My Foodtown needs Foursquare

On Monday, I attended The RealTime Report in New York.  I’ve been blogging about the various case studies over the past few days, but today I’ll take a look at one of the many informative panels.

Another part of #RLTM was the panels on various real time topics.  My personal favorite was “Real Time, Right Place: Getting Customers to Check In” especially since I’m conflicted about the value of geolocation social networks like Foursquare.  The best observation of the day came from this discussion: Groupon deals encourage new users, Foursquare rewards loyalty.  From a marketing perspective, that’s brilliant (and simple), and for a consumer like me, this clarified their use and makes it easier for me to know when and why to use them.

Adrian D. Parker, Social Media Director of RadioShack, shared their approach to Foursquare.  Now, I have a Radio Shack about a mile from my house.  Last time I stopped in, I needed a battery for my car key.  I did use my iPhone when I was there because the salespeople were uncertain what battery I needed and how to install it.  Thank goodness for the internet! However, I didn’t tweet or checkin while there.  Didn’t occur to me, after all, it’s Radio Shack not a restaurant, coffee shop, or clothing store!

According to Mr. Parker, I’m in the minority.  After being hired 18 months ago, Mr. Parker took a year to educate the company about Foursquare.  He took a test and learn approach, starting with a limited month long campaign. From this, the company learned that

• Foursquare users spend 3 to 4 times what a nonuser spends in one visit.
• Foursquare is an excellent way for consumers to rediscover Radio Shack as they rebrand themselves as “The Shack”.
• Foursquare can be used to encourage users who check in to make a purchase.

Radio Shack also began using a Foursquare page to provide information on promotions as well as real time reports from customers at various locations.  What began as a test a year ago has become a significant promotional venue to reinvent the brand, attract customers, and make sales.

Gowalla is another geolocation platform and panelist Matthew Shadbolt, Director of Internet Product & Marketing at The Corcoran Group, briefly discussed ways to use Gowalla as a marketing tool.  One of the unique features of Gowalla is its trips, itineraries of various locations based on a specific subject.  The Corcoran Group’s approach to home sales is that it’s not just about the home, it’s about the neighborhood.  By providing helpful information about a locale after a Gowalla user checks in, this company demonstrates its knowledge about the area on a individual, more personal basis.  The creation of “trips” within various neighborhoods in New York City shares with potentials homebuyers the highlights of living in that particular locale.  After a user completes an entire trip, Gowalla notifies Corcoran so they can reach out to that individual to start a conversation about the experience and perhaps spark interest in one of their properties for sale in that vicinity.

Mr. Shadbolt also mentioned that platforms like Foursquare and Gowalla can be utilized by companies with no bricks and mortar presence to promote their brand.  For example, when a Foursquare user checks in at Times Square, The History Channel responds with a message informing the visitor that the original name for Times Square was Longacre Square.  Not only does this promote American History, it raises awareness for The History Channel and their on air offerings.

My favorites story and one I wish would be implemented in my home town was Pepsi’s partnership with Safeway and Foursquare.  When a user shops at Safeway, they receive a promotion for a Pepsi product based on their lifestyle information gathered by Foursquare .  For example, let’s assume our shopper is a young and visits the gym often.  When they check out with their groceries at Safeway, if they’ve thrown some Gatorade in their cart, they automatically get checked in at Safeway and receive a promotion for Gaterade when they hand their Safeway card to the cashier.  For Pepsi and Safeway, this initiative provides vital data about their consumers and their lifestyle and promotes more purchases.  The ease of use of this approach cuts out the primary obstacles to geolocation promotions: the multiple steps a customer must go through to receive an offer and the time and effort to educate staff.

I spend a lot of time at the grocery store.  This type of promotion would be the best thing in food shopping since I discovered Peapod!

Every member on the panel cautioned that social media doesn’t replace paid, targeting advertising.  Formal marketing campaigns drive potential customers to earned avenues of marketing like geolocation social media platforms which promote purchases.  Finally, I get how both company and consumer can benefit from social sites like Foursquare and Gowalla.

Now, to convince my local Foodtown to get on board…

Bravo Conquers Social TV

Anyone who’s read my blog posts over the past years or knows me in real life must know how much I LOVE Bravo.  Now, the whole Housewives series leaves me cold, but I was hooked by Jonathan Antin and Jackie Warner way back when and watching Top Chef is sacrosanct in my house.  (Don’t get me started on Top Design.)

This past Monday at The RealTime Report in New York, Lisa Hsia, Executive Vice President of Bravo Digital Media, and Mark Ghuneim, CEO of Wiredset Trender, presented a case study of Bravo’s foray in to social tv.

Bravo’s fans are passionate and the majority are early adopters who engage online often, both true of this blogger.  The first attempt to combine social media and traditional broadcast grew into Bravo’s real time social viewing party.  Viewers can express their opinion on Twitter with a chance to see their tweets during breaks in the show, tweet with stars like Top Chef Judge Toby Young, vote in polls during the broadcast, interact through Facebook Connect, view behind the scenes content, and have a chance to win some swag.

Who doesn’t love swag?

Hsia saved the best for last: Bravo discovered that 40% of the online participants weren’t watching the show. Growing their audience using social media created more interest and I’m sure future viewers and any traditional advertising accomplished. The creation of a “coviewing companion app” for iPad provides the ability to push content to the viewer during both the show and commercials increasing the impact of advertising.  By making their on air ads interactive, Bravo allows customers to request for information or answer a poll while an ad is running which provides vital consumer data to their advertisers.

Bravo discovered that an users spend an average 23 minutes engaged online.  In response, they created Tweet Tracker, a visual interactive timeline of tweets about their various shows, conducted tweet battles where viewers can debate the merits of various contestants, and the Talk Bubble with celebrity and viewer tweets.

Bravo’s highly successful social TV formula:

Get that? Ok, I couldn’t resist using Data for data, but here’s the equation:

real time + data + social + video = social tv

Simple huh?

Social TV combines the swarm behavior of apps like Groupon or Foursquare with openness and real time engagement through Facebook and Twitter.  By increasing the interaction and enjoyment for the fans, Bravo benefits with a larger audience which drives content and advertising which promotes interaction and enjoyment for fans …

… and we’re back at that virtuous circle again!

Eventbrite & Facebook: Perfect Together

On Monday, June 6, 2011, I attended the RealTime Report in New York City.  A rebranding of TWTRCON, this year’s conference focused on more case studies and “tales from the trenches”.  Over the next few posts, I’ll share those case students that really exemplify what real time marketing is and how companies are leveraging this approach to marketing.

One of the first speakers of the morning was Tamara Mendelson of Eventbrite.  I’ve used Eventbrite’s ticket service as both an attendee and an event planner and find them to be extremely efficient. This case study examined of “The Value of Being Liked” and the reach of event sharing on Facebook.

Back in 2008 when Eventbrite first took a look at the origins of traffic to their site, they focused on the major search engines like Google and Yahoo to promote their brand and events.  SEO became their primary online marketing focus, but over time they became aware that both organizers and attendees shared event information on Facebook.  Initially, users would copy and past event information into Facebook to share with friends.  When Eventbrite realized that their fastest growing inbound traffic came from Facebook, they worked with the social media company to create the capacity to “Publish to Facebook” now available.

Facebook is now the second largest traffic source for Eventbrite, with Twitter and Linkedin also in the top 10.  The ability for ticket buyers to immediately publish event info to their Facebook page and Twitter feed provides a real time opportunity for event organizers to promote their offering to a more receptive audience.  After all, if you friend is going, aren’t you more likely to go along too?

The concept of the “virtuous cycle” was first mentioned in this case study.  It’s been awhile since I heard this term used, but I quickly realized that this may be the beauty of social media and promotion in real time.  I purchase a ticket on Eventbrite then push that to my Facebook page, my good friend @mswas sees that I’m going and realizes that we haven’t seen each other for awhile, clicks on the link, purchase a ticket, posts it to her Facebook page … infinite loops in programming may be very very bad, but in real time marketing, they are priceless!

Below is a wonderful graphic that quickly explains how Eventbrite’s metrics with regard to Facebook integration:

What’s in your lunchbox?

I attended two conferences in the past few days: the Emerging Learning Design (ELD) conference at Montclair University and The RealTime Report (#RLTM) in New York.  The audience at ELD was primarily educators at the college and high school level.  The latter event was all about business, and I’ll be blogging about both this week.

First up, ELD.

Bringing little experience in social media with them, attendees at ELD asked the types of questions business people asked in 2008.  Many needed to learn the basics of Twitter and Facebook: whats a DM, how do I set up a Facebook page with students and still respect privacy, etc.  The concerns unique to education were rarely voiced.  When issues like the  amount of time teenagers spend on Facebook were raised, those asking the questions had difficulty opening their minds to the idea that the platform may be new, but the need to socialize with peers has been around as long as we’ve had teenagers!

I knew I was in trouble when the first keynote speaker opened with the question, “How many of you don’t know why anyone would want to use Twitter? Who cares what you had for lunch!”  This brought to mind a variation on the Ralph Nader quote about politics: “If you’re not turned on to social media, social media will turn on you.”  To give them credit, every educator there realized they were late to the party, knew Nader was right, and wanted reach students in the 21^st century via social media.

Probably 25% of the attendees actively use the major social networks, and I even got one LinkedIn invitation while I was there.  Signficantly less than the networking done at #RTLM, a few educators scribbled email addresses rather than hand each other a business card or send that LinkedIn invite.  Perhaps along with the basics of social media, educators need to realize the value of networking.

That first keynote presentation by @intellagirl (another member of the “Sisterhood of the Traveling Stripe”) about how to integrate and assess whether a social media tool is an appropriate addition to curriculum was the highlight of the day.  By addressing the strategic, tactical, and operational aspects of a platform, educators take into account not just what this new technology can do, but how users interact, what conceptions students carry with them when they enter the classroom, and what purpose each social media platform serves for the vast number of people that use it.

For example, Twitter’s strategic advantage is the massive user-to-user communication that takes place in its online space as well as the ability promote and manage a brand or idea and hopefully generate income.  Tactically, Twitter allows users to send short multi-use messages within a flexible network.  The constraint of 140 characters ensures the brevity and timliness of tweets.  The operational aspects include hashtags, DMs, RTs, and all the many conventions we use on Twitter.

How teachers integrate Twitter and how students react may or may not work the first time – @intelligirl shared a wonderful story about using Facebook with graduate students that initially failed because of the students’ concerns with privacy. However, using this approach does help determine whether Twitter is useful in a specific curriculum, how it might achieve specific educational goals, and how instructional/user-created content will mesh student/user-created content.

As one of the few educator attendees personally and professionally immersed in social media, I became less of a participant and more a supplier of examples from both my employment as a teacher and my freelance experiences.  @andimulsh‘s use of the #upperclassy hashtag for her Advanced Journalism students became the hit of the workshop that dealt with integrating social media into the classroom.  My experience with @cooperhewitt when I organized a field trip to their Design exhibit last fall prompted  discussion in a social media in the arts workshop.

By now, my readers probably think I didn’t enjoy this conference or learn anything I’ll take back to my classroom.  So wrong! In addition to the first presentation, @lthumann‘s direct approach to Twitter in the classroom should be useful to any educator who hopes to incorporate that platform into his or her lessons:

Twitter can be used to

1. build apersonal brand (great for high school students with portfolios)
2. learn to be concise (remember 140 characters?)
3. personify characters on Twitter (great creative writing exercise)
4. collaborate on same topic with different cultures (Millenial penpals)
5. bring experts into the classroom virtually (the first thing I did with Twitter and @chrisconn)

For beginners and seasoned Twitter users, these suggestions can be attempted in any classroom for any age group of students, including adults!

After lunch where I learned Montclair thinks everyone eats meat, tweeted about it, and learned I wasn’t the only disappointed veggie attendee, Craig Kapp’s presentation on Artifical Reality really intrigued the geek in me.  Technically sophisticated, I did enjoy his examples of how AR is available for use today and will certainly try a number of websites and programs he explored with my Advanced Java class.  You can check him out at his blog  – well worth a visit if only to see what’s happening in the world of AR.

ELD12 is scheduled for June 1, 2012.  I look forward to attending once again to see how far educators go with social media in their classrooms over the next year.  I bet every teacher who attends ELD12 will know that Twitter is so much more than what we’ve had for lunch today.

I’m going to TWTRCON!

Last June, I was fortunate enough to attend TWTRCON, advertised as “a full-day immersion in the mobile, social and realtime web” in New York City.  Active in social media for 2 years at that point, I’d organized a jersey shore social media event in 2009 but was (and am) employed full-time as a New Jersey teacher. Opportunities to hear leaders in the industry discuss how they integrate Twitter into their marketing plan were few and far between due to my schedule and income.  I was lucky enough to attend TWTRCON via the “Go Standby” program (a deep discount, trust me), and I chose to write about the experience over on the VoxPopNJ blog.  This year I’m attending the event, now known as The Realtime Report, through the same program and will blog about the experience here.

In preparation, let’s look back at last year’s event.  Martha Stewart was the keynote speaker, and as a former stay-at-home mom, Martha and I had a “history”.

During a panel featuring a spokesperson from NASA, PETA decided to hijack the twitterfeed (yes, I’m a vegan, no, I don’t agree with their tactics).

Finally, I attempted to embrace geolocation software but as the summer progressed, I found it sadly lacking at both Chili’s and Chipotle.  I will say that both venues have improved considerably with regard to social media, but I’m still not motivated to check in anywhere at this point in my social media career.

I’m looking forward to lots of new ways to leverage social media at The Realtime Report in June.  Check it out, and if you decide to come, follow me on twitter and let me know how to find you there!  I’ll also be at the Emerging Learning Design Conference at Montclair University on June 3rd.  While directed at educators, I’ll share what I learn here as well, or you can join me at that event too!

Letterly.net

I signed up for letter.ly about 2 weeks ago after learning about the service during #reverb10 last December.  Of course, as luck would have it, right after I began my own subscription blog, letter.ly got caught in the fallout from the Libyan conflict:

“Last week, the agency that we used to register the letter.ly domain was taken down as a side effect of the war in libya (.ly is the libyan top level domain). our domain registration expired, and we were unable to renew it. as the expiration propagated, the site appeared to be dead and emails sent to your subscribers probably bounced.” – letter.ly in an email to authors dated April 4, 2011

While I worried over the weekend about the future of my own “Insights from a Pink Perspective”, the email reassured me that letterly would continue despite international conflicts.  So I wrote and sent my second letterly post yesterday and thought I’d give my public blog readers a taste of my first attempt at writing for a subscription service.  Below is the start of my letterly entry entitled Arrested in Milwaukee dated March 28, 2011:

Remember when TV offered 3 commercial networks, a couple of local stations, PBS and those weird UHF stations on that other dial?  I do.  I also remember when watching a TV show could be an event, the lives of real people were only seen on the news, and variety shows were just as popular as cooking and reality shows now. Laugh In, The Flip Wilson Show, Sonny and Cher (and then just Cher), and of course Carol Burnett filled their lineup with musicians, actors and actresses, and comedians.

Variety shows introduced me to George Carlin.  Now, he had to keep it clean on network television, but he let loose on his comedy records.  That’s how I discovered the 7 dirty words you can’t say on television – on a record entitled Class Clown.  I won’t list them here; now that we have wikepedia, you can look them up yourselves and also discover he was arrested in Milwaukee for performing that routine in 1972.

George Carlin loved language.  The routine began

“I love words.  I thank you for hearing my words.  I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.  They’re my work, they’re my play, they’re my passion.”

I too love words, and you can read mine at http://www.letterly.net/lgesin

letter.ly

I discovered letter.ly through @gwenbell.  I don’t subscribe to her letter.ly; this teacher can’t affort New York Times home delivery, so sadly Gwen’s posts aren’t in my budget. Intrigued, however, I investigated what exactly this service provided and pondered the benefits of my own account.

Writing is a passion, and I’ve come to accept that a subscription blog service in addition to this blog will meet the needs of both my readers and myself. With an easy signup interface for readers, letter.ly allows them to opt in for more in depth content.  One click publishing makes it easy for me to get my posts to a specific group of readers.  letter.ly also gives me the opportunity to see who reads my posts, the discussions they promote, and adapt my writing accordingly.

I’ve been asked for quite some time to provide specific ways to use social media in the classroom; that’s certainly one topic I’ll explore, and I won’t rule out providing actual lesson plans to teachers interested in adapting my approach to their classroom.  For those readers who enjoy my take on Pop Culture, deeper musings on books, TV shows, and movies will appear now and then.  Of course, general observations and suggestions regarding social media will make up the “meat” – or should I say “tofu” – of my letter.ly posts.

By now, you might be worried that this blog will cease to exist.  Don’t Panic!  I’ll still post about books, animation, exploring IPhone app development, my worries about NPR’s future, knitting successes and failures including the Summerhill Farm yarn project, politics (but not too much), and of course Everyday Vegan will still appear on Wednesdays.  So if you enjoy this blog, you won’t be left out, and if you’d like more, send me your email address via DM on Twitter, a message on Facebook, or to lgesin (at) lauragesin (dot) net.  letter.ly allows me to provide free subscriptions if I supply the email address (otherwise you must pay a fee); if you contact me in either of those three ways, I’m happy to give you free access!

Disclaimer: Current students cannot have access to letter.ly in the same way I don’t friend you on Facebook. Enjoy this blog and contact me when you graduate if you’re not sick of all I have to say by then!

ProjectTwenty1

Last Friday, Stephanie Yuhas spoke to animation and film students at the high school where I teach.  Probably one of the best speakers I’ve ever had visit and share their career experiences, Stephanie sent the following information to those 50 kids who listened to her jokes and learned from her experiences.  Stephanie and I met through a former student, @gabsters, who found me on Twitter and made the online introduction to a friend of a friend (and then starred in TeamTacovsGrilledCheese’s P21 entry last year).  The rest is history!  I’ve also included a video of a talk Stephanie gave at a workshop I hosted about a year ago in Asbury Park. Great social media marketing info for artists of all types!

If you want to get in contact regarding any of these opportunities, visit the appropriate website or, if you are one of my students, DM or email me and I’ll send you her email address.  Be prepared – I think JVV and I will be heading down to the P21 launch event this summer!

Here’s Steph’s email:

So wonderful to meet all of you!

Here is the breakdown of some things we discussed, as well as ways to get involved.  Please remember, I am including some sites with video content.  I understand that even some online content is not necessarily appropriate for minors. Please ask your parents’ permission before watching anything rated R.

Most internship opportunities take place at our office in Norristown, PA or at the festival site in University City, Philadelphia.

Project Twenty1
A non-profit org that exhibits, promotes, inspires, and connects creatives through film & animation festivals, workshops, and programs.

Rated G:
http://www.ProjectTwenty1.com
http://www.Twitter.com/ProjectTwenty1
http://www.Facebook.com/SusieFilmmaker

Unrated (podcasts & featured films are uncensored and very often rated R for nudity, profanity, violence, or drug use)
http://www.YouTube.com/ProjectTwenty1

Ways to get involved – (sorry that many of these things do not have links as we are updating our website)
1. We are getting ready for our call-for-entries & team signups! Since we are in the middle of updating our entire site, the best thing to do is sign up for our newsletter with a valid e-mail address: Newsletter: http://oi.vresp.com/?fid=3286f4b1bf
2. Start preparing a film to submit to us in the Spring (people on our newsletter find out first)
3. Start recruiting Team members to produce a 21-Day Filmmaking Team
4. Come to the Launch Event (July 30, details to follow in Newsletters). It will be FREE!
5. Become a Member (costs money, but you’ll get discounts, links to ALL 21-day films from 2006-2010, free event tix & more)
6. Become an intern. We are based in Norristown, PA. Some colleges will even give you college credit! We always need in the field of marketing/social media, PR, and general administration (bookkeeping). In the Fall, we will need seasonal volunteers for the festival such as street teams, ticket takers, etc.

–
AmericanGoulash.org
PG-13 for mild language/”tmi-girl-stuff” in some short stories
http://www.facebook.com/americangoulash
http://www.YouTube.com/lotusdove

Opportunities:
Interns needed in the field of marketing, book layout.
–
Crystalline Studios – corporate video & marketing
Rated G
http://www.CrystallineStudios.com
http://www.twitter.com/phillyvideo
Interns needed in the field of video shooting, video editing, animation (must provide work samples), also general administration
–
Cinevore.com
http://www.Facebook.com/Cinevore
http://www.twitter.com/Cinevore
PG-13 for “Piece of Meat” videos contain suggestive dancing & general weirdness. Ke$ha has probably shown you guys worse.
Interns needed in the field of marketing & public relations
–
OverAnalyzers (coming March 2011)
Facebook.com/OverAnalyzers
http://www.Cinemassacre.com <— this site contains a LOT of over-the-top potty mouth. Please don’t play it in front of young children.
–
Wiccan Chicken
http://www.wiccanchicken.com
http://www.Facebook.com/WiccanChicken
PG-13 for religious parody & mild profanity.
Interns needed in the field of South Park-style comedy writing

–

Here’s Stephanie with some great stories and advice …

… and here’s the very first interview I did with Stephanie back in October 2009 about P21:

Finally, what P21 blog post would be complete without a little bit of Justice?  This is Doug Seidel, Podcasting Master, from Justice Productions speaking about the Marketing Award at P21:

While not technically a part of the #reverb10 project, @cimiddletwnnj posted today about her experiences on Twitter at the Jersey Shore.  She included this graphic I made back in June 2010 in preparation for Twtrcon as a visual representation of my “travels on Twitter” up to then … over 4000 tweets and over 300 more followers since then!  Enjoy.