Foursquare, the location based social network, is purported to be the next big social media phenomenon despite ongoing privacy concerns.   Launched just last year in only a few cities around the world, Foursquare now has over 400,000 unique visitors (in January).  Since September there has been a steep increase  in activity as users catch on to this popular social networking game and this is only expected to grow since Foursquare went global last month.

Foursquare Growth

Playing Foursquare

Foursquare allows users to check in from their mobile phones when they are out and about at dinner, sports venues, tourist venues and even at the hairdresser.  As a user, each time you check in to a location you are awarded points.

Once you start accumulating points or visiting locations frequently you are awarded badges and titles (I am the Mayor of Stock Up, one of my favorite places to have lunch in Kerrisdale).   Foursquare apps are available for download to most major smart phones (iPhone,  Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre.).

If you think it sounds like more of a game than a serious business network, you are right but if your business is location based, it is a game you really should be taking seriously.   A little friendly competition can do wonders to bring people back to your location again and again and so businesses are beginning to clue in to the loyalty potentially and Foursquare as a tool to spread awareness: many businesses are offering incentives to those who become mayor and to visitors who offer tips about the location.

Foursquare Tips for Business

1. Make sure you are listed on Foursquare.  The best way to do this is by joining the community, downloading the phone app and adding a venue from there (read this post from Dave Tailor for more detail on how to do so).

2. Consider offering incentives for those who visit frequently and sign up with Foursquare to promote these.  Every time someone signs in to your location, their followers see this, so the more Foursquare visitors you have the better – its like free advertising!

3. Monitor Foursquare to see who is visiting and especially to track tips.  Foursquare users can provide tips about your location and since this is user driven you may want to reward positive tips and be prepared to go to bat if someone posts something negative.  Most of the tips I have seen to date are positive.

My Perspective

I have been playing around with Foursquare for a few months and it is fun but so far I haven’t been rewarded for my patronage – here’s hoping this post changes that!

Frustrated at the longer anticipated wait for sushi the other week, I posted this warning others to factor in time but there has been no response to that either.

Since Out-Smarts is virtual and not location based, we’re not on there but we do encourage all businesses to be aware of what Foursquare is, to make sure they are listed and to keep an eye on what is being said about their business.  If Foursquare does take off, as it is predicted to, then more and more of your clients will be using this tool to share their nights out, business meetings and fun.

The Olympics are in town and this city is all a buzz.  Following my post last week about how the Olympics use social media, I thought it would be great to follow up on that and take a look at how athletes are using these tools.

According to a Wired Magazine blog post, there is some confusion among athletes as to whether or not they are actually allowed to post during the games.  Here’s an excerpt from the article:

But there is no Olympic rule that sets up a blackout period for athletes according to Bob Condron, the Director of Media Services for the United States Olympic Committee.

“Athletes are free to blog during the Games,” says Condron. “And Twitter is just a blog that’s written 140 characters at a time.”

There are some restrictions on what athletes can do online during the Olympics. According to the IOC Blogging Guidelines for the 2010 Games, athletes and other accredited people must keep their posts confined to their personal experiences.

Despite this confusion many athletes are using social media right now.  Lets look at which social media tools they are using, how they are using them as well as how you can find, follow and lend your support.

Twitter

Lots of athletes are using Twitter to share their Olympic experiences.  One of the best ways to find them is to follow Olympic lists like these ones.

Canadian Athletes on Twitter

US Olympic Athletes on Twitter

Olympic Winter Sports

True North Media House

Huffington Post Athletes List

Olympians

Athletes are using Twitter in different ways.  Some are simply sharing their experiences in getting to BC and settling in to their new diggs at this point.  Many are posting their experiences in their final practices leading up to their events and all are  building their fan base. By finding and following our athletes on Twitter we have the chance to share in their Olympic experiences first hand as well as to give them our support.

Many national teams have dedicated Twitter feeds too, to keep fans updated:

Team Canada

Team Great Britain

Facebook

Whilst Twitter gives athletes a quick and easy way to communicate with fans, many also have fan pages on Facebook to build awareness of their endeavors, to post video content and share their Olympic aspirations.  Canadian gold medal contender in figure skating, Patrick Chan’s page links to video clips, fan photos and updates about the skater.

One of the best ways to find and follow athletes on Facebook is through the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Page.  Theyrecently asked the question “Hey any Olympic athletes out there? What is your Facebook page?”, here is the response.  Another way is to find the national team pages and check out who they are fans of – athletes are usually listed.  Here are a few – to find the rest search Facebook for “Olympic Team”.

Canadian Olympic Team

US Olympic Team

Swiss Olympic Team

Australian Olympic Team

Blogs

How these athletes find time to train and blog is beyond me – I guess that is why they are Olympians and I am not!  Here are links to athletes using these forums too:

Dustin Cook – Official blog of the Canadian Alpine Ski Team Member

Speed skater – Denny Morrison.

Good Luck To All Athletes

Good luck to all athletes competing at the games – thanks for keeping us posted on social media.  Welcome to BC and enjoy your time here: may it be golden!

Vancouver 2010

With only 11 days to go before the Vancouver Olympics begin, the excitement is building here and I thought this would be a good time to update on our last post about the Olympics and Social Media.

Since posting over a year ago, it would appear that the Olympic organisation has embraced social media somewhat and had some hick-ups on the way.

The Olympics on Twitter

In November VANOC was chastised for their poor response on Twitter when thousands were left waiting and eventually dissed because of a glitch in their ticket ordering system: rather than using Twitter as a customer service tool to let customers know exactly what was going on, their Tweets were ambiguous and erratic.

You can enjoy “timely Tweets from the VANOC communications team” at 2010 Tweets, where the organisation continues to push out information about itself with little interaction or true community building. The same can be said for their other feeds: @followthe flame, @code2010.

The Olympics on Facebook

They do rather better on Facebook, it has to be said. Both Vancouver 2010 and The Cultural Olympics are well represented there.

Again, fans cannot contribute to posts on the site but they can and do comment – most of them being positive.

The less publicised Canada Code page though is centred around community and collaboration. The Canada Code website encourages everyone to upload photos and text sharing their Olympic experiences. If you do, you could win a pair of those red mittens everyone is trying to get their hands on (or on their hands as the case may be!)  and if you are really lucky your content may be shared on public screens across Vancouver during the event. Now that is more like it VANOC! From their Facebook page:

The Olympics and Citizen Journalism

As for the Olympics embracing social media journalism, according to VANCOUVER ACCESS 2010, a collection of multi-media content; blog posts, pictures and videos covering the various winter/summer sports and cultural events, despite numerous attempts by prominent social media commentators VANOC seems to still be ignoring this vehicle:

“Over the past few years, as a group, we have spoken at various conferences and events about the impact of citizen journalism, social media and the internet on the various Olympics, IOC and “ANY”OC brands. We sent VANOC several letters over the past 18 months requesting to meet with them, and have a discussion about this change in culture… Without any replies.”

Seems a shame to ignore such valuable contributions.

Watch out for more on social media and the Olympics over the next month.

After a brief hiatus in December, our regular month end Reasons to be Cheerful post is back.  Here is a compendium of cool sites I discovered over the past few weeks that might of interest or useful for you.  Enjoy!

Screenr - easily create screencasts to post to Twitter.

Lifeforce TV – Canada’s online broadcast network.

Biddingo – an online portal that connects suppliers providing various goods and services to buyers from public and private sectors across Canada.

Xina – handy tool for checking how your SEO efforts stack up.

Entreprenuerial Woman Magazine – online journal aimed at Canadian small business.

Rollip – professional, online photo effects.

More and more companies and entrepreneurs are using video to help them promote their products and services online, to build buzz and drive traffic to their sites and rightly so: posting videos can be a great way to build your online exposure.

However, many of the videos out there are of extremely poor quality – blurred images, poor sound quality, that omnipresent “Flip arm” and the list goes on – they are just not pleasant to watch.  You’ve got to ask what these say about the company posting the content.

In the most excellent social media marketing handbook, Friends with Benefits, Darren Barefoot and Julie Szabo point out, in reference to video popularity, that two factors don’t matter, one is quality, but I tend to disagree to some extent: I don’t know how often I have viewed videos by entrepreneurs on Facebook or YouTube that are so poor quality that they make me question whether I would actually want to do business with the company in question.  Everything you do online should represent your brand.  A video that is really poorly produced is simply going to reflect poorly on your brand. Its not necessarily all about how often your video is viewed but more importantly about the impact it has on your intended audience.

The challenge however, especially for entrepreneurs is to be able to upload good quality content without breaking the bank.  Which leads me to introduce you to BBN3.  SoMedia Networks is building Broadband Network Three (BBN3) websites in major cities across North America and then internationally to provide a platform and marketplace for a new class of user-generated video creators – the near-professional content producer. What this means is that you have an affordable alternative to the self made flip video.

Through a simple online interface, BBN3 allows you to work with them create and customize video projects easily and inexpensively. We worked with them in December – you may have seen my status updates about how much fun the shoot was – to put together a short intro to Out-Smarts.  Other than the fact I look a bit like the incredible hulk (only smaller), I like the end result. Take a look and let me know what you think:

Thanks to Gina for allowing us to shoot in the Meridian Pacific boardroom.

Yesterday, we talked about how you can use LinkedIn for recruitment purposes, today we look at some of the other tools available to support your recruiting needs.

Plaxo – another prominent professional networking tool with over 20 million users, Plaxo is similar to LinkedIn in that it allows you to search job listings and to connect with people who are hiring but unlike LinkedIn, it does not have tools aimed solely at recruiters yet.

Xing – Another professional network which is becoming more popular with over 8m users.  It is very similar in its functionality to LinkedIn but posting jobs is much cheaper.  The downside is that lots of users are in Europe so its not the best tool for North American recruitment purposes.

Other professional social networks that facilitate recruitment:

Viadeo

Biznik

Social Networks – Facebook

Facebook Groups:  there are groups on Facebook dedicated to getting the word out about jobs.  To do so you can join and post or participate.  Examples include:

http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=jobs&init=quick#/group.php?gid=29593013279&ref=search&sid=745281396.2828234181..1

Facebook Pages – some companies have Facebook pages dedicated solely to helping them find staff.  The best known example is the Ernst and Young Facebook Page.

Facebook Events – having a hiring fare?  You can use Facebook events like this one to promote it.

Facebook Ads: allow you to post ads aimed at people you want to employ: location, education level etc.

Twitter

Twitter is proving a great tool to promote job openings.  You can use corporate or staff Twitter pages to Twitter to your community about job postings or you can even have your own dedicated Twitter feed that serves this purpose alone like KPMG http://twitter.com/kpmg

As with any Twitter effort, your follow strategy will be important.

Twitter Ad-ons

You can also use third party tools like Twitter Job Search to search listings and post your own.

Here at Out-Smarts, we are looking to hire an intern right now.  So far we have had 3 suitable and interested candidates contact us and all we had to do was post the fact to Facebook and Twitter.    If you are interested please contact us, otherwise good luck in your recruiting or job search efforts.

Social media isn’t only a great tool for networking and marketing online, companies are using these tools more and more to connect with potential employees, to attract new hires, to build brand awareness (as a great company to work for) and to research prospective employees.  This is the first of 2 blogs looking at social media for recruitment.

There are a number of social media tools you can use to enhance your recruitment function – here are a few:

• Professional Networks,
• Social Networks like Facebook,
• MicroBlog platforms like Twitter,
• Blogs,
• Video
• Podcasts.

Perhaps the main social networks that support recruiting are the professional networks.  To use these effectively, your company should have a presence in these forums whether it be through a company presence or through staff profiles.

Professional Networks:

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has over 47 million users in 200 countries.  As a “professional social network” it is ideal as a tool to use to assist recruitment.  There are a number of ways you can use LinkedIn for this:

Searching Jobs on LinkedIn – this is useful from a recruiting perspective as it allows you to search other positions in your industry that have been posted in this forum.

Find People

You can use your LinkedIn Profile to find people – LinkedIn is a free professional network but if you upgrade your LinkedIn membership you can communicate more effectively with possible candidates.  Paid LinkedIn accounts start at $24.95 and run to $400.95 depending on volume (of emails, interactions etc).  By using this paid LinkedIn functionality you can contact, communicate and interact more than with the vanilla version but more importantly for recruiting, you can check references.

Post a Job

Posting a job on LinkedIn costs $195 for a 30 day listing.  The benefit of posting on LinkedIn is that it facilitates candidate research and allows you to identify and connect with people who can recommend and refer them.

In addition, LinkedIn also provides a service aimed solely at recruiters called LinkedIn Talent Advantage which aids in the sourcing, getting the word out about jobs.

More on social media for recruitment tomorrow.

This is a guest post from Jan Littler-Finseth.

Last night – driving home – I heard a discussion on the CBC’s ‘The Current’ about a Facebook page that has grown exponentially this week (it was set up last weekend and has grown from zero to over a hundred thousand members in a few short days). Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament is a page that provides a conduit to protest the decision by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to initiate prorogation and it is gathering steam.

Whether you supported the Conservatives or the Marijuana party in the last election or think that is wrong or okay for Parliament to be temporarily discontinued, the fact that a Facebook page is national news says something about the lengthening tentacles of Social Media.

In my car – windshield wipers working overtime – I was bemused at the number of ’serious’ people out there who are convinced that Facebook is mostly a vacuous portal only frequented by teenagers when on the contrary, the over 35 age group is the fastest growing.

Can Social Media sites bring about democratic reformation or real-world change of any kind? That remains to be seen but the truth is, Facebook, Twitter, and the likes are ‘little’ things that can make big change happen.

Grass roots politics has long been a facet of the Canadian political landscape but now tools like Facebook allow for communication and networking, bringing geographically diverse (but likeminded) communities together to join forces, communicate their message and have more impact.

Let’s face it, however, if your group, your idea, or protest is poorly focused and unsupported – no one thing will help. Social Media is only a part of a program – changes come when we act and believe that what we do makes a difference.

Despite this being his busy season, Santa has been really active online:

Check out Santa’s trip on Twitter via NORAD and his Twitter profile.

On Facebook there are several Santas - its hard to see which is the real one but NORAD is on there too keeping track of his whereabouts.

Santa now ships to Canada – oh wait, I thought he lived here:  shifty You Tube promotion.  Ho ho ho.

Santa and Mrs Claus share some of their recipes on MySpace.

For more on Santa, check out his wikipedia listing.

And last but not least rumour has it that Santa uses an iphone app to track wish lists now.

I wonder how he finds the time.

Happy Holidays to all our readers.  We hope Santa is good to you!

This month we’ve invited some guest bloggers to contribute. The first is by friend and colleague Guacira Naves (Owner, The Online Strategy House):

The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

Over a decade ago, an online marketing strategy was comprised by separate tactics that had only one concern in mind: to drive traffic to a site. The game was relatively simple: a site would be built, it’d be supported by email newsletters, advertising, maybe some traditional media, and that was all that there was to it.

Then, marketers became aware of the importance of search engine optimization, and added that component to their plan. Today, social media marketing is the new kid on the block. Not only that – it’s changing how the other online marketing elements interact with each other.

Below is a sample of how this interdependence plays out – and how you can combine each individual channel for the greater good:

Twitter and Google:

• Google’s new real time search results mean that tweets with your brand may now appear in search results. So, a strong visibility on Twitter can very well influence your site’s exposure on Google. That’s another reason to maintain an active Twitter profile, and populate it with quality content.

Twitter and Customer Opinion:

• Not only is Twitter the most important micro-blogging network, it is increasingly used as a search tool. It is a channel where people go to find the online equivalent to “word of mouth” about a product, service, etc. On Twitter, frustrated customers often share their gripes, and loyal clients rave about their favourite brands.  Here’s an example:

Imagine if you were looking for reviews on Virgin Mobile and came across the two tweets above.  They may very well sway your decision-making.

However, Virgin Mobile could have stepped in to have their say. It’d potentially have an impact not only on the three individuals involved in that dialogue, but Virgin’s update would’ve been found in searches made for that brand.

Here’s a positive example of how proactive companies observe Twitter conversations, and interact with users: on December 10th, I decided to try Pearltrees. I then tweeted this update:

Minutes later, I received a reply from Pearltrees CEO, Patrice Lamothe, with this message:

That update was not only relevant to me, but to any other individual making a search query for “Pearltrees” around that time.

So, the lesson is: people are going to use Twitter’s search tool to find information on your products or services. You might as well help them find information that is as positive as possible.

YouTube and Search Engine Optimization:

• YouTube videos are prominently represented in Google’s search engine results.You do have a YouTube channel, don’t you? Then, make sure that, among other things, your videos titles and tags are optimized. And guess what – this will help your presence in search engines, too.

YouTube and other Social Networks:

• YouTube also gives viewers the option to share a video via Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, orkut and StumbleUpon, directly from the video’s YouTube page. You can also embed a video into your blog, and invite readers to share it – either by embedding into their own blogs, by adding it to Facebook, or inviting them to share it through social bookmarking sites like Reddit. Earlier today, I embedded this third-party YouTube video about Hewlett-Packard into my own Facebook profile:

I wasn’t the only one. According to the video statistics, it was watched an additional 279 times as a result of links from Facebook. Reddit, a popular content-sharing site, had also generated 1,317 views.

Blogs and Search Engine Optimization:

• By frequently adding fresh, relevant content to your company’s blog, not only will you improve your brand’s presence and clout in the blogosphere, but you will help your site become more appealing in Google’s eyes. That is because Google naturally gives more importance to sites that are updated on a regular basis.

Blogs and Twitter:

• Blogs can easily be set up to automatically promote a new post, as soon as it is published. You will be not only be driving traffic to the blog itself, but will also help to keep your Twitter profile active with new, original material.

I could go on and on. This just scratches the surface, but gives you an idea of how, nowadays, online marketing elements are so interdependent. When planned accordingly and executed in an orchestrated manner, these tactics will make the whole stronger than the sum of its parts.

About the author: Guacira Naves is an online marketing strategist who has 18 years of Internet experience. Her company, The Online Strategy House, develops and executes holistic online marketing strategies to help clients achieve their short, medium and long-term goals.

Thanks to Guacira for this.  If you are interested in contributing  a post – give us a shout!