LBS – Foursquare & Facebook Places

Insights from the internal, Dino Demopolous sheds some light on the differences in location based services provided by Facebook & Foursquare. Through the exploration of people and places the present and the future, Dino provides some interesting thoughts on the future of “checking in”.

I have been thinking about Facebook Places over the past couple of days. Though I have yet to try it since it has not been made available in Canada, I am interested to see how it differs from Foursquare. Or, more accurately, how I will use it differently, how brands might use it differently and how it might co exist with Foursquare.

In my mind, I find it useful to view location based services and what they offer through two distinct lenses. The first is, of course, the lens of PEOPLE that use these services. The second is the PLACES themselves, the actual locations in which we check in. Sure, it is an obvious distinction, but here is how I see some of the implications when we think of these two lenses as they apply to what is happening NOW versus what has happened in the past, or THEN. In other words, how do these services play out in how they deliver value right now, in real time, and how does that differ from how value accrues over time? And how is that different for people and places?

Here is my rudimentary chart:

I. Places, Now

This is the data that is made available in real time about what is currently popping at a given location. It is the basic role of Foursquare, as far as Places are concerned; animating the present. How many people are right here, right now at this place? Think of, say, a bar or club, and in many ways this is pretty obvious, people have been doing it with text messages or by telephone for ages. I know that as a DJ this is a behaviour that we saw evolve through the medieval ages (the 1990s, as people would rifle off text messages to their friends upon walking in the club to let them know if the party was happening.

Of course, the present is most definitely vital to location based services, but it is far from everything. Making use of the real time information that is being provided is a huge benefit for places, especially commercial places, but it is different than the long term breadth and depth of information and data that location services can provided. More on that below, but Yelp is just one starting point as an example.

2. Places, Then

I think of this as the layers of meaning attached to locations over time. Yes, much of this can be, and is, commercial in nature. Things like loyalty programs, CRM type stuff. Huge for business. But I think it is quite telling that the example used by one of the Facebook developers when Places was launched was of a beach that you were at, and discovered that this was the place where your parents had their first kiss. How sweet!

This hints at the long term project and goal that transcends the present, commercial or otherwise, and is the beginning of an underlying digital archive of information and meaning attached to physical locations, or places. I should say, it is a beginning, instead of the beginning. There is a lot of interesting work being done by the folks at Bing Maps, for instance, to develop rich layers of meaning on city maps. But given the sheer size of Facebook, this project can take off in a very natural, mass way, by making it part of the regular social stuff we share with friends.

So, in contrast to Foursquares game mechanic driven focus on what is going onnow, I think Places strength will be in building meaning over time for locations. This is a lofty goal, but as long as the behaviour of checking in becomes adopted and second nature, it will happen given the sheer size of Facebook. Here is how Augie Ray from Forrester put it,

Soon, the local restaurant or hiking trail may have as rich a personality as do the people on Facebook, not because everyone has visited but because your friends have. And in the end, isn’t that what we really care about? Not who is mayor of our local coffee shop, but what our friends did, said, and liked when they were there before us

3. People, Now

When Foursquare launched, it was described as one part social city guide, one part mobile friend finder. For users, the mobile friend finder is exactly the benefit of real time location data. Knowing that your buddies are drinking at the bar around the corner from where you are right now is compelling, and at its best, this is where Foursquare and the other services shine. It is why unlocking badges is such an important engine to the game. And though you are encouraged to leave tips or reviews for your friends or others about places, it really is one of the lesser used functions. The focus is on the now, the game and collecting badges. Indeed, the whole idea of the resetting leaderboard underscores the inherent temporal logic of Foursquare.

4. People, Then

This is where Facebook has the biggest opportunity. The goal is to make checking in and the social relevance of location on par with the many other social behaviours and interactions we already share on Facebook, like tagging each other in pictures or posting on each others wall.

This is from the Facebook Places page:

If you're already using Places, it's like you checked in yourself without having to do a thing. If you're not using Places yet, it's just like being mentioned in a status update.

Putting the check in in the wider context of social behaviours we are already familiar with will be a huge accomplishment if they can pull it off, and if we actually adopt it as users, because we will have the potential of seeing a lot of rich meaning emerge over time for how we relate with places in the real world. This can be incredibly relevant to our friends and network.

Part of this relevance will be in the now, so that we know where are friends are in real time, but in contrast to Foursquare, that relevance will also grow and emerge over time as it is woven in to the fabric of our social behaviours. Or, as the clever Facebook put it, the where joins with the who, what, when. Smart.

Thinking back to that first kiss on the beach example provided by the Facebook developer, it is worth noting that he intended it to show how Places will be meaningful twenty years down the road, as we develop the shared social history of location awareness with our friends and network.

With respect to brands and commercial applications, I think that Facebook might have got it right this time around. Instead of jamming an intrusive and strange interaction down our throat, like Beacon, it is banking on first socializing the check in among users so that it becomes second nature. I suspect that they are purposely waiting to roll out commercial applications because job one is to acclimatize Facebook users to using location features and discovering the many ways that they can deliver value, over time, in ways that go beyond just collecting loyalty points or a free latte.

Source - Chroma

Five Ways Big Brands Are Using Foursquare

Unlike other more mainstream social networks, the business potential of Foursquare may not be immediately apparent. At present, the location-based network is less about conversations and resource sharing, and more about tying your social activities to physical places.

For brick-and-mortar businesses, a Foursquare strategy makes a lot of sense. But what about brand promotion in general, say in the entertainment or publishing worlds? With Foursquare, it’s not about linking users back to your site or products, but creating a new location-based product that has value for fans and followers. Here’s how five big brands are attempting to connect location to their online social presences.

1. Recommendations with Personality: Bravo

In the television industry, Bravo was one of the first networks to get on board with Foursquare, and 50,000 of its fans have followed so far. The network’s programming is a mix of food, fashion, and reality drama, and the TV personalities and hosts that viewers love are the ones making recommendations on Foursquare. Restaurant, shopping, and hotel suggestions reinforce Bravo’s image as a network of culture experts, and the personalities who leave tips through the brand add that bit of personal flavor or sass that draws viewers to the shows in the first place. Fans don’t follow for Bravo per se; they’re following to see where Top Chefs andMillionaire Matchmakers spend their time in New York and LA.

2. Restaurant Reviews: Zagat

If there was ever a brand made for Foursquare, Zagat is it. The 30+ year-old publication is the go-to guide for restaurant and hotel reviews, and their embrace of numerous social media channels is noteworthy. Zagat uses Foursquare the way many individual users do — by leaving food-related tips about locations. And Zagat is not city-specific. You’ll find foodie tips from Los Angeles, to New York, to Cambridge, MA. Zagat’s Foursquare account is an obvious way to reinforce everything the brand is known for, and perhaps tap into a new demographic of diners who may be reluctant to carry around a paperback guide in addition to their smartphones.

3. Celebrity Sway: MTV

While we may not yet live in a world where celebrities want fans to know their locations in real-time, filtering their favorite places through an over-arching brand is a good start. Fans can keep tabs on the favorite haunts of stars from Jersey Shore and The Hills, driving the social connection to these personalities beyond the TV and into The Real World (pun intended). Not only can users see where the stars have been, but what they did, enjoyed, and recommend. And there’s always the possibility that visiting a bar frequented by a celeb increases your chances of meeting him or her. That aspect is certainly part of MTV’s Foursquare appeal.

4. Urban Exploration: New York Magazine

New York Magazine uses Foursquare to drive home its coverage of city-specific culture. This account is about much more than just food. It targets the social New Yorker with tips on retail stores, bars, and public spaces. The tips not only offer details on pricing and goings-on, but provide links back to the magazine’s website for deeper coverage. In this regard, New York Magazines’ approach to Foursquare is akin to the Twitter strategy of many publishers, with the added value of location.

5. Edutainment: The History Channel

Staff at The History Channel know what their viewers are into — it’s fairly obvious, given the namesake. So while Foursquare doesn’t offer much in terms of driving traffic to a program or website, locations are fostering an interesting kind of brand engagement here.

The account leaves tips at various sites, including interesting historical background on the locations. It’s trivia, but with a real-world and educational context. For instance, did you know that the Wabasha Street Caves in St. Paul, MN are man-made sandstone mines that date back to the 1840s, and were opened as a restaurant and night club in the 1920s?

This is a clever use of indirect marketing. The History Channel doesn’t have to promote its shows or link back to content to remind fans why they enjoy the programming. More than 47,000 followers are already enjoying the historical tips left by the account, since its launch in April.

Conclusion

The trouble with emerging networks like Foursquare is that users and big brands alike are having difficulty sticking with it. In all of the examples above, you can see that brand representatives jumped into the checkin game with vigor early on, but eventually updated the accounts less and less — some have not added tips for months. For now, location services are still an ancillary part of many social media strategies, but they won’t be forever. Many predict that when cultural acceptance, mainstream social integration, and business value finally coincide, location sharing will be as common and natural as updating your Facebook status. When it happens, will your brand be ready?

Source - Mashable

10 Biggest Tagline Mistakes

Creativity should never fit a mold. Despite this, we are seeing more and more taglines conforming to what is safe and easy – two words that should be stricken from any advertiser’s vocabulary. The following article delves into what separates poignant and flat taglines. Have a look…just do it.

The art of tagline development is to distill the meaning of a big idea into a cogent message that’s easy to say, easy to understand, and easy to remember.

To ensure your brand expression is impossible to forget, use the following checklist to avoid the most common mistakes that plague aspiring taglines.

1. Speaking in Cliché

There’s a tendency to use words that have recognized meaning in today’s workplace. However, that doesn’t make them meaningful. Many can be described as trendy jargon and doublespeak. Take “innovation” and “solution.” Instead of telling people you’re innovative and deliver solutions, show them how you’ll make their lives better and their jobs easier. Rocking their world is what being a solution-oriented innovator is all about. One word you should avoid is “unique,” or you’ll end up being unique just like everyone else. Find a way to express your difference so that it “makes a difference” – clearly demonstrating why your customers need you now.

2. Being Bland

News Flash: Bland is boring. It may not offend but it doesn't excite or inspire either. If your tagline appears safely and predictably generic, your brand is going to be perceived that way, too. To freshen up your expression, try using uncommon words, speaking in the vernacular, inverting words, altering the tone or rhythm, or even breaking the rules of grammar. Whenever possible, try to rise above the pedestrian and couch your ideas in language that is stylistically fun, surprising, and inventive. Keep this one thought in mind: Think brand, not bland.

3. Being Too Literal

Great taglines often express ideas with multiple, metaphorical, or unexpected meanings. If an expression has a single, obvious meaning which is taken literally and at face value, it’s one-dimensional at best. Even though you want to make sure your message is loud and clear, try broadening the meaning of your tagline by relying on words and ideas that connote, not merely denote; imply, not simply state. In other words, embellish. Go against the grain. Reveal the artifice. It’s not surprising that taglines that make use of hyperbole, irony, and double meaning garner open-ended interpretations and enjoy more widespread appeal.

4. Imitating Other Taglines

We’ve seen it all before…and that’s the crux of the problem: Me-too, cookie-cutter slogans. Why? Because being original and breaking new ground are scary propositions. Remember, the whole goal of a tagline is to illustrate what’s novel about your organization – and that includes the way your tagline looks, sounds, and feels. Borrowing the familiar trappings of another tagline may be tempting, but it’s not going to set you apart from the pack. Like a good wardrobe, your tagline should be well-crafted, look sharp, and fit perfectly. More importantly, it should be custom tailored to your organization.

5. Not Being True to Your Brand

Tagline ownership means laying claim to an expression that reflects your brand attributes and communicates your brand value. So be sure to select one that is truly representative of your brand. Otherwise, you’ll experience brand disconnect and find yourself saddled with an unsupportable message and an unbelievable promise. The solution: Know your brand and what it stands for. Familiarize yourself with its strengths and weaknesses…and special uniquenesses. Be true to your brand!

6. It’s All About “YOU”

If your tagline appears self-centered and self-serving, it probably is. Sure, we know your organization is smart, savvy, and successful -- and that you’re the best, biggest, and brightest resource around. But what promise do you fulfill for your customers? What values do you share? How do you float their boat? Put your customers squarely in the equation by turning your tagline inside out. Shift its focus so it reflects their needs, their point of view, and their brand experience. If your tagline has too much “YOU,” then put more “THEM” in it. After all, they’re the ones keeping you in business.

7. Sounding Too Somber

Not all taglines are funny. Nor do they have to be. However, I believe that taglines shouldn’t take themselves so seriously. They’re not engraved in stone and, anyway, nobody reads tablets these days. If your tagline comes across as a bit overblown or pretentious, lighten it up! Give it some attitude and plant tongue firmly in cheek. Just make sure it reflects your brand’s tone and personality. Enduring taglines often have a humorous edge and an ability to reveal a disarming universal truth to which everyone can relate. Discover the universal truth in your brand. Smiles and grins will surely follow.

8. Loose Verbiage

Taglines should express your brand message simply and succinctly. That doesn’t mean a tagline has to be, say, four words or less. Some of the best taglines I’ve seen contain five…even six words. The point is: Crispy thoughts lead to punchy messages. Try not to use any more words than necessary. If you can achieve the same or better effect with one word less, lose the excess baggage. If a particular word is long, awkward, or complicated, replace it with another. Also, if your tagline needs one word more to achieve balance or closure, don’t be afraid to add it. A well-turned phrase should be compact and elegant, and make its point without any fluff.

9. Lack of Vetting

Okay, you’ve selected a fabulous tagline and can’t wait to reveal it to the world. Have you properly vetted it? Have you done a Google search to see whether your tagline is already being used commercially? Does it have an “SM” (service mark) or “TM” (trademark) after it? Is this expression found in the masthead of someone else’s web site? Have you checked to see whether it’s available as a domain name? And, most importantly, have you checked for potential trademark conflicts on the U.S. Patent & Trademark web site? In order to protect your brand investment, it’s absolutely essential to look for red flags before you plant yours in the ground.

10. Poor Visibility

Now that your tagline has been vetted and meets the standards of clarity, simplicity, originality, and believability, it’s time to put it to good use. It isn’t going to do you any good sitting on a shelf or stuck in a drawer. Use your tagline on your web site, business card, ads, brochures, and as part of your e-mail signature. Use it consistently with your logo. Incorporate it into your sales talks, team meetings, and public presentations. Be sure your employees and external stakeholders understand it and are on board with it. Distribute a guide that communicates the value of your tagline in the context of your brand messaging and positioning. Remember, your tagline is the beginning of the conversation – not the end of it.

Source - Tagline Guru

Marketing As A State Of Mind

What do meditation and marketing have in common? They both create a state of mind. Proper advertisements put the customer in state of complete and utter brand absorption. Read on to discover how this is accomplished.

Marketing is no longer a department – it is a state of mind.

I awoke with a start this morning with a single thought on my mind. It is a concept I heard randomly in the halls (or maybe on Twitter) from the company, ExactTarget. I’m not sure who said it (or typed it) but it was on my mind at 2:30am this morning. Stupid, I know. At first the concept sounds easy to understand. “Yah… Kyle this makes complete sense! Do not think of marketing as a department with a CMO and a staff but think of marketing as an overall experience!” Easy.

However, there is a deeper meaning to the idea of marketing being a “state of mind.” It is more than your department or advertisement. It is everything under your brand… your structure that supports and influences the customer’s buying decision…. and their experience.

First, let’s explore the meaning of something being a “state of mind.” In researching for this blog post I ran across the teachings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (I know… it is a mouthful). Mihaly is pretty much the master on the idea of the flow of the mental state of mind.

Mihaly outlines his theory that people are most happy when they are in a state of flow— a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove.”

Each individual can have their own understanding of what it means to be in the zone (or groove). When it comes to marketing it is extremely important to keep the customer or the potential customer in the groove. The groove is the process of captivation… a state of concentrating and complete absorption in an activity. Your story is what makes you captivating. Your client’s success story is what throws people in the groove. Can you imagine a customer being completely absorbed in your product and brand experience? You can look at any big brand and discover slivers of this idea worked into the product design, store design, marketing and employee training.

Tell the story and captivate your audience. Want a good example? Check out this marketing/recruitment/employee interation video from Twitter.

You may be reading this disgusted because you are the ONLY marketing professional in your company. Hell… you could be the only person in your company! But guess what? It is easier than you think to create a positive state of mind with your clients and potential clients. Tell your story and create the content that pulls potential customers into your mix. You are creating an experience to captivate them.

Source - Kyle Lacy

Quality > Quantity

It’s said that just 1 percent of a brand's fan base on Facebook and Twitter drives 20 percent of traffic to its website. Clearly, it’s important to identify this 1% of your audience and ensure they continue to advocate on your behalf. Although we tend to focus on a quantity approach when it comes to marketing (number of fans, awareness etc), it’s also worth our time focusing on tactics that don’t reach a large audience.

Your brand's biggest influencers are the people who actively and continually talk about, comment on, and spread the word about your products and services. These people are crucial to your bottom-line sales, but they are few and far between. In fact, it's said that just 1 percent of a brand's fan base on Facebook and Twitter drives 20 percent of traffic to its website -- and these influencers can directly influence 30 percent or more of your sales just by recommending your products or services to their wider social network.

I recently wrote an article about the critical importance of finding and identifying this 1 percent, pointing out that most brands today have largely focused on amassing a large quantity of fans, instead of cultivating and engaging their highest quality fans. While it's great to have tens of thousands of people following or friending your brand, the majority of these "fans" will probably never visit your fan pages or company website -- or maybe once. You'll get a lot more impact out of directly engaging one influencer with exclusive opportunities and unique content because that person will indirectly promote your brand to thousands of others who are part of his or her social sphere.

But once you've found your 1 percent, how exactly can you engage them? What type of incentives, rewards, and offers will they respond to?

Finding out what your influencers want is an ongoing process. Sometimes you just have to try out different promotions and then use social media monitoring tools to find out if the content resonated with your influencers, if they shared it, with whom, and what impact the content had on your site traffic and bottom-line sales. There are no hard-and-fast "rules of engagement." However, there are some proven engagement strategies that have worked well to attract and maintain the interest of key social influencers. The key is to continually offer new and enticing content to your top social influencers, like promotions, discounts, games, free stuff, and sweepstakes.

Here are some tips to help your brand begin building a long-term influencer engagement strategy -- so that your biggest fans become your biggest marketing weapon.

Skip the flashy Facebook page
Having a Facebook page for your brand or product is de rigueur today, but you don't need to spend a lot of time making this page look like a flashy, feature-rich website. Most of your Facebook fans will rarely visit your page. Instead, they will get updates about your brand or products through their feeds. The content you deliver through this feed is critical -- but building out lots of fancy tabs and adding zillions of photos to your main Facebook page is not.

Status updates that reach your fans through their feeds are a great way to quickly see who your most active Facebook fans are, as you can see who "liked" the update, who commented on it, and who shared it. Also, if you have already identified your top influencers, status updates allow you to measure which promotions, content, and offers resonate with these key fans. The bottom line: It doesn't matter if your fans never visit your Facebook page -- as long as they are engaging with your brand through their daily feeds.

Reward your top fans
Keeping loyal customers happy is your top goal. Your fans love deals, promotions, special privileges, access to inside information, and other perks. The type of incentives you extend to your entire fan base and those that you extend to only your top 1 percent will of course vary based on your business and industry. But what all incentives have in common is that they are enticing, interesting, or useful to your customers. For a gaming company, for example, incentives for your top fans might be free game points, previews of games, access to secret codes, or the ability to join an exclusive online network of top gamers. For a consumer products company, incentives might be discounts available only to top fans, free samples, an invitation to write a guest post on your website, or a gift of their favorite product every year on their birthday.

Create your own currency
On your Facebook page, Twitter account, company blog, or other social site, you can create your own "fan currency." By allowing your top fans to collect "points" every time they engage with your brand -- such as 10 points every time they write a review, or 100 points if they make a purchase -- you'll build a loyalty program right into your social pages. Fans can redeem these points for prizes, content, or information. In addition, loyalty point programs give you another way to identify key influencers; people with the most points are the most engaged with your brand. Have fun with this program. On a music site, maybe you give away "notes;" on a sports site, fans could tally up "goals" or "dunks."

Make your influencers "stars"
Your biggest fans love your brand or product -- so you should love them back. While everyone likes a special deal or promotion, your top fans are probably more motivated by fame than fortune. If someone takes a lot of time to create and share content about your brand, they want to be recognized as an expert on your products. Recognize the people who create or share the most content about your brand; invite them to write a guest blog post, put their name on the front of your fan pages with a "top contributor" badge next to it, or call them out in newsletters or email communications. Let them know you're listening and appreciate their contributions.

Source - iMedia

Three Key Location Trends For Moms

Moms are always on the go and location based services (LBS) on mobile phones are an excellent opportunity for marketers to connect with this important segment. Although LBS has yet to penetrate on a mass scale, it is predicted to have a huge impact by 2014 (which is disturbingly close). Here are a few tips to get you ahead of the game and remember it’s all about value.

Location-based services (LBS) on mobile phones are engaging a growing market — one that is expected to generate revenues of over $12.7 billion by 2014. With a significant percentage of moms using smartphones, location services offer a rare opportunity to interact with moms while they’re on the go.

Below are some innovative ways that companies are applying location-based technologies to target moms.

1. Discounts & Coupons

Discounts for “checkins” reward users for their brand loyalty. Women have shown a particular interest in mobile coupons, with more than two-thirds expressing their interest in getting coupons on their mobile device. In another study, 88% of female Internet () users said they would like to see more targeted offers from trusted brands. Discounts are a common incentive for moms to use location-based services. “I don’t care about being “mayor” of a location unless that means I will get a special offer from the business in return,” says blogger and Nielsen Power Mom Beth Blecherman.

However, privacy is a concern raised by many moms. “Location-based services are like two sides to a coin … they humanize and personalize, and conversely … they dehumanize and quantify us as data points. It can be hard to balance,” says Ciaran Blumenfeld, founder of Momfluential.

The balance seems to be in letting moms determine who can see their checkins. “It would also be great to allow people to check in ‘privately’ … so the store knows who checked in but it does not display to the whole world. I would probably use the location based services for everyday shopping more if I could choose when I only want the business to know I am checking in or make that public,” says Blecherman.

2. Utility Applications

Utility applications provide information and tools that make life easier for moms when they’re on the go. Applications such as Yelp (), Qype, and AroundMe () offer information about nearby restaurants and places to shop.

Sit or Squat enables users to locate nearby public restrooms and rates each one on a five-star scale based on whether or not they are a “sit” or a “squat.” Many of the restrooms include photos and information about special features, such as changing tables and handicap accessibility.

Rocket Taxi is an iPhone app that locates a user via GPS or Wi-Fi and finds nearby taxi companies. Users can select a company based on their rating, bookmark their favorite cab companies, and get an estimate of how much their fare will cost. These applications provide information for moms when they need it, and “locations make all of these interactions more relevant,” says Kate Imbach, VP of Marketing for Skyhook Wireless.

3. On The Go Sharing

Checkins enable users to fold the location-based element into a larger story, generally through photos, notes, and other social features. These applications appeal to many moms because they provide a context for checkins.

One application, Whrrl, enables users to add photos and notes to their checkins, as well as tag friends, who can also add their photos. “I am a fan of Whrrl in particular because it goes beyond the checkin and allows users to tell their story and recommend experiences to other users. Furthermore the stories I create are a visual history of my life and an easy way to make and share meaningful albums with friends and family. I can even post them on my blog. All of this makes it worth my while, and worth sharing my data” says Blumenfeld.

Babymate, an application that helps parents keep track of their babies’ development, is incorporating location-based elements into their existing application. Babymate is currently adding the ability to favorite locations, and incorporate that information into events, measurements and milestones. Users can integrate that information with images and articles

According to Babymate’s developer Mariano Capezzani, “The idea behind integrating Babymate with a location-based framework is to make the experience of using the app even more relevant and useful for users. For example, a mom whose baby has just been given the BCG vaccine will be able to comment on how her baby reacted and [how] good a job the clinic did. Another mom can share with the community the date when her baby started walking and what tips she found were useful to help him in the process. The community can share with each other and follow any activity, place, class, show, product and tip they find interesting, right through the app.”

Looking Ahead

Whether they provide discounts, utility, or on-the-go storytelling, successful applications are those that use location-based information to add value. As location-based services become more mainstream, developers will create even more innovative applications that appeal to moms. Marketers should look to location-based tools as a unique opportunity to add value and engage with moms while they are on the go.

Source - Mashable

Engaging The Like Minded

Traditional commercial content deems the audience to be passive participants. As we all know, the tables have turned and audiences are now active players in commercial content. Examples include crowdsourcing, user generated content, social media and a whole lot more. The following article explores the groundwork for audience engagement and the reasons why people get involved in the first place.

In order to get any group of people to work together towards a common goal, you need to find the answers to these questions:

• What do you want people to do?
• How will they do it?
• Who do you want to participate?
• Why will these people participate?

This should be the starting mindset for any brand or anyone designing experiences that are intended to engage a community of likeminded people.

When brands attempt to work with groups of individuals outside the brand, i.e. consumers – or as I prefer to call them: people – things start to get a little bit more complicated.

Too often, what brands set out to accomplish is out of whack with what any group of people outside the brand would be interested in.

Brands need a method for aligning what’s important to the brand with what’s important to the community of potential participants.

This approach has four parts, which synch with our guiding questions of Who, What, How, and Why.

Community
What is the shared interest that brings these people together and defines their collective identity? (Hint: the answer is not “our brand”)

Vision
What is an aspect of our world that this community would be inspired to help change? (Hint: it can be big or small, as long as it’s a specific outcome that is inspiring to the community)

Values
What are the beliefs that guide this community’s decisions? (Hint: look at the kinds of information that strengthen bonds between members and gives members status within the group)

Behaviors
What are the common modes of interaction and communication within the community? (Hint: pay closer attention to what people do, than to the platforms that enable it)

Once you’ve developed a deep and comprehensive understanding of the network of people you want to work with, you’re ready to begin building the experience.

At MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence, researchers Thomas W. Malone, Robert Laubacher, Chrysanthos Dellarocas, and Greg Little, have spent the last four years analyzing examples of collective intelligence enabled by the internet, and have developed a model they call The Collective Intelligence Genome (I highly recommend that you download and read the full paper available here.)

I’ve adapted their model slightly to be a bit more suited to marketing. I’ve renamed the four pillars: Goal, Participants, Tools/Methods, and Motivations. And I’ve expanded their list of Why genes beyond just Money, Love, and Glory in order to encourage a more holistic approach to thinking about what a community will find compelling. The Motivation genes I list were adapted from Jane McGonigal’s research on why people play games, and Daren C. Brabham’s research on the Threadless community.

Goal: What specific collective action is the group contributing to?

• Create – the group needs to create something new
• Decide – the group needs to choose

Participants: Who is the group of people who will be working together?

• Crowd – a loosely organized, widely distributed group of people, typically unrestrained by place or time
• Hierarchy – a group organized by a management structure, with specific roles and responsibilities for each participant

Motivations: Why will each person within this network be compelled to participate?

• Money – in exchange for a monetary reward
• Glory – for the opportunity to gain public recognition
• Expertise – to hone their skills and get better at what they do
• Social – to spend time with people they like
• Satisfying work – the feeling of accomplishing meaningful tasks
• Be part of something bigger – the sense that they are contributing to something bigger than themselves
• Personal passion – because this is something that they love to do

Tools/Methods: How will the group be enabled to participate?

(Tools/Methods: Create)

• Collection – each participant contributes in small pieces on their own
• Contest – used when there is a limit on how much needs to be created
• Collaboration – used when individual contributions necessarily affect each other

(Tools/Methods: Decide – Group Decisions)

• Voting – each participant votes for their favorite choice, most votes wins
• Averaging – each participant rates independently, and the aggregate ratings are averaged for a final rating
• Consensus – participants engage in direct dialogue with each other to agree on a precise outcome
• Prediction Market – participants place bets on what they expect to happen

(Tools/Methods: Decide – Individual Decisions)

• Market – participants spend money to express their choices
• Social Network – participants trade in social currency to guide and express their choices

These elements, or genes, can be thought of as ingredients to be mixed and matched in endless combinations to create experiences suited to different needs and project exigencies.

Our powers combined… we end up with an actionable framework for designing experiences to catalyze collective action among a network of individuals connected by a common interest, aligned with the interest of the brand, that looks something like this:

Thank you for making it to the end. You’ve just earned 1,000 Bonus points for determination!

This is still a work in progress. Comments are very welcome. What are example of this that you’ve seen or built yourself? What questions arise as you attempt to put this into action? What other thoughts can you share?

Source - Mike Arauz Blog

Go Back...Way Back

There’s so much discussion about social media that it can be difficult to remember the best practices. The solution is simple: go back to your roots and it’s easy. This article takes you back to the lessons you learned in kindergarten and applies them to brand behaviour in social media. The fifteen tips may seem obvious but it is amazing how much impact they can have on your brand.

Ok, I admit it. I spent eight years in kindergarten.

No, I didn’t fail and need to repeat it seven more times. I passed kindergarten the first time.

Right out of college, I started my adult career teaching full day kindergarten for several years. There’s nothing like being responsible for twenty-five five-year olds for eight hours a day. Go ahead and try it. I dare you!

Actually, I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat if it paid more money. Every Fall, I yearn for the sights, smells and sounds of the beginning school year.

Then I remind myself that I needed two additional jobs to make ends meet. I taught kindergarten in the day, drop-out high school students at night, and held various weekend and summer jobs.

After nearly a decade of teaching, I took a salary increase and moved to the nonprofit world planning education, events and meetings. It’s also when I worked on my master’s degree in adult education.

Here are 15 tips I learned about social media while in kindergarten.

1. Sharing with each other is a good thing.
Playing with a new toy or game alone is boring. Sharing that toy with others is more fun.

Likewise, sharing great blog posts, meeting experiences, recipes for success, tips, videos and other content via social networks is a good thing.

2. Storytelling captures our attention.
What a great feeling of excitement, awe and contentment sitting on the floor listening to the teacher read a good book. Stories captivate us. We identify with the characters. We feel their emotions. We get lost in the plot.

In social media, storytelling captures more attention than crafting the right message.

3. Look, one of the first words we learned in Dick and Jane books, is critical to learning.
If you didn’t read the Dick and Jane books, you still learned to look at something and explore it. In kindergarten, I often brought in objects and asked students to look at them from many angles. I asked them to describe an object using as many, different, unusual words as possible. Looking with all the senses is important. It is how we learn.

Look and watch other successful social media users. Observe what they do. Watch how they blog, communicate, comment, share, Tweet and connect with others. Then mimic it. Don’t copy everything they say or write, but mimic their methods.

4. Listen.
As five-year olds we were taught to listen. We listened to the sounds around us, to our parents, elders, teachers, siblings and each other. If we didn’t listen to our kindergarten teacher, we might miss important instructions or a surprise.

In social media, learn to listen first. Then respond. Listen to your customers and potential customers before broadcasting messages. Listening means sometimes asking questions and listening to replies.

5. Talking with each other is fun.
As kindergarteners, we loved to talk with each other. We would talk about our clothes, TV shows, lunch, games, our siblings and friends. Having to sit silently in a desk, in a row for eight hours a day was torture. Actually, it goes against the very nature of a five-year old–and an adult as well.

The really good kindergarten teachers gave their five-year olds something to talk about. They helped spark discussions about new things. They helped focus conversations on new learnings. Instead of shutting down the talk, they invited and led it.

In social media, conversations are critical to success. Don’t just be a monologue. Be a social media conversation sparker, engaging with others in important conversations.

6. Uniqueness is celebrated.
In kindergarten, we celebrated all the diverse holidays and cultures. We didn’t leave anyone out. We learned about each other’s special customs and traditions. We celebrated our differences.

In social media, uniqueness stands out. Repeating the same social media message over and over again gets lost in the noise. Be different and unique.

7. Travel in groups and hold hands.
In kindergarten when we went on a fieldtrip, we held hands and stuck together. We had buddies. We learned that we need each other.

Social media encourages community-building. Encourage community around your brand, your organization and your services. Help others find their community and niche groups in the social media networking platforms. Be a social media buddy.

8. Show-n-tell is a highlight.
Remember show-n-tell? When everyone was in awe of whatever you brought to class? Sure, sometimes someone said “I’ve got one of those?” Or,” I’ve done that.” Yet, good kindergarten teachers helped facilitate discussions so that even common everyday items brought in for show-n-tell had a new sense of awe.

In social media, make old, common things seem fresh and new again. Show-n-tell on your blog. Share your perspectives and views.

9. Change is the constant.
In kindergarten we learned that the sun comes up every morning and how to say Goodnight Moon. We learned that each day was new and never repeated itself. We discussed how the weather changes each day and some of the patterns that occur. We learned that people come and go. Some friends move away and new ones move to the neighborhood.

In social media, change is the constant. It’s not about the social media tools as they come and go. It’s about the communication and engagement patterns with others.

10. Opinions count.
Five years olds often learn to respect and listen to other people’s opinions. And while they may make a quick judgment about something, they usually don’t make fun of others who disagree with them…unless they are bullies. They will say ooo, yea or yuck out loud quickly. They don’t mean any harm. They just speak their mind at the moment.

In social media, invite others to share their opinions, even when you disagree with them. Learn to disagree without being disagreeable.

11. Sticks and stones may break my bones and words can bruise my soul.

Choose your words with care and respect. ‘Nough said.

12. Some games have a set of accepted practices and rules.
Unless everyone agrees, you can’t change the rules of dodge ball or hide-n-seek. Sure you can make up games and create your own rules. But not everyone likes to play by those rules.

Yes, there is a set of accepted practices and social norms to follow in social media. For example, being self-promotional all of the time is frowned upon. Learn a good balance of sales and self-promotion with being seen as a resource and helpful.

3. Wonder is, well, wonderful.
Curiosity as a child is welcomed, expected and encouraged.

In social media, reclaim that childhood curiosity and explore different social media tools and platforms. Experiment and try new things for yourself.

14. Be a good sport!
Learn to play fair. Own up to mistakes and say “I’m sorry.”

In social media, if you say something in that is interpreted differently than you intended, own up to your mistake and apologize. You’ll get more respect.

15. Take a nap every day.
Yawn, is it time to unroll my mat yet?

Take intentional breaks from the 24-7 social media stream each day. Step back, reflect and enjoy the quiet. Balance is key. Remember, your friends are in your pocket on your mobile device just a click away.

Source - Midcourse Corrections

The Evolution Of Game Based Marketing

Advergaming is a video game experience brought to you by marketers. It’s been around for ages but recent tactics are now blurring the lines between entertainment and unconscious persuasion. The evolution of advergaming strategy is Funware, which describes the use of video game mechanics in everyday, non-game applications. Funware is an intuitive concept: If you turn work into game, people willingly participate.

Gabe Zigermann coined the term Funware to describe the use of video game mechanics in everyday, non-game applications. It was a big idea that has now become a rallying cry for the spread of video games beyond their traditional borders into industries that seem remotely related to games.

What Zichermann, chief executive of beamME and a 12-year game industry veteran, realized was that games motivate people to do things that they wouldn’t ordinarily do. The book (subtitled “Inspire customer loyalty through rewards challenges and contests”) debuts this week and is a must read for marketers, including the folks who are attending the MI6 game marketing conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

Funware is an intuitive concept. If you turn work into game, people willingly do it. If you make a tedious school assignment into a game-like competition, kids will become engaged with it. If you add a rewards-based loyalty program to your product, people will choose it over rivals. The time has come to “game-ify” all of the boring industries so that users will be motivated to use products and services because they want to, not because they have to. In fact, the authors argue that just about any task can be designed so that it can be more fun.

Over the past couple of years, the idea has gained steam. Venture capitalists such as Bing Gordon, former chief creative officer at Electronic Arts and Kleiner Perkins partner, believe that Funware has the potential to change all of advertising.

Game-based marketing is one of those things that has been around forever, but is only now getting recognized for what it is. Games have grabbed a bigger share of the entertainment market because they’re sticky. They get people to come back over and over in a way that ordinary ads or marketing programs do not. (Pictured right: Zichermann).

The book begins with a couple of telling anecdotes. One relates how one of Zichermann’s former bosses in the ad industry just didn’t understand the point of marketing to gamers. Another shows how the Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates commercials — advertising the launch of Windows 7 — failed horribly in winning over audiences. The authors say that the failure of these commercials harkens the death of traditional ads.

Brands are starting to catch on. The old way of reaching people through 30-second commercials isn’t working anymore because people are skipping commercials with their digital video recorders. And a new generation of young people isn’t watching TV at all. About 80 percent of these youths are playing video games, so they are naturally amenable to game-related motivations, such as competitive leaderboards, enhanced status in a community, or achievement points. They are a generation that looks at things like and wonder why it wasn’t designed more like a game. One example: a leaderboard inspired Brazilians to boost their usage of the Orkut social network so their country could be the top of the leaderboard. As a result, Google’s Orkut is the No. 1 social network in Brazil, not Facebook.

Some of this is basic psychology. If you put up a velvet rope and create a VIP area in a bar, people will want to get into it. They will be nice to the host and offer bigger tips if they can get the better service and status associated with being a VIP. The bar makes more money and can charge higher prices in the VIP area. The fundamental product, alcohol, is still the same. The marketing of the product is what changes, and that’s what companies should realize, says Tim Chang, principal at Norwest Venture Partners. (Pictured right: Linder).

Part of the problem with today’s marketing is that marketers grew up thinking that brands should be inserted into games as commercial breaks. And game companies grew up thinking that their games were only for hardcore players. But now the growth of the mass market for games means those lines are blurring. Zichermann and Lindner say that the marketers should realize that the BRAND CAN BE THE GAME. In this melding, game experts can lend their expertise to the brand marketers, who in turn can help the game companies reach the non-gaming masses.

An example is the NBC trivia game, iCue. For years, NBC wanted to find out how to make money from its archive of videos. No one was watching them. Then NBC created a video trivia game where players had to guess a movie’s details based on watching a clip. The result was a sticky application with 100,000 users per month.

This book rests on the shoulders of others that have come before it, such as Changing the Game by David Edery and Ethan Mollick, and Total Engagement by Bryon Reeves and J. Leighton Read. Both of those games argue the same case as Game-Based Marketing, though with different examples about how to turn work into fun.

One of the common examples that comes in all of the books is America’s Army, the online combat game created by the U.S. Army as a recruiting tool to reach young people who grew up playing video games. America’s Army costs very little to run, but it has had a huge impact in educating youths about the ways of the Army. Nike, Coca-Cola, Mary Kay Cosmetics and lots of other companies are sharing in the fun by designing Funware.

The fact that other books have come before this one suggests that thesis of the book is part of a larger movement. The ideas that were once considered radical are now becoming an accepted canon. Bunchball, founded by entrepreneur Rajat Paharia, is actively helping brands to game-ify their web sites.

But Zichermann and Linder point out out that some of the pioneering ideas behind Funware are, in fact, really old. They were embedded in the old Green Stamps program where you could earn stamps by making purchases at participating stores and then redeeming the stamps for merchandise. The germs of the Funware idea were also in the first frequent flyer program created by American Airlines in 1981. And they were part of addictive nature of slot machines in Las Vegas and sweepstakes contests as well.

That gets us to the good thing about this book. People who know games should read it because they’ll learn about other industries which have already done what the game marketers want to achieve. And people who know brand marketing should read this for the new tips that the game companies have created to hook users. I must admit I got sleepy when I read so much about frequent flyer programs, but I also learned a lot that I didn’t know.

Game makers may think that they have learned all of the ropes, but the research in the book shows they would do well to study the effects that rewards programs have on users. The Boy Scouts, for instance, figured out that giving out low-cost badges instead of big monetary awards was more than enough to keep young boys motivated. Indeed, in everything from sweepstakes to reality TV, it is a fact that large prizes are not required to encourage continuous engagement and loyalty. And the game makers may have to watch out. As the designers of social networks have figured out, it is possible to create an experience such as Facebook that is possibly more fun than games. It’s also worth noting that gamers will try to game any system; just ask Las Vegas casinos why they have huge security staffs devoted to cracking down on cheaters.

Meanwhile, the creators of loyalty programs at institutions such as McDonalds would do well to modify their contests to be replayable, as most games are, to inspire long-term loyalty. Why can’t the Internal Revenue Service create some incentives so that filling out your taxes is fun?

If the game makers and the brand experts get together, figure out how to create long-term brand loyalty through engagement, then everybody is going to make a pile of money.

Source - GamesBeat

Campaigns or Platforms?

One of the greatest challenges for marketers today is balancing older marketing strategies with the realities of our current communication landscape. On one hand, we know that shouting our brand proposition from the mountaintops just doesn’t cut it anymore. Having said that, traditional campaigns are still a critical aspect to any marketing plan. On the other hand, we realize the importance of bringing our brand propositions to life in ways that create tangible value to consumers, yet these tactics tend to impact a smaller group of people. Decisions. Decisions.

There’s been a lot of debate in recent weeks about whether marketers should be focusing on campaigns or platforms online. If I had to pick, I’d pick platforms. However, the good news is it’s not a zero sum scenario.

The benefits of platforms — scalable growth vs one-off activity, basis for long-term relationships, and depth of interaction and connection with the brand to name a few — mean that they open up massive opportunity for long-term marketing success.

However for platforms to reach their potential, they can still use the galvanizing force of campaigns to build awareness and activate the community. What changes is the campaign model. The nature of the platforms offer up amazing possibilities for activating the platforms themselves while still communicating brand values through the nature of that activation.

Here’s three examples of that approach in action:

Example #1 - Nike+ Men vs Women

From a marketer’s perspective, the most famous brand platform on the web is still Nike+. So it’s a very good place to start when talking about campaigns vs platforms.

The platform is obviously central to Nike+. Nikeplus.com lives at the heart of the product, providing the statistical richness, community connection, personal goals and group challenges that have made it such a compelling example of what the future of marketing might look like.

However, Nike+ “Men vs Women” is a great example of how campaigns and platforms are not exclusive, but rather complementary.

Men vs Women was an actual challenge on the Nike+ community, but one made larger than life by an integrated campaign including OLM, print, outdoor and even an athlete-laden TVC featuring the likes of Roger Federer and Fernando Torres.

With Men vs Women, Nike was able to excite and engage their existing platform community, while elevating and hero community features and real activity into their product and brand communications.

The platform lives at the heart, but the campaign activates it.

Example #2 - McDonalds McWorld x Star Wars

In 2008 McDonald’s launched their McWorld virtual world.

Your experience with virtual worlds may be the boom and bust of Second Life, but virtual worlds are absolutely massive with kids today. And McDonald’s saw a real opportunity to build not just a HappyMeal.com microsite, but a true platform.

Although anyone can join HappyMeal.com and play in the virtual world, McDonald’s smartly tied it’s offline marketing to it’s online platform. For every new Happy Meal promotion, a code is provided along with the physical toy that traditionally comes with the Happy Meal. These codes unlock special items or areas in the Virtual World.

For example, when McDonald’s launched their Clone Wars Happy Meal toys, those toys then unlocked a Star Wars section in the Virtual World, with Jedi quests and exclusive Jedi characters.

This integration with their offline campaigns helps keep the platform fresh with topical content, as well as helps drive membership in the platform itself.

Example #3 - Skittles “Mob the Rainbow”

The first two examples are of brands activating around their own platforms. This time let’s use an example of a brand using a 3rd party platform for campaign activation.

Skittles is one of the biggest brands on the web, with over 3.6 million fans. With their Mob the Rainbow social campaign, they’ve come with up an innovative way of harnessing those fans into a campaign force, social media Flash mob style.

The idea is their “mob” of fans are given fun and wacky tasks to compete together. And in doing so, Skittles is not only going to engage their fans with their brand, but create lots of opportunities for that activity to end up in their fans Activity Feeds or even drive word of mouth, helping build brand affinity and their fan base further.

A new model of platform-centric campaigns

The above examples show how we can still do campaigns online, but by centering around these platforms, we can at once both express and fulfill a value proposition. e.g. if you get Nike+ you can participate in fun challenges to help you get fit. If you play in McWorld, buying a Star Wars Happy Meal unlocks exclusive Jedi action just for you.

In the offline / broadcast world, advertising can only express a value proposition and it’s often quite illusory and intangible (use this body spray, get a beautiful girl…not). In the online world, we can create these platforms and communities, and use campaigns to activate them and provide real value (get fit, play exclusive games).

The benefit of these campaigns is they are not just driving brand awareness, they are activating their existing platform communities and providing new value to them, as well as driving further membership, creating long-term value for the brand.

We start to then move away from building bespoke campaign experiences every time, which require constant traffic driving for no long-term benefit:

Campaign > Microsite model

To campaigns that feed and build equity in a platform, helping grow a long-term user-base while activating and providing value to the existing audience:

Campaign > Platform model

In this respect we can often end up with the platform living at the core of the marketing effort, with brand and activation layers surrounding it, but refreshing over time.

This is obviously a simplification, there are lots of scenarios where microsites or one-off destination support will still be the right choice for a campaign, or where we aren’t looking to activate around brand platforms.

But as a way of looking past using digital media as simply another broadcast channel to support a brand messaging campaign, and towards using the unique interactive properties of the web to engage and provide value to customers and brand fans over a long-term period, this is a type of campaign and marketing model I think we will start seeing a lot more of in the coming years.

Source - Supercollider