Social media news that you can use
Foursquare: A Proven Success But Impossible to Crack
We’ve examined the rise of social media loyalty programs in previous issues, discussing the potential benefits of recognising passionate customers for advocating brands within their social circle, but we’ve remained cautious in our recommendations, until now. Domino's UK has reported a 29% surge in pre-tax profits over two months, stating its two month old partnership with foursquare was critical to its performance. For background, Domino’s UK kicked off a nationwide Foursquare promotion in May, rewarding mayors of all Domino’s locations with free pizza once a week. For non-mayors that check-in and spend more then £10 (or around $14.50), they receive a free side dish for their patronage.
This type of loyalty program success further proves the business benefits of partnering with Foursquare. But how do you go about working with them? How do you submit an idea or design for a badge? For brands without an actual venue to check-in to, the answer’s not as easy as you might think.
According to a recent audit conducted by Adweek there’s a growing frustration amongst reps with foursquare being hard to connect with and unhelpful with marketing ideas. Adweek editor, Brian Morrissey, notes that Mark Drapeau, Microsoft's director of innovative social engagement, tried everything from emailing to calling to stopping by Foursquare’s office in the hopes of partnering with the geo-location platform for a Microsoft event that would include a custom badge, and got nowhere.
At June’s Mashable Media Summit, Foursquare Co-Founder Dennis Crowley addressed what has become an issue, asking for a show of hands during his keynote of how many attendees had attempted to work with the company but didn't hear back. As hands went up around the room, his point was clear: the small but quickly growing company is struggling to respond to the surge in requests. Crowley went on to ask for patience and advised a solution was in progress. He said Foursquare is currently building tools to automate some processes, such as setting up branded pages for businesses.
So what to do in the meantime? Well to start, you can take advantage of Foursquare’s API. Although you’ll need an in-house or 3rd party developer to build the application, its one way to get around the branded badge obstacle and create new ways to check-in to Foursquare or visualise the data generated by the Foursquare community.
Also, keep in mind Foursquare, at its core, is a social networking platform. If you’re looking for the company to devise a creative social strategy for you, you’re barking up the wrong tree. According to a Foursquare biz dev exec, Tristan Walker, the team spends most their time educating brands and agencies on the best ways to use the platform. Walker highly recommends setting up an account and figuring out how to add value to the experience instead of simply offering badges (that’s if you can even get in touch with Foursquare to allow you to create a branded badge).
If you’re interested in learning more about Foursquare before submitting an idea, it’s worth reading “Foursquare + Your Business” and following the Foursquare blog, for the latest updates and new features. Although the content is typically more focused on check-ins versus badge creation, these are useful tools to begin to build out a Foursquare campaign as part of a broader digital strategy.
"The Decision" Heard 'Round the World - Social Media's Play in LeBron-aclypse
Last week was all about LeBron James. No matter what newspaper or blog you read or social network you spent time on, you were guaranteed to see coverage of the NBA superstar’s impending choice around where he will play next year. In less than a week, LeBron (and likely a large team of communications and digital professionals) managed to create a bonafide frenzy that most brands can only dream of. It all culminated in a one-hour live spectacle on ESPN where LeBron finally shared the news - he would leave his hometown team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, to join fellow NBA stars Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade on the Miami Heat.
If you’re not an avid NBA fan, you might assume, given all the hoopla, this was a major first in sports history. It wasn’t. In fact, hundreds of pro-athletes make decisions like this every year. The difference is that no other athlete gets this level of attention from this many people. What fueled our obsession with “The Decision”? And how did it all happen so quickly?
In case you missed it, here’s the play-by-play:
- (Sunday, July 1) LeBron officially enters free-agency, making him arguably, the most sought-after free agent in NBA history. Rumors about who’s courting him and where he will land swarm the blogosphere.
- (Monday, July 5) ESPN announces they will air “The Decision.” The one hour live interview with LeBron, is the first of its kind.
- (Tuesday, July 6) LeBron joins Twitter. In the first seven hours, @KingJames surpasses 150,000 followers, outpacing growth of numerous famous Tweeters, including Bill Gates.
- (Wednesday, July 7) ESPN announces LeBron will entertain questions from Twitter users during the live announcement broadcast.
- (Thursday, July 8) LeBron makes it official. “The Decision” airs live on ESPN and is watched by more than 13 million people in the US.
LeBron’s incredible talent on the court and his uncanny knack for creating buzz can’t be overlooked as factors in “LeBron-Aclypse.” But, for someone who once joked that pro-athletes that use Twitter are just looking for a place to “air their dirty laundry,” LeBron can’t deny the impact that the social media channel had on his personal brand over the past week. From end to end, this was one of LeBron’s most strategic moments and it had a greater impact because he harnessed the power of his captive audience on social media channels in just the right way.
Although, we can’t attribute every one of the 13.5 million viewers last Thursday to Twitter activity, if we take a step back, we see a prime example of how an integrated PR approach can make even the most mundane news viral.
Microsoft Integrates Facebook with Outlook
What’s new: On Wednesday, Microsoft announced integration of Outlook with Facebook, allowing users of the email application to view friends’ Facebook status updates, photos and wallposts in real-time in Outlook. People can also synch friends’ Facebook profile photos with corresponding contacts in Outlook.
This means when looking at an email, you can glance at the sender’s status updates, uploaded photos, and wall posts, among other activity that appears in your Facebook newsfeed. You can’t push data to Facebook, meaning you can’t “like” or post your own updates from Outlook. However, Microsoft told Mashable in an exclusive interview that it plans to let users push data to social networks in the future, although Facebook wasn’t specifically mentioned.
Integration of Windows Live Messenger into Outlook is also part of this announcement.
What’s the impact: Microsoft debuted an Outlook plug-in with LinkedIn contacts in February, and added MySpace to the mix in March. Coupled with the Facebook integration, this means Outlook users can get a comprehensive view of their professional and personal interaction, activities, and interests with Outlook contacts.
While you may not care about seeing your colleagues and close friends’ updates with every email you send, the at-a-glance look at this info can prove valuable when working with clients, prospects, media and/or business partners. For example, if you’re emailing with an influencer that has potential to positively impact your brand, knowing they’ve been updating Facebook about his or her passion for the San Francisco 49ers or that they just returned from vacation in their hometown of Lima, Peru, can prove valuable in correspondence.
How to get it: You can download Microsoft Outlook Social Connector Provider for Facebook here at no cost, following the instructions based on your current version of Outlook. It’s straightforward to set up following these instructions. It doesn’t matter if your Facebook account is linked to a separate email, because upon set up, you’re prompted in Outlook to enter your Facebook user name and password. This is compatible across the globe.
Back to Text100's Post, 'user_report.php?return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mybyte.co.za%2Fblog.php%3Fuser%3DText100%26blogentry_id%3D2300&TB_iframe=true&height=300&width=450', '', './images/trans.gif');){kind=spacer}
Inappropriate Content
’)