Here, There and Yonder: Where to Meet Your Audience in 2011

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Hi, my name is Bob Hazlett and welcome to your December PRSA meeting. This month&#x2019;s topic is Here, There and Yonder: Where to Meet your audience in 2011. \n\nAs we get started, just a couple points about me...\n

I currently lead the online initiatives at the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau. Our job is to sell Memphis (online) to travelers, group meetings and even residents of the city. \n\nPrior to MCVB, I spent time at ALSAC/St. Jude, the fundraising arm of St. Jude Children&#x2019;s Research Hospital in a similar role. \n

I grew up in Ohio and managed to reach local stardom at an early age with a Putt-Putt Championship. \n

So, let&#x2019;s get down to business. Here&#x2019;s the agenda for today&#x2019;s meeting. \n\nIts the holiday season and I like to keep it loose, free flowing and fun, so feel free to drop your pencil and just sit back, relax and be Zen-like with me. This presentation with notes is available online at the address below.\n\n1. Talk about location-based social networks. A quick overview of what they are, the major players and strategy that I would take if I were in your shoes\n\n2. I think we can safely say that mobile had a great year in 2010 and is encompassing an increasing larger role in each of your budgets. I&#x2019;ll show you how mobile fits in location-based social networks and what you can expect to see in terms of mobile going forward.\n\n3. I left my crystal ball at home, but I&#x2019;ll also give you my 2011 social media predictions. \n\nBefore I get started, I want to give you a couple words of caution\n

The online world is evolving super fast. Even someone like myself who is immersed in it daily, the constant changes make it hard to keep up and stay straight. \n\nTherefore, I&#x2019;ve sort of developed this presentation around the face that you all have lives and jobs outside of a computer. \n\n1. I&#x2019;m going to tell you what I would focus on if I were in your shoes as well as trying to educate you and fill in some holes here\n\n2. If something has changed in the last 4 hours, please forgive me\n\n3. The best thing you can do for yourself is to jump in, try it yourself, fail and bunch of times until something sticks\n

As a secondary caution:\n\nLocation based services are still in their infancy. Foursquare was founded in 2009 and really didn&#x2019;t gain a large adoption until mid-2010. Assuming that 4% of online adults is considered a &#x201C;large adoption&#x201D; \n\nFoursquare almost reminds me of twitter in its beginnings. \n\nThese services should not be your entire online budget. It&#x2019;s still important to do paid search, email, video, facebook, twitter, PR, blog outreach, etc, etc\n\nSplitting this 4% are lots of different services... \n

These are just a few of the location-based social networks that I could think of off the top of my head. Location-based social networks are sometimes know as geosocial networks.\n

These are the handful that I would keep my eye on - Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla and keep your eyes open for greater developments by Google in the local/social sphere. \n

I&#x2019;m assuming that most of you have at least some concept of how these services work. If not, I&#x2019;ll give a quick run down, but will also be holding a professional development after lunch.\n\nEssentially, what happens using a LBSN like Foursquare, \n1. a user pulls out their smart phone, the phone using GPS knows where that person is,\n2. the user &#x201C;checks in&#x201D; with the app at that location to make their presence know. \n3. The service then notifies you if anyone else is checked in or any of your friends are nearby. \n4. As users check in more and more, they earn points against their friends \n5. and by checking into certain places or more often then others, they earn a virtual badge and become what&#x2019;s called the Mayor. \n6. The mayor is the person who has checked into that particular location most often over a given time period. \n\n\n

At its very core, Foursquare is a game. Can you imagine the reaction you&#x2019;d get from your VP of Marketing or CEO if you told them you wanted your customers to take part in a game? \n\nBut there are also many deeper uses. I&#x2019;ll get into those here soon. \n\n\n

And even though LBSN may seem like all fun and games, they truly are a great way to reach your loyal customers and new prospects. They give you the ability to: \n\n1. communicate with your customers at the exact time when they walk in your door\n2. deepens the relationship you already have with that person. (maybe they follow you on facebook, receive your email newsletter or have your label on their shirt). \n3. And if you think of it, when a user checks in, they just aren&#x2019;t letting you know that they check in, but also all of their friends\n

Now, if I were in your shoes and looking to dive into LBSN, these are the few things I would do to get started. \n\nIt takes just a couple hours. This will get you 80% of the way and ahead of most other businesses who are using Foursquare. \n\n

Sign up for an account, go to Foursquare.com and search for your place of business or your clients place of business. \n\nMost likely it will already be listed. If so, Near the top right of the page, there is a link to claim this listing. If not, create your location. \n\nFoursquare will verify you via phone or mail. Once verified, you&#x2019;ll have access to the Managers area of your venue. \n

Once into the Managers area, you&#x2019;ll have access to all sorts of information about your business. \n1. You&#x2019;ll see who has checked into your location in the past, \n2. what time of days are the most frequent, \n3. their gender and \n4. who are your most frequent visitors including your Mayor.\n\nThe managers area also gives you access to specials...\n

You can set up and manage specials right within your account. Therefore, if a user checks in to your location, you can offer them a discount or freebie. \n\nFoursquare allows you to currently do 4 types of specials (but only 1 can be active at a time)\n\n1. Mayor special - in which the mayor would receive a reward \n2. Checkin specials - if someone checks in 10 times the reward is unlocked\n3. Frequency based - these are unlocked every, say 5 times a user checks in\n4. Wildcard - always unlocked, but must be verified by your staff. For example, show your Swarm badge to our staff to get a free drink\n

So those 3 simple things will get you 80% there, but to really get those raving fans, you know they ones that fight it out to become the mayor of your place, the few that crave everything you create.\n\nHow do you make it so that you&#x2019;re featured on blogs and TV as those that are &#x201C;doing it right&#x201D;? Here are a couple ideas\n

Encourage visitors who check in to post a review. Good or bad. \n\nNot only does it exhibit peer pressure because people want to eat where their friends eat, and party at the places with the best crowds, \n\nbut it also draws a lot of attention to you, Increases word of mouth and could even help your Google rank. \n\nFor people who have posted a review (positive or negative), go out of your way to thank them. If its positive, keep the good vibes going. If its negative, take steps to fix it. \n

Foursquare can also be used to crowd source and improve your customer service. Within each location, there is what&#x2019;s called a To-do list. \n\nYou can add things to the To-do list, but users can also put the things to eat, try or do on the list. When they add to it or complete something, they receive points in the overall game. \n\nHere&#x2019;s how you can take it one step further. \n\n1. Ask users what items they like the best\n2. Ask them what would make them spend more money in your shop or who gave them the best service\n

Play to your visitors ego and give them a peak behind the curtain at your business. Leave little digital crumbs behind.\n\n1. this can be as simple as the Wi-fi password or \n2. the best place to sit to get a charge or the \n3. code word for secret menu items.\n\n* Make sure your tune your staff into these as well. Not communicating to all levels can easily turn a positive experience into a negative one.\n

I know I have a couple friends from ALSAC today, this is for you and a great opportunity to team up with a businesses. \n\nAnnounce that you&#x2019;ll; \n1. give a certain dollar amount for every checkin at your location that day, \n2. round up transactions or even \n3. promote merchandise that benefits an organization. \n\n* Just having that association with the charity increase your brand stock in the mind of consumers\n\n* People love to feel good and give back without actually opening their wallets. \n

Special offers aren&#x2019;t just limited to those that are directly available on Foursquare. Get creative \n\n1. To drive increased traffic, offer an evening for example where if 10 people checkin everyone gets 20%, but if 30, then they receive 50%, etc. SOmething like that encourages world of mouth\n\n2. One of the main game elements in Foursquare is collecting badges. Why not host an event where users could get a hard-to-obtain badge. There is a small coffee shop in Milwaukee that pulled a boat out front of their store. Users could take turns getting on and receiving the &#x201C;I&#x2019;m on a boat&#x201D; badge. \n\n3. Don&#x2019;t forget to link promotions to your offline media as well such as direct mail, loyalty cards and in-store promotions.\n

Now these all sound like tons of fun, but they&#x2019;ll never get approved by upper management if they don&#x2019;t somehow tie back to your overall goals and online strategy. \n\nSo if you&#x2019;re trying to increase foot traffic to the store, it might be a good idea to create an event or offer a coupon to users who checkin for the first time. \n

How is mobile evolving in association with location-based social networks and a couple of new things you will seen more of in 2011 from the mobile world\n

For the most part, as the industry stands now, users must actively check in at locations when they arrive. \n\nWell, hello big brother as there are now a few companies focusing on passive checkins that check in for you when you enter certain stores. The stores have special hardware installed near the entrance that essentially talks to your phone and checks you in when you enter the store. \n\nUsers get points and the points add up to rewards. A great example of this is a small company that has worked with the likes of BestBuy, Target, Macy&#x2019;s, American Eagle is Shopkick. Look them up. \n \n

You&#x2019;ll start seeing users checkin to places that aren&#x2019;t actually places. \n\nUsing a service like GetGlue, users could checkin to an album they&#x2019;re currently listening to, a TV show or football game they&#x2019;re watching. It could even get as granular as a website they are currently reading. \n\nConsider your mind just blown\n

There are already a few services out there that will let you add video or photo to your check in, but as soon as a major service implements it, you&#x2019;re going to see lots of reasons why you&#x2019;re friends can&#x2019;t drop that final 10lbs. \n\nEnvision pictures of what they are eating, who they are eating with and instant reviews of the meal as soon as they swallow it. \n\n\n

Augmented reality allows the user to interface with the real world through the use of their phone. \n\nI could actually pull out my phone, launch an app and through the use of my camera get overlays of different info around me. That information could include restaurants with ratings, people, nearby subways, houses for sale, etc\n

Some of you may have used QR codes, other of you have seen them but not known what they were. \n\nsomewhat similar to augmented reality, A QR code is a square barcode that can be scanned by a phone. \n\nThe user is then presented with whatever info the maker of the code intends you to see. This could be some text, an email address, a link to my website or any other info.\n

and finally, the part you&#x2019;ve all been waiting for...my 2011 social media predictions\n

#1\nVery few companies anymore produce 100% physical products. You can slowly see how these virtual and service companies are slowly transforming into media companies. \n\nThe companies that will find the edge are those that create valuable and creative content that is relevant to their audience. \n\nThey are curating the best information and producing consistent and engaging material. \n\nUsers are getting savvier. They know an ad when they see it, even if its in the form of a status update. \n

I think we&#x2019;re ripe for a large privacy blow up in 2011 which could lead to some sort of gov&#x2019;t intervention like the &#x201C;do not track&#x201D; law \n\nThis could make it harder for you to customize your content for your customers\n

People are making major decisions based on what they real and virtual friends think online. I think you&#x2019;ll see many more question & answer sites pop up like Quora and Facebook Questions. \n\n\n

Group buying sites like Groupon will continue to grow. \n\nI think you&#x2019;ll see these offers become better personalized rather than a blanket offer per city. Therefore if I&#x2019;m a Memphis male who likes football, I may not get the same offer as a Memphis male who likes music \n

Be on the lookout for VYou.com - a combo of twitter, youtube and a dash of chatroulette (but the good dash)\n\nThere are rumors swirling about what Google will do in terms of social. Look for something big from them in 2011 and maybe even in Q1\n\nWatch for growth in &#x201C;personal networks&#x201D; and niche sites like Path and Instagram to name a few. \n