Foursquare versus Facebook Places
Facebook and Foursquare at war?
Well, not really but Facebook has launched their new Facebook Places… trying to create a product that could become a leader in geolocal-applications. Foursquare stands on its own as the most popular or most heard of geolocation based application…however their biggest problem is Facebook’s size… over 500 million users. Foursquare must do something big and fast to compete with Facebook. So what’s next for the original pioneer in geolocation based application? What are you going to do Foursquare?
Do you really have to do anything?
Facebook has the tendency to copy sites that have early success in different ventures including Foursquare and Twitter. I remember back in the day of the Lacy household… my mother would always tell me that people loved you if they copied you. Truthfully, I haven’t figured out whether or not she was right… but Foursquare must be doing something right in the world of social media.
Imitation is flattery… technically.
Dennis Crowley, CEO of Foursquare, recently shared with Mashable his opinion of the two services:
“Facebook is about sharing experiences that you’ve had. Foursquare is more about the present tense and the future tense.”
I appreciate his opinion but it is truly how the user interacts with the application… not what the CEO’s opinion is of the competition.
What do you think? Where are you loyal? Do you even care?
57 Channels and There is Nothing On. What is On in Your World?
By: Ike Eicher
Some of you reading this probably don’t remember this Bruce Springsteen hit or how 57 channels seems so “pre-U-verse” when this was released in 1992.
“Well now home entertainment was my baby’s wish
So I hopped into town for a satellite dish
I tied it to the top of my Japanese car
I came home and I pointed it out into the stars
A message came back from the great beyond
There’s fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on”
So almost 20 years later we have every kind of multi-media, social media, mobile media, blank-blank media to keep our shortening attention spans occupied. But to a certain extent, is there really nothin’ on?
In some cases I do feel that this sensory overload has warped our sense of time. We want instant gratification and short message spurts to communicate our wants or needs. We rarely watch “live” TV and the thought of having to actually wait for our online streams to load and play is crazy. And we want to take this all with us, all the time. So we have mobile devices now that are essentially super computers in our pocket.
I am guilty with all of the above, but it does make me think. From a communications standpoint is this bad? How has this changed how we deliver our message, brand promise, and call to action?
And that is where I find peace. All of these tools are simply new channels in our arsenal. And all the old rules apply. Know your brand and what it promises, know your audience and what they want and need, and don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
The other big message here is that in the past, for the most part, we had to only deliver a message. Now we can engage our customers, create a two-way street, and even remedy a problem… right now. The power of instant gratification goes both ways. If the customer tweets a bad experience and you are there immediately to fix it, everyone wins. No calling a 1-800 number, no filtering through an FAQ section of a website, and certainly no sending in the UPC code in a self-addressed mailer. So when the customer feels supported on their channel and we are listening and then reacting, what a brand champion we have created.
So, I’d change the Boss’s classic to 570 channels and yes, there is somethin’ on, let’s just hope we are sending a signal.
What’s on in your world?
To Outsource or Not Outsource? That is the Question
When you’re running your own business from home, how do you know when it’s time to begin outsourcing, if ever? When you get more work than you can handle, when you’re spending all your time doing menial jobs and not enough doing those you’re really skilled at, or when you’ve just had enough of working seven days a week.
The reason will be different for each person. For me, the change in how I operate my business have generally come about as a result of a situation that arises where I have to think outside the square to overcome it, and for me outsourcing was the result of one of those situations.
I had heard about the various methods of outsourcing for many years before I actually put it into practice. I had explored the possible avenues but really wasn’t keen on handing over any aspect of my day to day business activities to anyone, especially a complete stranger. Being the control freak that I am… I of course didn’t think anyone could do a better job than I.
But, a situation occurred this year that left me with no choice. On one of my food websites, a site with over 3000 pages of content of which 2000 have images, the sponsoring website who allowed me to use their images in exchange for advertising and promotion, had a change of heart and said that if I didn’t pay a licensing fee for the 2000+ images on the site Iíd have to replace them and they gave me three months to do it.
At the same time, I was also working on relaunching the site under a new brand name and new focus and also working with two clients to launch their websites. Overall, I was already working 16 hour days seven days a week. Unless I didnít sleep, there was absolutely no way I could source, resize and optimise over 2000 images in three months and replace the ones on the site with them, I needed help.
Although I knew of some outsourcing websites, I did some asking around with colleagues and friends as to which ones they’d heard of or used. With the results of my research, I chose a site and posted my first job. Within minutes I had applications for the position, and after sifting through I actually found not one, but 4 people whose skills I could see I could use straight away, so I decided to give them all a trial task to see how they performed.
Being the control freak that I am and having the almost ridiculous expectations I have of others based on my own work ethic, I knew I had to go about this in a way that wouldnít scare the bejesus out of my possible new contractors, so I employed my teaching ethos instead and this is how I briefed and have continued to brief my now incredibly loyal, trustworthy and efficient team of outsourced contractors.
- I broke all the work I had to get done into individual tasks that once put together was a job spec in itself.
- For each task I created a basic written guideline but then also recorded a screen capture Camtastia video showing my contractor EXACTLY how and what I wanted them to do. I also recorded and uploaded the video in actually recording dimensions (I didnít resize it for the web or use zoom and pan key frames). The reason I did this was twofold:
- It’s much easier for the viewers to see exactly what youíre doing so therefore no room for misunderstanding and mistakes and,
- There’s virtually no editing required of the video. Because youíve selected to produce the video in recording dimensions, there are no automatic key frames added and it’s just a matter of clicking produce and saving the file. This saved me enormous amounts of time and I could literally record and produce an instruction video in a matter of minutes.
- I then uploaded the video to my website and sent the written instructions along with the video link to the contractor.
- They would then review the video and do just one hour of work and send me back what theyíd done. I would review and make sure they understood my brief and visual instructions, then give them the go ahead to continue the task.
- Once they’d mastered that part of the project, I do the same for the next piece of it.
The number of tasks I outlined would depend on the complexity of the projects I needed doing. But regardless of that, all my contractors have delivered outstanding accurate work in record time and I estimate in the 10 weeks or so I have been using them, they have done what I couldnít have achieved in six months.
Since I started using contractors however I have also refined my job posting method, based on some advice form a mastermind colleague and it has proven very successful.
When I post a job, I make it extremely detailed, outlining exactly what tasks will be required, what skills the applicant will need to have and because all the work I get outsourced is computer and internet based, what software they would need to have to do the work.
I will often give them a sample of what I need done and ask them to supply the completed sample with their application, along with a code I put in the brief that they have to quote. This serves two purposes:
- If I receive an application without the completed task or quoted code, I know that the applicant has not read my job description and therefore their application is auto generated based on keyword criteria they’ve set up from their end and
- If they didn’t follow these instructions in the job brief, chances are they won’t follow subsequent instructions when hired. It’s a good way to sort the wheat from the chaff.
I always set a deadline for applications to be submitted and donít contact any applicants until the deadline has passed. Then I sort through each applicant and read their profiles and select the ones I want to interview.
Interview is always a verbal chat via Skype. Why is this important? Many of the applicants on these outsourcing websites may not be from native English speaking countries, and although say they can speak and understand English, many cannot. If they cannot understand your instructions, the room for error in work and thus wasted time and money is high. I learned this the hard way and so requesting a voice chat via Skype will also sort wheat from chaff because those that cannot speak English well will shy away from this type of interview.
One I’ve interviewed them and decided to give them a try, I then set up the trial where they have to complete 1 hour of the task (I pay them for this) and from there I can see whether theyíre going to be able to do what I need doing.
So far, I’ve only had two out of eight contractors who didn’t work out and they were two of the first I engaged. I’ve learnt a lot since then.
I now have five ongoing contractors who do all my repetitive and administrative work every week, they are based in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and the US. I communicate with them via email, Skype and video and at the end of every day, they report in and show me what theyíve achieved that day. I can monitor their work while they’re online doing it via the website platform that I book them through and I also have an iPhone app so I can do same when Iím on the road. I can also message them directly via both.
It has saved me an unbelievable amount of time and energy and allowed me to focus on the skills I actually get paid for rather than the day to day grind stuff that just has to be done in every business big and small.
I would never have outsourced had I a situation not arisen where I had no choice and now Iím wondering how I managed on my own for so long. No wonder I went grey overnight.
Just a few extra things however I would stress you keep in mind before you consider outsourcing:
- Make sure you actually know how to do the task you want to outsourced. If not, there is enormous room for error and undue expense. You really must know back to front how to do the task yourself so you can firstly ascertain if the person your hiring has the necessary knowledge, skills and experience to do it and whether or not the hourly rate youíre paying is justified and the time they take to do it.
- Don’t outsource sensitive content. Leave that to people you know and trust.
- Only give access to your accounts (twitter, facebook other social media platforms if your using people for social media management or research) for the length of the task after then, change your passwords. If youíre giving access to facebook, have the contractor LIKE your business page then make them an admin, rather than give them your login details, you can always remove the admin privilege when the task is over.
- For contractors that do a great job, reward them every now and then with a little bonus. Usually send them a money gift via Paypal just to say thank you, youíd be surprised how much loyalty it generates.
If you’re thinking of outsourcing and would like any further information or advice, you can contact me via my website.
Victoria Hansen as a Multimedia Presenter, Producer and Consultant and is contactable via her website http://www.victoriahansen.com
Facebook Blasts North Korea and Uriminzokkiri
Have you heard of the new group on Facebook?
A group on Facebook belonging to to Uriminzokkiri, a Web site that provides Korean-language news and propaganda from North Korea’s central news agency.
The group had been previously deleted due to violation of Facebook terms.. A replacement account has appeared and carries similar content as the original. The profile is described as a single male who has interests in Korean reunification and lactose free milk… no joke… lactose free milk. He describes himself as wanting to network and meet friends. The group is listed on the Uriminzokkiri site, which is essentially… North Korea’s official home on the Internet. The Facebook group links users to articles on the Uriminzokkiri Web site and videos on the site’s YouTube channel.The Facebook group was drawing attention from mainstream media but became “unavailable” on Friday.
Facebook deleted the group because the account was violating the terms of use. As stated on PCWorld the terms in this situation are stated in section 16 putting usage restriction on the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control list that reads: “If you are located in a country embargoed by the United States or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals you will not engage in commercial activities on Facebook (such as advertising or payments) or operate a Platform application or website.”
North Korea is listed as being under U.S.government.
The Facebook group isn’t the first attempt in social media by the Uriminzokkiri Web site. Before Facebook… they started a YouTube channel and a Twitter account. The Twitter account has more than 10,000 followers.
The issue with this Web site is the restrictions put on it by the South Korean government. which has blocked the site for many years and is blocking access to the Twitter account. The blocking only affects the homepage so the Twitter page is accessible. The Web site also features information on software and techniques that show users how to bypass the blocking.
Restaurants and Social Media
Restaurants using social media is not a new concept. There are certain things restaurants should and should not do. Many of the ideas by the food and beverage industry are creative and unique, which they should be.
The restaurant business is a form of entertainment. You go to a restaurant to enjoy the environment, the food and the service. I mean… let’s be honest… who doesn’t want to be waited on for the rest of their life? If you don’t… you are lying.
When planning a restaurant communication’s strategy using social media… keep in mind that your plan should be entertaining, captivating and should keep your patrons coming back for more. So what should be done?
1. Use Twitter for More than Customer Service
It’s a great tool to use for listening to your customer base. If you have a following then more than likely those followers consist of your customers and they like to be rewarded. Be creative… you could start promotions on Twitter and get your followers involved in redeeming the coupons. Offer exclusive prizes to followers. Be entertaining by giving them a reason to come back.
2. Utilize Your Facebook Fan Page to Drive Traffic
The fan page can sometimes be a second thought due to the high traffic of conversations happening on Twitter. It’s important to engage on Facebook to keep the fans visiting. You can also use the same creative approach to attract more fan involvement. Create a place for fans to visit by adding pictures, asking for fan photos, sharing updates and offer incentives for fans to visit page.
3. Create a Blog to Share Your Story
We all have a story. It’s easy to assume that a restaurant doesn’t need a blog. However, a blog can be give your customers an even greater sense of a relationship. The blog will reflect the restaurant in a more detailed way. Every blog post read can increase the chance for potential customers and current to visit the webpage and drive traffic through the doors.
4. Use Video to Capture the Action!
Take video of events or food and upload it to Flickr or YouTube. Words may not be enough for some people and actual visuals of food can intice customers. Video is also a great way to showcase the people behind the business. People relate to people and video allows for the customers to meet the people behind the food….which hopefully generates loyalty.
Food is something that interests everybody. It’s enjoyed… it sparks conversation… brings up memories…I know it sounds familiar. It should.
The ideas listed above are just a few essential “must dos” when beginning a social media strategy. These are just a few but there are so many more. Keep in mind mobile applications and location based applications.These are two applications that aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. What ideas do you have?
A Definition of Social Media Marketing in the Security Industry
Damon Paine is Internationally qualified and experienced Executive Protection operative and security Risk Manager. Follow him on Twitter @safarprotection and check out the website www.safarprotection.com
Social Media Marketing:
In my line of work it’s a bit hard to actively market yourself without coming across as a shameless self promoter. There is also the problem of privacy with most our clients requiring mutual confidentiality agreements or just not wishing their lives or actions publicised. So as to ensure future professional relationships we take privacy seriously however, now and then we are given permission to use client’s images or information to help promote our services. My only foray prior into social media was a personal myspace and facebook account I used to keep in touch with colleagues, and occasionally check out how much weight classmate’s had gained since graduation. Having developed a website over twelve months earlier, I was still struggling with the concept of SEO and promotion our services without spending excessive amounts of capital. Although I could see the potential returns my business partner had a convincing argument stating “We had not yet received any income from our site”. Thus I could understand his reluctance to invest any more resources to the company’s website.
I came across Kyle Lacy’s Twitter Marketing for Dummies whilst on an assignment protecting clients throughout India. I had until then dismissed twitter as anything more than another fad that people with too much time on their hands would take notice of. However as I was contemplating purchasing the book my clients were sitting in the Airport lounge letting their thousands of followers know how their trip was progressing. Kyle’s writing style was relaxed and on the money with his book supplying me with the tools to start marketing my website and services myself. I linked my twitter account to a facebook page and began to start writing blogs.
It’s been a little over two weeks, four posts, fifty one tweets and over two hundred unique visitors to my site. All this for the cost of the book and 20 minutes a night either writing, tweeting or re reading highlighted sections of my now marketing bible. Not only is it free and starting to show measurable results in website traffic, I now am able to easily follow industry leaders in my field. In parting I would like to highlight that by using social media to market my services like twitter and facebook I am now exposed to experts in the field of social media. Their tweets, blog and words of advice provide me with new ideas to continue on this path of non traditional marketing to a worldwide audience.
A Beautiful Life
When you look back on your life… when you pull the memories from the depths and remember… the past… there is so much you want to change. The possibilities are endless. We dwell on things that matter only to one person… us.
I find myself trying to right past wrongs… trying to change things and actions that have already happened… things that are lost in time. When I look back I realize that the situations and ideals that I find important are only slivers in time. Social Media, marketing, my business, and money will only be around for short periods of time… there is more to life than business success.
What I do not do enough of is remember the most important thing in life… which is family. We have a family reunion once a year on a beautiful river in Idaho and I can’t express to you the rejuvenation… and power it has over my mind.
My brother, Kelly Lacy, captured the powerful moments of life with 8,600 photos and created this unbelievable video.
A Beautiful Life from Kelly Lacy on Vimeo.
And You Don’t Know What to Do. So Jump!
…And You Don’t Know What to Do. So Jump!
Preparation. Training. Practice, practice, practice. Vigil & discipline & duty & repetition. A smidgen of ingenuity & a touch of class and merging new media with the classics becomes second nature.
All those tips & tricks & shortcuts will become tools in your arsenal before too long. But all the Tweet Laters & scheduled posts & syndicated messages will not account for the time & effort it takes to make this stuff look as easy & inviting as everyone dreams it to be when they first blog, tweet and share something on Facebook.
In the end, if you decide to jump into this & make it work for you, what will determines your will be in those little decisions you make when you have the free time to make them.
Leveraging time after the 40+ hours a week
In his keynote address during the 2009 Blog Indiana Social Media and Bloggging Conference, Chris Brogan told us the crowd about how he used to leverage every penny and free moment he had to attend every scheduled industry conference he could find. Every resource he had went into registration costs, discussion forums, travel, hotel…All with the hope that there was a continental breakfast or something he could load up on so as to not spend money on food.
A couple best selling-books and a successful company later, and Brogan’s still spanning the globe, leveraging his time to help grow the community. So much so that he’s got his own conventions now.
And I’ll leverage my time to get to more of those events.
Which means summer ends a little sooner for this year.
The end of summer means the start of the trade show season. The first one I’ll be hitting is Blog Indiana at IUPUI in Indianapolis. Lacy will be one of the featured speakers at the event. I”ll be running around all over the place.
If there’s only one event you can make it to, make it Blog Indiana. If you can’t make it to the convention itself, at least try to sneak out to the after-party. This year, the day one after party will be at Sun King Brewery.
Whatever time you can leverage.
And if we don’t see you there, well, hopefully we’ll see you somewhere. Because if you don’t end up going somewhere, you’ll end up going nowhere.
“So you come to the edge of a cliff and you don’t know what to do. So jump.” – John Lennon (Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now. By Barry Miles. 1996.)
Nat Finn is an Internet Marketing Specialist at Golden Technologies. He also serves as an Officer for NWITweetup and as a Regional Director for Blog Indiana. With the time left over, he writes for SEO Boy as well as his own blog, “How to Publish a Book. Of Blues. Hopefully.” It leaves him little time left over to finish his Books of Blues. Luckily, he’s found a few friends to help him with the editing.
Essential Twitter Tips For Reaching Local Customers
Vince Robisch writes premium web content for businesses that believe their site is an extension of their brand. He believes keyword stuffing looks ridiculous and that Twitter can be used effectively by local businesses. You can find him at his personal blog Help Me Reinvent or on Twitter @vincerobisch as he feverishly prepares for the launch of his new site.
With over 100 million people estimated to be using Twitter, its worldwide reach is without question. Companies with an online presence like @DellOutlet and companies with physical locations around the world like @Starbucks have over two million followers collectively who can all be served via their computer or a short drive from wherever they are located. But how does a local business use Twitter? What if you need local customers and can’t do business with people outside of your limited geographical territory?
The answer is that Twitter can still be an extremely effective social media tool for a locally-based business. Regardless of your geographic reach, there are many techniques you will want to understand in using Twitter to grow your business. For a complete understanding of those techniques, you should just buy Kyle’s book, Twitter Marketing For Dummies and save yourself a significant amount of time trying to figure Twitter out on your own.
The goal of this post is to get you startedon a targeted local use of Twitter. This list will take you from creating your Twitter profile to actually converting a sale. Here are the essential Twitter building blocks for a business seeking local customers:
- Be A Person – People generally like to know who the person is on the other side of the Twitter account. At the very least, use your logo in your profile and have employees of your business be some of your followers. Many businesses have had success by an actual person (president/CEO) being the face of their Twitter account. You can still link your profile to your company website.
- Have A Conversation – Don’t just spam people with offers and tell them to come to your restaurant or store.
- Search For Your Company Name – Find out what people are saying (if anything) about your company and respond. Answering questions and responding to complaints can build serious goodwill in the Twitter community.
- Retweet – People really appreciate it if you retweet something interesting. It not only gives you more to tweet about, it builds a connection with the person you retweeted.
- Search For People To Follow Using Your Email Contact List - This will tell you who out of your actual customer base is using Twitter.
- Research Who Your Local Followers Are Interested In And Follow Them - If this is done in conjunction with the previous step, it’s almost like getting a free list of potential referrals.
- Use Search Tools To Find People In Your Geographical Area You can use the “Find People/Find on Twitter” tool with your Twitter account and search by city or state. You can also use tools like WeFollow, Twellowhood, and Tweepz, among others, to identify local accounts.
- Follow Local Businesses – Think of the local businesses that you frequent and follow them. They are likely to have a similar customer base.
- Don’t Follow Every Local Media Outlet – Many local radio and television stations have a HUGE following. The problem is that they also often don’t engage in a conversation. They simply tweet and don’t listen or respond. If you would like to possibly gain some media attention, follow specific individuals associated with the outlet that actually interact on Twitter.
- Follow National People That You Genuinely Like – It’s not a bad idea to show you have some interests outside of your neighborhood. One thing you might want to consider though is whether following certain people might alienate potential customers. For instance, do you really want to label your business with a certain political viewpoint based on who you are following?
- Let Twitter Do The Work For You – Twitter’s new “Suggestions for You” tool might make finding followers easier.
- Use TwitPics – Show some in-store and behind the scenes photos of your business. It gives people in the community a certain comfort level before they ever enter your physical location.
- Post Events – You might even offer a discount to your followers and tweet a specific promotional code.
- Promote Your Current Customers To Build Loyalty – Retweet their content or simply tweet something nice about @currentcustomer.
- Create An Event – Based on your research up to this point, determine the local influencers and invite them in for an event or give them a special offer.
- Wait Patiently For The Twitter Business Center To Launch.
- Send Out Instant Coupons – Gauge the responsiveness of your followers and encourage business on slow days.
The possibilities are endless. By now though, you should have enough information to take steps in utilizing Twitter to grow your local customer base. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and tweet your business to another level!
3 Habits of Excellent Brand Communication
I’ve had the pleasure of re-reading 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey (it is excellent every single time). I picked the book up again during vacation because I felt the need to revisit his thoughts, opinions, and ideas. While reading the book… I found myself relating much of his teaching to that of change management and social media adoption in organizations.
“It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors…. We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow.” -Stephen Covey, page 31
Much of Covey’s book is based around the concept of changing identity rather than personality. If you read any book by any self-help guru… you will realize that much of change management is about changing identity rather than personality.
First. You must change the internal identity (brand) of a company before the personality (communication) will be open to change… we are talking about internal and external communication. Look deep within your organization and redraft your brand strategy.
Second. You must find the root of the problem. We all know what playing in the tree means… just staring a Facbook or Twitter account without planning and strategy… rockabye baby.The root of the problem is (more than likely) fear of the unknown. Fear of changing and making a misstep into the unknown…. stepping off an edge hoping, HOPING that a bridge will catch your fall.
Third. Plan to make the minor changes and transform your organization. Covey says it best when he states that minor changes will help you focus on achieve the quantum improvements in your life… or company.
Listen to the public. Listen to your employees. Listen to your contractors. Listening is the best way to adjust and make those minor changes to transform and jump into the world of… instant and effective communication.
