usage statistics yet, we’re all left to guess.

Places could go on to be a major player in geolocation. But before that happens, they will need to build the service out and add more features and functionality.

In sum: Reports of Foursquare’s death at the hands of Facebook Places are greatly exaggerated.

Today Pace Communications released a breakdown of where most of the major grocery store chains in the U.S. stand with regard to total number of followers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr.

The results were surprising in part because it painted a clear picture of how little this industry has invested in social, outside of major players such as WalMart and Target.

While the retail and food service industries have been quick to jump into social media, food retail (grocery stores, etc) appear to be more hesitant.

Grocery stores advertise their in-store deals to drive foot-fall via newspapers and magazines. That will continue for years to come, however social media offers another platform that should not be ignored.

Services such as Groupon and Living Social offer great opportunities to drive customers with discounts, traditional social media offers an added bonus of enabling engagement between customers and stores.

Over the next year or two, I believe that more grocery stores will begin to put greater emphasis on their social profiles, both for reputation purposes, and to drive customers into the stores.

Photo credit: Doug Wilson/Flickr

One of the side benefits of businesses using social media is that it requires some maintenance by actual human beings. For every business, this presents an opportunity. Whomever is managing your company’s social media efforts could become the face of your brand or company online.

The above screen grab is of Scott Monty’s Twitter account. Scott is the head of social media engagement for Ford Motor Company. Other than CEO Allan Mullaly, Scott is the the most recognizable “face” of Ford, because that’s how Ford positioned him to be.

Corporations and brands tend to be faceless organizations: The only humans that customers interact with are the ones they meet in brick-and-mortar locations, or via customer service. Social media presents an opportunity for companies and brands to humanize themselves. It goes towards perception, trust and ultimately, comfort.

In a recent Ad Age column, Chris Malone, chief advisory officer of Relational Capital Group, discussed this at length. Here are some of the key points that he made:

Social media are simply the most obvious place to apply insights about warmth and competence. This universal model of human perception has the potential to significantly reshape almost every aspect of the way companies build, manage, service and advertise their brands.

Because social media are ultimately a platform for conversations, brands can have actually discussions with customers, answer questions and more. This is the warmth that Chris is talking about. If you feel like someone is listening to you, then you’re likely to feel positively towards them.

Putting service-related honesty and selfless intentions on display for consumers to comment on and share with others will surprise, impress and inspire them.

This is all about transparency. Previously, all customer questions to a brand happened behind closed doors, on the phone, in the call centers. While a lot of that still happens today, some of it is shifting online, to social media platforms. Customers cannot be brushed aside when they leave pertinent comments and time-sensitive questions on a brand’s Facebook page.

In an article appearing today on Mashable, the author touches on this as one of the different “engagement styles” that can be used by businesses using Twitter:

With one friendly “individual” voice. This engagement style calls for a business to officially anoint someone or selected people from within the company to be the official Tweet-voice. Their personality is allowed to come through on some level within company boundaries. Customers need to feel as if they are being handled by an actual human being who is personable, but not too edgy

Businesses considering a social media presence should also consider having an employee as the “face” of the company or brand on social networks. It will lend to the credibility of the business, because customers feel like they are interacting with a person, not a nameless/faceless entity.

Earlier this week Kevin Rose, founder and CEO of Digg.com posted a tweet announcing the launch of his friends’ new site, fflick.com. This site was utterly new to me. I hadn’t heard any chatter, or read any analysis. Sometimes that’s the best way to come across interesting sites — on your own, without preconceptions.

The page loaded and almost immediately, I knew what it was and how potentially great it could be.

Using the tag line “Instant movie reviews from you and your friends. Is that $12 movie ticket worth it? Find out!”, fflick.com capitalizes on the fact that Twitter has become the go-to place where people give their 140-character reviews and reactions to movies they just saw, plan on seeing or just have a general opinion about.

What fflick.com does is make sense of the madness. Once you log-in via your Twitter account (using Oauth), you are shown your most recent tweets that mention a film, along with recent film-related tweets posted by people you follow.

The goal is to give you, the movie watcher, an idea of what the Twittersphere — and your friends — think about the movies that are playing in theaters. If it sounds obvious, then you would be correct. There are a few other web sites that aim to do the same thing, but they do not do it nearly as well.

Sentiment analysis is a lively topic of discussion in the social media and PR blogs and industry titles. Some suggest that sentiment analysis is valuable, while others believe that sentiment analysis does not provide clear enough answers to make anything actionable.

I wrote earlier this week that we’re in the early days of social media. Sentiment analysis is part of the next step. I’m hesitant to offer any predictions about what will happen next, or how sentiment analysis in social media will evolve. But one thing that I do feel confident in saying is that sentiment analysis will continue to segment: Movies, books, running apparel, and so on.

Now that businesses are taking notice of social media and using it to engage with customers, there exists a need to look forward and understand what the next level looks like. The above image is taken from the 1991 book “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore.

In a fascinating blog post, Axel Schultze, CEO of Xeesm, founder of the Social Media Academy writes in CustomerThink that social business is about to cross “The Chasm” as illustrated above:

Larger corporations demand a very different social media engagement. A 5,000 people enterprise won’t just throw a fan page at the market, build an online community and hope it sticks. Strategic engagements require teams and consultants who know enterprises and even SMBs inside out. Social Media Consultants need to cross the chasm in order to finally get to the much larger part of the industry. The past 6 years of social media was just a warm up round. The real race is starting now.

The idea that the past 6 years was a “warm up round” is equal parts scary and exciting. For agencies that offer social media solutions to clients, it means that there will be much greater investment in social media and online community talent. And for businesses, it means that the time for sitting around on the sidelines is official over.

First there was Facebook, leading the way and ultimately becoming the focus of marketers and businesses. Then Twitter came around. Now there is Foursquare. Both Facebook and Twitter are still major players — it’s just that now Foursquare must be considered when developing strategies.

In the next six months, there will be another site. That’s just how this industry seems to work. Being passive is not an option. Businesses need to either hire someone to stay on top of these trends internally, or ask an agency to lead them through it. Either way, standing still is not an option.

But those are not the only platforms that you should plan for. There are may other second-tier, niche social platforms that are worth considering when devising a social media strategy, whether for your agency or for a client. I recently wrote about one, called Take Me Fishing, meant for outdoors and fishing enthusiasts.

Here are a few more that are worth considering:

DailyMile.com

DailyMile touts itself as a “social training log.” In a lot of ways it can be explained more easily as “Facebook for people who like to work out.” Each time you work out, doing anything from running to rock climbing (there are actually 18 different exercise options), you post it on your page, including distance traveled and time spent doing it.

The social element comes in when you add “friends”, who can then view your exercise progress in their own feeds, similar to Facebook’s NewsFeed. Friends can leave comments, “like” posts, and even send you inspiration. Users can also post status updates and photos or videos.

Users can track their running and cycling routes, sign up for races/competitions, and participate in challenges with DailyMile users all over the world.

DailyMile could be useful for an individual, whether it’s a CEO’s attempts to be more transparent and public, or a politician running for office and seeking to fully engage social media across more than just Facebook and Twitter.

Dopplr.com

Dopplr calls itself a “a service for smart international travelers.” It has been around for a few years, but despite that, it has not found itself cemented into the public’s conscious as a major social network, even after being bought by Nokia. Geolocation social platforms are all the rage right now. But Dopplr was around before Foursquare or Gowalla.

Dopplr isn’t interested so much in where you are, as it is in where you’re going and where you’ve been. Its users tend to be professionals who use the site to track their business travel, whether it’s to meetings or conferences.

That being said, Dopplr is a great tool to integrate into a professional’s social media presence. It’s also great for people whose job requires quite a bit of travel, and a bit of transparency – such as athletes, authors, CEOs and more.

Dopplr becomes more social by allowing users to follow each-other, to see what their travel plans are. Users can also leave comments and suggestions for fellow travelers, such as recommendations for restaurants and hotels.

GoodReads.com

This one is for the book readers out there. Calling itself “the largest social network for readers in the world,” Goodreads sets out to let users share their reading lists with others, including reviews of books read and even recommend books to others.

Its core users are the kinds of people who buy multiple books at bookstores, or from online stores for their portable devices, which has them updating frequently. It’s also useful for more passive users, who want to find out what others are reading, and what they think of it.

One great feature is the ability to create and update a To-Read list. There is an iPhone app, so while you’re in a book store, you can add books to your To-Read list very easily.

Using a social platform such as this would be useful for authors and public figures. There are ways to pipe activity on Goodreads onto a website, so visitors can see what books that person is reading, and what they thought of them.

A platform like this can act as support, to broaden out a social media strategy, because it focuses on something more specific.

___

There are many more second-tier/niche social networking platforms out there, but these are three that I believe are interesting. When developing a social strategy each has something different that Twitter and Facebook can’t really offer in the same way.

The above can also add something to the Facebook and Twitter experience, since each offer the option to post activity straight to Twitter and Facebook from the sites.

]]> http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/2010/07/finding-value-in-niche-social-networks/feed/ 1 http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/2010/07/opening-up-unsocial-brands-5-tips/ http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/2010/07/opening-up-unsocial-brands-5-tips/#comments Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:54:58 +0000 Ben LaMothe http://www.renaissancecreative.com/blog/?p=557

For some companies, the rise of social media has brought with it some hard truths, namely that their brand or company risks being left behind because it doesn’t lend itself well to traditional commercial uses of social media.

There is a hint of truth to that — not every brand has social built into their DNA. But with a little help, most unsocial brands can be made at least a little social by using targeted strategies.

The key is not to take a defeatist attitude. Just because it isn’t obvious, does not mean it’s impossible. Check out what your competitors are doing in social media, if they are using it, and determine how to make something work.

Here are five easy steps to turn an un-social brand more social:

1. Be creative: Some brands don’t have a long social media shelf life, and as a result, interactions come in waves. Devise creative ways to encourage more continuous interactions.
2. Define your target: Early on your user group will consist mostly of past customers. Find ways to engage them by asking for photos, video, comments and reviews. Then take this growth and begin targeting new customers.
3. Focus on content: If your customers won’t come together over a love for your brand or company, instead bring them together over content. Create blog posts, videos, audio and photo slideshows. Post them on your social profiles and use it as a basis for interaction.
4. Use as a backchannel: Social media offers a great platform for customer service. While many are still more comfortable calling with a question, some customers have converted to using Facebook and Twitter as a way to work out customer service issues.
5. Use to organize events: As many already know, Facebook has a great Events section, which it recently upgraded. Use Facebook Events to schedule in-store events and other company-related happenings. Twitter also has third-party websites for organizing events.

It’s important to remember that just because a company or brand is not obviously social, that there are no ways to make it work. It might require a more bespoke approach to engaging customers past, present and future, but it can be done.

Photo credit: Colin / Flickr

This afternoon eMarketer published a fascinating article based on research in ExactTarget’s “Subscribers, Fans and Followers” report.

The report highlights what many already know: That customers are listening to brands on multiple platforms. Knowing that, it’s important to present a united front in your brand’s communication and marketing strategies.

Most Internet users studied in April 2010 engaged with brands only via marketing emails, but nearly a third subscribed to emails in addition to being fans of brands on Facebook. The vast majority of social media fans or followers were also email subscribers.

Very interesting findings, no doubt. What this means, ultimately, is that there is less room for fragmentation in messaging. Your customers are getting your e-mail marketing messages, but they’re also a fan on Facebook.

This also means that there are greater opportunities to tailor offers and engagement efforts to individual platforms, knowing that your customers are on both. If you are looking to boost engagement on your Facebook page, tailor your efforts to put the spotlight on the Facebook page and incentivize customers to use it in the way that the company would like it to be used.

As always, eMarketer has condensed their findings into an easy-to-read infographic:

Looking specifically at social media, the report found that Twitter plays a specific role in how customers use social media to interact with brands:

Twitter appeals most to consumers who want to feel up to date and in the know, suggesting information about new products and services or other brand initiatives would be of interest.

I’m inclined to agree. Just look at Twitter’s latest eCommerce venture, EarlyBird (@EarlyBird) which brings “exclusive offers from Twitter’s select advertising partners” to more than 87,000 Twitter users, a number that is growing by 2,900+ every day.

Measurement tools exist to help companies determine the success/failure rate of their e-mail marketing efforts. This new information should help companies better tailor their messaging, and ensure that all of its social channels are singing the same tune.

Photo credit: Mohammad Jangda/Flickr

Social media has quickly become commercially viable over the past year and a half as companies large and small have recognized its value. While today you’d be hard pressed to find a major company not involved in social media, occasionally one does pop up.

I happened upon one a few weeks ago. My first reaction was surprise, and perhaps a little disbelief. I thought, perhaps I’ve missed their official profile. So I did more digging and realized that I had not: Profiles for them exist on Facebook, some with more than 100k followers, but none of them are “official.”

For companies like this, all is not lost. While they do have hundreds of thousands of customers talking about their brand in the social space every day, often without an official voice to be found, that does not mean that the company should sit back and observe. They should seize the opportunity that is before them.

In some ways a big brand waiting to formally enter the social media fray can be a good thing. There is already a large number of customers using these platforms, so the biggest challenge right away becomes directing them to the official channel.

When a company is entering the social media space later than they perhaps should have, here are 3 things to consider when developing a strategy

1. What platform should you use? Facebook, Twitter and Youtube/Vimeo are not the same. Each serves a different purpose. Brainstorm what function you want each platform to serve before delving into specifics of a strategy.
2. How are your customers already interacting with your company in social media? Do a search of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to determine who is saying what, how often it’s being said, and how an official company voice could benefit the conversation, the company and the customer.
3. What should your content strategy be? Should you be writing blog posts? Or should your social sites link back to in-store deals/offers? When using Facebook, do you want people to interact, or do you just want to push content? All of these questions and more should be answered when developing a strategy.

Getting into social media late has advantages and drawbacks for a large company. But the important thing is that the company eventually does get involved and become part of the conversations that its customers are already having about their brand.

Photo credit: Stephen Mackenzie/Flickr

This is a primary barrier for many businesses that are considering becoming more active in social media: We use social media, but our customers don’t — so what’s the point?

My advice to businesses confronted with this dilemma: See it as an opportunity, not a barrier.

Your current customers may not be using social media so much that it makes sense to spend money to market to them — but your potential customers certainly are.

Social media engagement offers your company an opportunity to do a minor re-brand. You don’t need to change your identity, or your logo.

Instead re-focus and use social media to raise brand awareness amongst people who are not already customers. You should ensure that your current customers are aware of your social profiles and the benefits that come with being involved with them, but your focus should be on using social media to bring new customers.

It won’t happen over night, but over time you will see results.

Assess the social media plan after six months. Look for successes and failures. If possible, find a way to track new customers who came in as a direct result of social media engagement. This could be done by offering a discount, or other kinds of value.

Have realistic goals for new customer acquisition and be prepared to change course quickly, if an element of the strategy does not appear to be working well.

Also don’t forget to check back with your current customers — have any past customers joined? Are any past customers using your company’s social media channels frequently? If so, how are they using them?

Analytics are crucial, especially in new customer acquisition. Social media can enable that, so long as it’s done right.

Photo credit: Beck Tench/Flickr

This trend towards vertical online communities presents businesses with a choice: Leverage Facebook and Twitter to develop your online community and online customer experience, or develop your own bespoke online community.

For many companies it will come down to a matter of budget: Twitter and Facebook are free, or nearly free (depending on whether you pay for added options) whereas developing an online community costs money to plan, build and maintain. Sites such as socialengine and Ning both offer the ability to develop branded online communities, for a price.

Another deciding factor will be whether your customers are the kind that would benefit from, and ultimately, use, a customized, branded social media platform. It requires a specific connection to the product and brand for it to be successful.

One of my favorite examples is one I was just told about, called Take Me Fishing, developed by the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation. Here’s how they describe it:

RBFF has developed a wide variety of programs and products that make it easy for people to get involved in recreational boating and fishing. Under their Take Me Fishing™ brand and Anglers’ Legacy™ program, RBFF provides the tools to help people get started. RBFF also reminds lapsed boaters and anglers — people who enjoy the sport but no longer participate — about the joy they’ve been missing.

When users log into Take Me Fishing they are presented with a unique online community geared specifically toward their interests in fishing and outdoor activities. They interact with others who have similar interests, and are visiting the site for the same reason. The site hosts a crowd-sourced guide for the best fishing spots across the country, and has a social network called Fishington, where users can create profiles and interact.

This is a soft sell. The RBFF isn’t directly selling anything other than their image and their brand. This platform creates trust and brand recognition for the organization, by giving away something valuable.

Bespoke online communities are not a good fit for every brand, company or product. But for some, it is worth the investment in the long term.

Here’s a good example of that from ZDNet’s Enterprise 2.0 blog about community management:

In this infographic is a fairly in-depth breakdown of the various functions of an online community manager. It’s a position that is still being understood by businesses that don’t expressly work within the technology field. But as social tools and blogging becomes more widespread, more companies are understanding the value that an online community manager can offer their company and their customers.

So, does your company need one?

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.

Here are four possibilities:

1. In-store web coupons: Have the coupon URL of a coupon posted in-store. A customer can visit the coupon’s site on their mobile phone, load it and show it to the cashier at check-out
2. Get an app.: This is a more expensive option, but it has the potential to pay off in the longer term. Have a mobile app. developed that gives back automatic discounts for in-store use, such as price scanning and more.
3. Partner with a geolocation service: Earlier this week I wrote about how SMBs can use geolocation. In this instance, when a customer checks in at your store, they are presented with a coupon to be used during that visit.
4. Text message discount codes: Give your customers a number that, when they text it, they are sent a coupon code that can be used in-store. Each day (week/month) the code and discount is different.

Mobile marketing is an emerging field, but the opportunities today are great and diverse. Some are more expensive than others, but all promise to engage customers who shop in-store, in a more direct and meaningful way.

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:

1. Keep it simple: If you’re going to offer a special via Foursquare or another geolocation application, it’s critically important that the steps a customer needs to take to receive the discount are as few as possible — ideally no more than two.
2. Don’t be cheap: If you’re going to offer customers discounts for checking in at your business, make it worth their while. The better the offer, the more likely customers are to tell their friends.
3. Track your stats: Foursquare offers businesses an analytics dashboard if you register with them. This allows businesses to track the activity at their store, including who checks-in most often, who last checked in and what the busiest check-in day is.
4. Keep it fresh: Mix up your offers to correspond with specific events or products. This encourages repeat check-ins, new customers and raises product awareness.
5. Move offline: When your business gets a new “mayor”, offer to recognize them in-store by having their name on a board, or posting their photo.

Every business is different, and as such, each strategy for using geolocation will differ. But the above five tips is a good jumping-off point for creating an individualized strategy for a small or medium-sized business.

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.

The timing also could not be better for AT&T, as a parody Twitter account has popped up recently, called @ATT_Wireless_PR. It appears to be attempting to do what @BPGlobalPR is currently doing against BP.

Chris Brogan, of New Marketing Labs, and social media marketing expert, had this to say about the move by AT&T:

“I’m glad they [AT&T] are going to push forward,” said Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs. “They are a bit behind, like Comcast was. They’ve really let the media run the story for the longest time.”

Chris is right. Up to this point, AT&T has been content to let customers determine the company’s image in social media. As a result, complaining about AT&T’s service on Twitter has almost become cliche.

If you’re a big company, it’s likely that your customers are already talking about you on various social media platforms. Sitting on the sidelines is increasingly less of an option, especially in times of crisis or bad publicity. Get off the bench and start talking with your customers.

You can turn passive customers into brand evangelists and former-customers back into current-customers, all by getting involved with them on social media.

Over at mobile marketing blog Mobile Marketing Watch, they have a breakdown of what Sarah Rotman Epps of Forrester laid out at the Untethered conference:

She expects 3.5 million tablets — including the iPad and other tablets — to be sold this year, growing to 20.4 million in 2015.  In addition, she expects desktop sales to drop from 18.7 million units in 2010 to 15.7 million units in 2015.

Take into account that Apple is selling about 1.2 million iPads per month, according to Apple Insider, and you soon realize that tablet computing is here to stay and its impact on web and digital marketing will be significant.

Because of the hype surrounding both the iPad and tablet computing in general, it is likely that digital agencies are being approached by their clients about whether they should take the plunge and develop their own iPad application.

If a client asks about developing an iPad app for their product or brand, first ask them these three questions:

1. The most basic iPad costs $500, and the 3G-enabled iPad costs $650. Are your core customers buying them?
2. The most successful applications on iPhone and iPad are games, so if your app is not a game, are you OK with not ranking highly in the app store?
3. Do you have an iPhone app, and if so, how successful was it? What would be different on the iPad app?

Having an iPad application means offering content all of the time. It is a media consumption device more than a media creation device. You can send e-mails and do most everything that you can do on a laptop or desktop computer, but with the iPad, the experience is different. The screen is large, so design and user experience is much more important.

The iPad offers brands a way to interact with its customers in a new way. But it also requires brands to be more open to these changes, as they are happening rapidly.

Ben has been a guest blogger for such prestigious online communities as Media140.org, Econsultancy.com and FreshNetworks.com. His areas of expertise include developing and implementing unique strategies in Social Media Marketing; Multimedia Content Creation, Distribution and Aggregation; Blogging; Online Community Development (internal and external); Customer Relationship Management (CRM); and Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM). Ben has worked in industries ranging from non-profits, to farming, IT, luxury marketing, academia, news media, textiles and destination resorts.

I met Ben through a brief Twitter exchange one evening (surprise) while we were both up late working on marketing plans. He quickly showed himself to be a very creative, intelligent and knowledgeable online marketer and journalist, the kind of professional that’s hard to find, that you can’t have too many of these days.

While Ben is the kind of person who may operate his own full-time consultancy one day, our plans are to slowly, get him addicted to the high-octane, double-caffeinated coffee we brew around here, then “convince” him its best not to leave. At any rate, as long as he’s working on his thesis, Ben will be ours! Look for Ben to be contributing to “Make Belief”, the official blog of Renaissance Creative with a focus on new and social media; web marketing trends; branding and community building.

He’ll also be taking a look at the online presences of businesses throughout North Florida, so don’t be surprised if you get a phone call from him one day, or if walks in and introduces himself and offers to show you how we might be able to help your business in this challenging and ever-changing new economy.

Welcome Ben!

The story applies beautifully to all of those who become too comfortable with any aspect of life, not anticipating change and innovation, nor planning appropriately for the future.

We believe in this principle with such conviction at Renaissance Creative that we use the phrase, “Think Forward” in conjunction with our logo and brand identity. It’s how we help our clients think about their own products and services and the mindset that we apply to all of our creative work. Because failing to do so can have serious consequences, as Kendrick and Orthlip’s history lesson shows:

“Colonel Mastalerz was one of the most prestigious men in all of Europe- a decorated soldier and leader of the Pomeranian Calvary Brigade. As head of the 18th Lancer division, he was in charge of defending the Pomeranian Corridor. Built around the strength of its 84 infantry regiments, the Polish military had reigned supreme for two decades, turning back numerous assaults and defending their borders victoriously.

Tactically, they were superior. Their training and horsemanship were unsurpassed. Their determination and bravery had earned them an international reputation as one of the fiercest fighting units the world over. But on the morning of September 1, 1939, even Col. Mastalerz knew that Poland’s string of victories was about to end.

The horses of the Polish calvary grew skittish and reared up restlessly. A deep rumbling sound shook the earth, growing louder by the minute. In the distance, Mastalerz could hear the sound of trees cracking and falling to the ground. Through the morning mist, the 2nd and 20th Motorized Divisions of the Third Reich made their way toward Masterlerz and the small hamlet of Krojanty. The invasion of Poland had begun.

In the hours that followed, Polish soldiers on horseback fought a war of attrition against a German unit of tanks and armored cars. It was one of history’s great juxtapositions. The unthinkable was happening. It was a contrast equal to the Wright Brothers observing a space shuttle launch, or Alexander Graham Bell witnessing an Internet Videoconference. Residents from two different worlds met in an iconic exchange of ideologies, as one bygone era surrendered indefensibly to the next. Time and technology had marched by unnoticed. And that changed everything”.

Just like the Polish army, we as marketers must continue our push to evolve. Enduring success will be enjoyed not by those looking to leverage the tried and true, nor those satisfied with remaining in lockstep with their peers; but rather, by those willing and committed to thinking forward and considering: What’s next? How can I do this differently? How can it be improved? What changes can I anticipate (cultural, media, technological)? How can I leverage these trends?

Our industry today (integrated marketing, advertising, public relations and brand communications) is characterized by profound change– extreme shifts in technology and fragmentation of media, all occurring at unbelievable speed. Is there really any question that the ways we deliver messages must always continue to evolve?

As the Pomeranian Calvary Brigade proved, if you’re not committed to the process and looking far enough ahead; you’ll one day find yourself at the unwelcome crossroads of time and technology; of the past and the future; of foresight and hindsight. And you’ll have no choice but to surrender to those who eyes were fixed on a point on the horizon, much farther than your own.

As Kendrick and Ortlip so eloquently put it, “the advance of time has a great way of correcting nearsightedness”.

Note: The Blueprint for Life Study from which the story of the Pomeranian Calvary is referenced, is a truly enlightening (and exceptionally well-developed and designed), multi-media resource that takes valuable, secular-styled lessons for intentional living and goal-setting and applies them to Christian principles. I highly recommend this $59 study for groups or individuals. You’ll find many more brilliant illustrations you can apply to every area of your life. www.blueprintforlife.com.