Foursquare has been around since March 2009, but it wasn’t until recently that it has become available in the UK. The social-networking tool allows people to “check in” at places they visit, whether it’s a local coffee house  or bar, to keep friends updated on where they are spending time.

Companies have  recently began offering incentives for Foursquare users who check in at their businesses.

They are among a growing number of businesses using social media tools such as Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook. More than half of companies worldwide now use various social networks, and about 40 percent of companies say they’ve had success in finding new customers using them, according to a survey by Regus, which provides workplace solutions to businesses.

The benefit of offering an incentive – a free coffee for every customer who checks in for example – is that it gives customers an incentive for supporting the business. But the power of a site such as Foursquare is limitless because every time a user checks in at a location, a message goes out to his or her friends and followers on Twitter and Facebook, telling them of the user’s location.

It also provides companies analytical information about who is using the site such as when people check in, whether they make a return visit and the demographics of who is checking in.

So Foursquare is another affordable way to market your business, particularly to the younger generation.

The ability to engage in conversations with customers in real-time, has led to a new explosion of selling possibilities. Customers can not only make or break your products by sharing their opinions and experiences with their peers; but they can do so much more.

In the early days of social media, it was all about celebrities and Twitter accounts. But now, I see a new type of social media celebrity evolving. One with large networks and plenty of opinions to share with them. These celebrities are just “normal” people; but with huge social influence!

So have a think about the social influence you have? How can you leverage it? Perhaps you could start a small business on the back of it. A third-party hub or a community, for example, with content that is recommended by trusted friends and professionals in real-time. Real people participating in social media can unearth incredible amounts of actionable information, with limited barriers to acting upon it quickly.

And once you have a branded community, you can monetise this. Companies will pay you to feature or mention their brand in real-time, and in a relevant context. The more members you encourage to join your community, the more possibilities you will find. You would have created an unpaid army, which companies will want to involve in their own R&D processes, and to help create new applications, or products.

Think about your existing customers, and your own social networks. Identify which accounts you have that are currently underserved. Perhaps, you can generate new business for them, by reviewing their products and inviting your social networks to come up with ideas for them. This will give you a good reason to contact them for new business.

All of us who participate in social networks have a degree of social influence. Your opinions count to your friends. See what you can develop through that. You may surprise yourself!

Companies have been quick to realise the potential of this technology with Starbucks, Debenhams and others offering loyal customers who frequently check in to their stores, rewards such as a free cup of coffee.

It’s potential gives a whole new meaning to the supermarket loyalty card.

But with such power comes responsibility. It might be great for a free latte, but at what price to your privacy? There is a big worry that you don’t know who can read your information, as to where you are. Accept a friend request in Foursquare without due care, and you are potentially opening up your personal diary to a complete stranger.

But many say Foursquare’s primary motivation is growth, and not the privacy of its members. They need a critical mass of users to make the service more useful. Critics point out that a warning of the risks should be prominently displayed to users when they set up their accounts.

Foursquare has recently reached the 2m users landmark, and this figure is growing all the time. The issue with location-based information, is that it exposes a new layer of personal information if you like; our exact physical location at anytime, anywhere.

So the decision is up to you. If you want everyone to know exactly where to find you, then Foursquare is perfect for you. Our advice is this..only accept friend requests from friends. And make yourself fully versed on the what this all entails and the risks that it involves. Participate in online communities of course, but with care.

Employees will waste time with social media:
Many large corporations block their employees from accessing the Internet altogether. Others try to block employees from accessing personal email or social networks like Facebook during work hours.

With the advent of smart phones, internet access is available to workers everywhere – and employers can’t stop them from accessing the Internet.

The value of workers of having internet access – in terms of research, communication, and speed – is far greater than the threat of lost productivity. Companies like Best Buy, Dell and many others have increased not only customer satisfaction, but also sales, by having hundreds, and even thousands, of employees monitoring and resolving complaints and issues in social media.

Companies have a right to make policies and rules about personal use of the internet, but blocking it during work just doesn’t make sense.

What if people say nasty things about our brand?:

Most people exercise common sense, when reading reviews. That is to say, any obviously vindictive and negative comments will simply be ignored.

And besides, complaints may very well mean that there may be things you need to change about your brand. In that case, you should thank them for letting you know what they are. Then you should make changes.

If you have built an online community that includes people who don’t hate you, that community will rise to your defense and they will handle the problem for you.

We’ll lose control of the brand.

Every person with a computer and even a tiny skill level has the tools to make their opinion about your brand heard by other people. They’re already talking about you.

You cannot control the message in the internet Age. You can affect it, but you cannot control it. Your workers are talking about you in closed Facebook groups designed to keep you out so they can talk about you in peace. Your customers are emailing, Tweeting, Facebooking, and that old standby – calling – their friends about their experience with your brand. You don’t have control. You might as well join the conversation. At least that way you can influence what is being said.

Employees will give away corporate secrets on social networks and that will help our competitors and affect the stock price.
If you don’t already have a social media policy, you need to create one.

If you don’t trust your employees to talk to customers, or to represent the brand, you need to look at 1) your hiring practices, 2) your training practices.

The truth is that there are more emerging media success stories than there are failures.

Clients begin by telling Lab42 about their products and their target consumers. Lab42 then helps to craft a survey, with the option of focusing it based on gender, age, location, lifestyle and interests. Next, Lab42 takes the resulting survey to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and smaller niche social networks, using highly targeted incentives to garner attention and responses while consumers go about their day-to-day activities. Two packages are available from Lab42: a premium one for $ 500, with results in three days or less; and a preliminary one for$ 300, with results in 5 days or less. Custom arrangements are also possible.

It’s always refreshing to see services that have traditionally been performed slowly and expensively rethought and remade to reflect new technologies and new societal shifts. Perhaps this is one to try out when researching your next big thing…? Early feedback suggest that people enjoy giving their opinions and can share these with their friends, thus providing you with potential real-time feedback.

The report, which was conducted by Forrester Research Inc. on behalf of Shop.org, the online retailing division of the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, notes that most retailers regard customer ratings and reviews as useful and directly correlated to sales.

And though the report adds that 66% of retailers are unclear about the effect on business of other forms of social marketing, it notes that 58% say the primary benefit of social marketing and social commerce is in listening to and better understanding customers.

Other forms of social marketing and social commerce cited in the report include social product recommendations, product sharing in social networks, e-commerce widgets, customer-generated videos, social shopping sites, online forums and co-browsing.

The report also notes the percentages of online retailers agreeing with the following statements regarding social marketing:

• The return on investment is unclear, 66%
• The primary ROI is in listening to and understanding customers, 58%
• We’re pursuing it now to avoid being latecomers, 54%
• We’re pursuing it because of the buzz surrounding it, 50%
• We use a specific set of metrics to measure social marketing initiatives, 36%
• It has helped to grow our business, 34%
• We’re pursuing it because our competitors are, 28%
• We’re pursuing it to satisfy senior management, 15%

The report also notes the percentages of online retailers who have used the following methods to measure the effect of social marketing:

• Click-throughs to a retail site from a social marketing tool like Twitter or Facebook, 60%
• Growth rate of followers on sites like Twitter and Facebook, 57%
• Total subscribers to blog or social network page, 53%
• Unique visitors to social marketing tool, 42%
• Improved search engine optimization, 38%
• Requested action taken (i.e., video views, contest entries, coupons downloaded), 33%
• Insight and market research findings, 31%
• Time spent on social tool, such as reading a blog, 26%
• Percentage of products with multiple customer reviews, 25%
• Number of referrals from customers, 24%
• Media buzz generated, 24%
• Return visits to social tool, 21%
• Not yet measuring social media initiatives, 17%
• Number of installed widgets (i.e., desktop links to e-commerce site), 11%

The concept of “social” shopping / commerce has been circulating for a few years, but the idea has yet to reach critical mass. Given how intertwined the purchase consideration process and social media have become, it is surprising that social shopping / commerce still seems to be in its infancy. So, if we aren’t yet ready for social commerce, what do we expect as we use social media to support our purchase decisions?

We expect to be inspired (awareness) – the April launch of Facebook’s Universal Like button and social shopping sites like Kaboodle and Woot! enhance our awareness of brands, products and services we didn’t even realize we even wanted…or needed. They allow us to browse brands and products without being tied down to any one retailer and importantly, they give us a window into what our friends think are must haves.

We expect deals (engagement) – you may not be a coupon clipper, but it’s hard to say no to a good deal. Social media has proven itself to be an effective channel for finding and sharing deals, promotions and coupons. The lure of exclusivity has buoyed deal-a-day services and made them increasingly attractive to retailers, manufacturers and social media platforms (e.g. Twitter recently announced its @EarlyBird service which will share time-bound deals from participating advertisers, Amazon acquired deal-a-day site Woot! in June). In fact, the promise of exclusive deals tends to be a key motivator behind why consumers “like” brands on Facebook or follow them on Twitter.

We expect a megaphone (advocacy) – social media gives us a platform to talk about the brands we love and the ones we want to make sure our friends avoid. A happy customer is a brand’s best marketer.

We may be conditioned to click on deals through Facebook for, say, a TV, but we aren’t yet fully on board with making our purchases through social media platforms. How do you think social commerce will evolve and when do you think making transactions within social media will be commonplace? Will mobile be the catalyst?

However, for the B2B space it is a much tougher proposition. After all, many B2B organizations do not have locations that are open to the public. A financial services firm is unlikely to be interested in rewarding a visitor for becoming mayor of their offices. They might, however, want to be a part of the location revolution and include it in their marketing mix, but how?

The challenge here is to resist the “buzz” and understand the “why”. Why would this be an appropriate marketing channel for a lender, software company or office supply company? All too often, organizations feel that they should be “doing” something in social media and every time some new platform comes along they feel the pressure to add that to their mix.  While understandable, it is also very unrealistic. Not all businesses are suited to all forms of marketing, and especially not all forms of social media.

The most common point of entry at present for B2B organizations is through events. These give them a temporary physical location that can be “checked into” and that they can build a reward system around. However, given the short term nature of events, they have to be well thought through and ensure that the data captured around the rewards and check-ins are maximized in a way that benefits the organization.

In the past, this type of event marketing might have been as simple as a fishbowl draw, where attendees dropped their business card into a bowl and got the opportunity to win a prize (iPad anyone?). Now the same type of draw can be operated with broader messaging behind it. By creating a “game” that has people checking in and adding a specific comment to be qualified to enter, an organization can leverage attendees’ sharing habits to promote their company message, and all without additional cost.

Another method of entering any of these spaces, and Social Location Sharing/marketing in particular, is to expand the vision. By altering the point of entry to the process, many B2B organizations can find opportunities that they would have otherwise overlooked. For example, an office supply company might not have an offering directly to the end users of Social Location Sharing tools, but their customers might.

Obviously, this is only the briefest of overviews of how the B2B space can leverage social location marketing, but the opportunities are definitely there, and for those willing to make a few leaps, so are the rewards.

1) Integrate the Facebook Like button to any product description page.

This is a must for any e-Commerce site. It is easy to implement, and an instant win.

2) Advertise on Facebook to drive traffic directly to your product pages.

3) Use Facebook Login for your e-Commerce site

Facebook Login is a great way to authenticate people on your eCommerce site. This functionality does not only enable the easy sharing of thoughts and likes on your products, but is also a great win if you want to increase your user base fast. It is an ease of use for visitors in order to quickly login to your site in one click.

4) Build your eCommerce application on Facebook

Companies are planning to develop their own applications on Facebook. An e-Commerce application on Facebook has three major advantages,

• Presence: Your customer is already there (They don’t come to your web site every day)
• Ease of use:  Making it simple for your customers  to shop, “fish where the fish are”.
• Trust: People may well have less trust issues on the Facebook space than your company-specific domain.

If you have not already applied social commerce tactics for your company or are resisting social commerce reality, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We can help smooth you into the process by assisting in setting up your Facebook presence!

Traditional advertising is not going to go away any time soon. TV viewing is rising in some segments of society, and its ability to engage is unparalleled. But mobile advertising, although multinationals have dipped their toe in the water, innovations such as Apple’s iAds, is set to herald a new era.

Companies such as Sears and Nissan, have already committed to spending $60m this year in Apple’s iAds. Adverts released by Apple have video and interactive components, which it hopes will combine the emotional punch of television commercials with the engagement of the best internet pitches.

Mobile devices now vastly outnumber fixed-line broadband connections. Mobile ad spending is forecast by PwC to more than triple from $2.2bn last year to $7.7bn in 2014, 0r 7.4% of total online marketing.

Consumers’ increasing appetite for mobile applications is driving online retailers to speed up their mobile marketing initiatives. Most retailers either already have or are developing a mobile strategy. One in five boasts having a fully-implemented mobile strategy in place already.

It’s imperative for online retailers to stay on top of what their customers want and these days it’s all about the mobile phone. Mobile commerce has tremendous potential and will no doubt grow to become a significant part of overall sales volume in years to come. whether to increase customer satisfaction, grow their brand or drive traffic and sales, online retailers are in this game to stay.

Mobile investment is modest now, but we see that it will pick up in the future, especially among the biggest brands that have already invested significant amounts in their mobile operations.

Have you bought anything from your mobile device yet? How would you feel about mobile advertising? Intrusive or useful.