foursquare

5 Social Platforms to Put on Your “Fadar”!

Over the last several years lots of social platforms have come and gone. Some are slowly fading away. It’s really hard to keep track of where to spend your time and energy! 2012 will remain a big year for big players such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn and similarly, we should also expect to see exponential growth for newcomers like Pinterest. However, as newcomers gain momentum, we will start to see other social networks fizzle off. Here are 5 social platforms we think you should put on your “fadar” (aka fading radar):

1. Quora: The question and answer platform was predicted to be the next big thing in 2010. However, half way through 2011 the big buzz surrounding the site slowly started to fade off. The site still receives decent traffic, with an estimate of 500,000 users, however, as new social sites emerge Quora might not be at the top of social minds.
2. Digg: The once beloved site-sharing website has been dying a slow death for several years. It hasn’t been able to compete with sites like Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter. It is my opinion that it is just a matter of time before it completely fizzles off. A few months ago it did launch a new version of the site, however, it doesn’t seem like users found it very appealing. A couple of years ago a great article would have received on average 3000 Diggs, now you’re lucky if you even get 100.
3. Delicious: This social bookmarking site had everything going for it back in 2005. It was new to the scene and had no real competitors. What happened? As new bookmarking sites started to saturate the market Delicious didn’t reinvent quickly enough. Rumors are it might shut-down or sell its technology.
4. Gowalla: This location-based site was once a fierce competitor for foursquare, both entering the market at about the same time 2 years ago. However, foursquare quickly gained momentum with over 1 billion check-ins to date, leaving Gowalla in the dust. Gowalla’s leadership has now joined forces with Facebook. According to industry insiders, Facebook has not purchased the technology, only the talent. Gowalla will slowly fade out.
5. QR Codes: There’s a huge online debate about whether QR (Quick Response) Codes are slowly starting to die off before they’ve even had the chance to really take off. Some people may think, why would QR Codes be on the “fadar”? I see them everywhere? Well, that’s exactly my point. The ubiquitous use of QR Codes in often ill-conceived marketing efforts, is what might lead to its demise.

What do you think? Do you take issue with any of the above observations? Are there networks or tools you feel should be on the fadar?

Maryam Mehrtash
@socialmaryam

Tags: cool, Delicious, digg, facebook, foursquare, google, gowalla, LinkedIn, pinterest, QR codes, reddit, Social Media, technology, Twitter, youtube

5 Tips For Your Foursquare Explore Social Strategy

If you haven’t claimed your foursquare profile yet, you might want to get on that asap! If the fact that the site’s database has 1.5 billion check-ins logged into the system isn’t enough of a an incentive, then perhaps knowing that foursquare has gone “search” online with their newest feature Explore with the website garnering 1 million unique visitors per day already could entice you.

By claiming your foursquare profile you can personalize it to suit your business and take advantage of integrating this platform into your social media (geo-location) strategy. In addition to checking-in, claiming badges and mayorships, now users can search for locations, deals, and places on their desktop using the Explore feature. Some people don’t like having a Foursquare account on their mobile phones and “checking-in” all the time, but would like to use this feature to see where their friends are checking-in and what they recommend. Foursquare Explore allows you to go online and search without having to use the platform as a check-in tool. It is useful for the end user to go through the 15 million tips that are gathered on the site already when deciding on where to go and what to eat… or drink!

Here are five tips to include in your strategy in order to ensure increased visits from Foursquare Explore to your company’s profile page:

1. Regularly monitor your foursquare account. Review check-ins, comments, and tips to see what users are saying.
2. Use QR codes to encourage check-ins, tips, and submissions.
3. Promote Foursquare ads to encourage check-ins.
4. Include sentiments and adjectives in your foursquare ad strategy (i.e. romantic, Friday, sweet, summer, wine list, etc…)
5. Use keywords when posting deals on your foursquare account to help with search queries.

Happy searching!

Maryam
@socialmaryam

Tags: badges, explore, foursquare, geo-location, SEO, social, strategy, tips, visitors

The Big Idea of Technology Driven Advertising

Remember the days when you’re on vacation driving down the highway with billboards flashing in your face? Or ads interrupting your musical paradise as you drive away in your convertible? Some made you laugh, others you didn’t even notice.

For the most part those days are gone. The future of advertising has changed forever. It was only ten years ago when advertising was driven by media placements and campaigns. Then the dotcom era started along with YouTube, and it slowly became about creating a complimentary online campaign to a brand’s TV campaign. Now, it’s about experimenting with an abundance of apps and networks that a customer pulls out of their pocket.

The acceleration of innovative change since the smartphone has led to onslaught of new apps. Combine that with powerful social communication tools and our society has forever changed the way we communicate. Today, advertising is not just about creative; it’s become a creative tool for business operations. We believe advertising has become a technology driven creative service that provides brands the opportunity to increase the effectiveness and impact of creativity.

Technology is the vehicle that drives the creative and key message, but in most cases it doesn’t determine what app or network the brand should be on. Nor does it determine what the creative and key message is. For example, we focus on the client’s objectives to develop the big idea based on the insights produced in our research. The big idea always has to drive your creative, not the technology.

One company particularly, is demonstrating how the combination of social and mobile can be a very effective combination to enhance the delivery of a big idea.
American Express has been one of the most active businesses in 2011 partnering with both Foursquare and Facebook to offer integrated seamless deals. Realizing that Groupon could be a major threat to their business, American Express started with a big idea: “American Express takes what you ‘Like’ and gives what you love.”

With this idea in mind, American Express launched two integrated social and mobile initiatives. The most recent one is a new Facebook “Link, Like, Love” app that allows Amex cardholders to sync their card to their social graph. This provides customers with personalized deals based on brands they’ve liked on Facebook. What’s the best thing? The customer does not have to purchase the deal. It’s automatically synched to the cardholders account.

On Foursquare, American Express is doing something similar. Instead of personalized social deals, the customer receives mobile check-in credits applied to their accounts within a few days after they tap “load to card”. The point is, every channel and every medium offers different benefits, but successful campaigns are always designed with one thing in mind, a big idea.

Even the food trucks are finding success by focusing on key messages. For instance, several food trucks in this recent Mashable article have been successful in either:

• Celebrating major milestones
• Crowdsourcing recipes on Facebook
• Building awareness and excitement during dead times
• Offering deals
• Promoting relevant holidays with timely advertising via mobile

Mobile is here now. It’s the future. But it’s only a tool; it’s not an idea. Let us help you establish that big idea.

Tags: American Express, Amex, facebook, foursquare, mobile, Social Media

Managing Social Media Burnout

A reporter from CTV News came to Magnify Digital today to ask what advice we could offer to people with social media burnout. Turns out, managing time spent on these all-consuming networks is a popular new year’s resolution. You can see why it would be. The problem is there’s no on/off switch for social media. It’s always on. And we have more and more ways to connect to it. Through our computers, our phones, other handheld devices. Never before has social media been so prevalent and accessible.

Here are some tips on how you can reclaim some of your personal time:

• Limit the amount of time you spend on social networks. Even go as far as setting timers, to remind you when to step away.
• If you’re spreading yourself too thin trying to maintain multiple profiles across several networks, ditch one or two. Focus on fewer channels; maybe even just one.
• Consider dropping a friend or acqaintence if they’re too chatty and constantly require too much of your social time online. If that feels too harsh, then resist always giving him/her a response. You’ll train them to stop expecting it… and hopefully, asking for it too.
• On Facebook, turn off your chat function. That way, if you’ve limited yourself to ten minutes on Facebook, you won’t get caught using 8 of those 10 minutes on a chat. To find this function, look to the bottom right of your personal profile page.   If the circle beside chat is green, you’re open for business. Simply click on this to open the chat function, select ‘options’ and ‘go offline’.
• If having a daily presence on social networks is important to you, use tools that can post your content for you. You can pre-schedule messages using tools like Hootsuite to populate your Twitter profile, Facebook, LinkedIn, and many others.
• Likewise, Ping.fm & Friendfeed are two examples of tools that give you the “one-stop-shop” option. If you want to post a message to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace all at the same time – these tools will do that for you.
• Even location-based tools like Foursquare and Gowalla can be managed simultaneously.  Gowalla recently integrated Foursquare, Tumblr, and Facebook into its platform.
• If you’re feeling burnt out from too many messages on Twitter – also referred to as a congested stream – free tools like Tweetdeck allow you to organize who you’re following into columns (like friend tweets only, tech tweets, foodie tweets, etc.).  That way, you can limit how much you see without having to drop friends or people you like to follow.
• And finally, this post would not be complete without mentioning mobile apps! These little gems can be a friend or foe when it comes to helping manage burnout. Apps can simplify access to social media – but perhaps too much. Limit your use of applications just as you would the social networks they’re enabling.

What do you do to manage a threat of burnout online?

Erin

Tags: Apps, burnout, chat, Erin, facebook, foursquare, friendfeed, gowalla, HootSuite, LinkedIn, ping.fm, time management, Tumblr, tweetdeck, Twitter

A Vancouver Marketing Strategist’s Day in 20XX?

Photo Credit: skippyjon

7:00am

I woke up to my alarm clock, yawned and wondered what day it was today. Realizing it’s Tuesday, I brushed my teeth, took a shower and got dressed for work.

7:30am

I sat down at the kitchen table to eat my favourite cereal, Honey Nut Cheerios. As I poured out the cereal, a small holographic sticker fell out of the box. Picking it up, I thought, “They still make these?” and had a good chuckle at myself. Stretching out, I reached for my iPad across the table and opened up the Vancouver Sun. The Headline News was “Google Bought Another Country”…go figure. Right beside the headline I saw the Flash video playing an ad for our client. Yes, it was Flash!

8:00am

My iPad suddenly spoke, “It’s now eight o’clock”. I took a quick glance at the clock, hoping my iPad was somehow lying. I jumped off my chair, grabbed my MacBook Pro and darted for my car, knowing how bad the traffic would be in the morning.

8:30am

I slipped into my car, where the fun begins every morning. My Google Android equipped car powered up and gave me a report on any traffic accidents on my route. After that I told Jessie (Yes, I named my car, Jessie) to login to Twitter and read the latest tweets from my Twitter List. Hands-free of course, it’s great how voice-recognition technology has come along.

As always it’s cloudy and raining in Vancouver. Pulling up to a red traffic light I started daydreaming about what it was like back then, driving without a HUD windshield. The windshield is great especially while driving at night or in the rain when visibility isn’t that great…

“The traffic light has turned green”, Jessie spoke.

…or for drivers who are often preoccupied.

I drove past Cambie & Broadway and Jessie prompted me, “Moyra checked in at this Starbucks 15 minutes ago. She recommends the Chai Latte”. Jessie’s hooked up to Foursquare, of course, and all my other social media accounts. Location-based social media marketing at its finest wouldn’t you say? I was tempted to stop by, but I was going to be late for work.

9:00am

I arrived at work. (To be continued…)

Victor Chan
eMarketing Strategist

Tags: foursquare, google android, hud windshield, ipad, marketing, Social Media, starbucks, strategist, technology, Twitter, Vancouver