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.

The internet site was started six years ago by Mark Zuckerberg with only a few hundred users.

But in the last 15 months, the company has exploded, adding around eight new users every second.

According to Facebook each of its users have around 130 ‘friends’, and will share 70 different bits of their life with them each month, from pictures, passions, home movies and more.

This year the US social networking website announced that it was simplifying its privacy controls and applying them retroactively, so users can protect the status updates and photos they have posted in the past.

The announcement came amid growing concerns about privacy on the website – most recently complaints that the site forced Facebook users to share personal details with the rest of the online world or have them removed from Facebook profiles altogether.

Congratulations to Facebook. Over 500m users in 6 years..phenomenal!

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%

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!

We think this fusion of loyalty rewards programs with location-aware social networking is smart – and an idea that is worth considering for brands with loyalty or CRM programs.  By ‘checking in’ to hotels, bars, stores and other destinations on location-aware social networks such Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Whrrl, TriOut, Loopt, Yelp and now Twitter, Google and Facebook, customers could earn reward points, bringing them to stores selling your wares, whether online or traditional.

For TopGuest, who are looking to become middleware between location-based services (LBS) and travel/loyalty rewards programs, their service is in preview mode, with a partnership with luxury hotel chain, Standard Hotels (reviews on TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb and Cnet).  What’s appealing about the TopGuest service is it’s simplicity, there are no apps to download, you can just ‘check-in’ with your social networking site and start getting rewards.  Whilst there is a natural fit between an emergent category of location-aware loyalty rewards programs and travel, we think non-travel brands could develop similar services.

Imagine, for example, if Sony ran a contest during the World Cup in which people checking in to bars screening matches on Bravia TVs won reward points for the SonyStore (if they posted images of the match to TwitPic). Or if every time you checked in and picked up a car at Avis, points were added to your Avis First rewards program. Or, whilst following the travel tips of luxury brands on Foursquare such as Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and Coach, you won loyalty points for following the tips and visiting stores.

Pepsi may be a classic brand, but it’s using 21st century tools to collaborate and build relationships with customers. For years, PepsiCo, has had a toll-free number that consumers can call to share product feedback. People call in all the time, and the company considers the line successful.

But when Pepsi brand managers wanted faster and more personal ways to connect with soft drinks enthusiasts, they looked online—and in January 2009, the team started using Twitter to listen to and talk with consumers. (The brand twitters as @Pepsi; the corporation twitters as @PepsiCo.)

“We’re trying to humanize the brand, to make it more accessible to consumers,” says Anamaria Irazabal, brand director for Pepsi. “On Twitter, they can complain or praise, and we can use it as a way to gauge how people are feeling.”

Reaching a new audience

Interestingly, the company finds the conversations on Twitter are different from those on the toll-free line. The callers, says Irazabal, tend to focus on products.

Twitterers, on the other hand, tend to have opinions not just on the products, but on promotions, too. “They feel they’re invited to give their opinions on the how the brand should move forward, and they’re very detailed.”

After the spring 2009 launch of Pepsi Throwback—an initiative that involved packaging with a retro look and real-sugar sweeteners—the company was able to collect quick reactions on Twitter. The company has also found asking questions works well on Twitter. Even something as simple as “How many Pepsis do you drink a day?” generates a lot of chatter.

“Consumers own the brands as much as we do, and they want to share their interests and likes,” says Bonin Bough, director of social and emerging media for PepsiCo. “Twitter is the only medium where we can have a two-way continuous dialog about the brand.”

Fast response

Pepsi brand managers find that Twitter is useful not only for quick responses from consumers but for quick responses from the company, too.

When Michael Jackson—who made high-profile commercials for Pepsi during the 1980s—died suddenly in July, the company used Twitter right away in its “Thank you, Michael” tribute, engaging with fans. “We can move at the speed of culture,” says Irazabal. “Twitter means we can react to something that happens and provide a platform for dialog, That’s the key word. It’s about engagement and building the relationship.”

Dealing with complaints

Although Pepsi finds that nearly all of the conversation on Twitter is very positive, people do sometimes complain via tweets. The brand managers try to address negative comments very quickly.

“We try to gauge the overall tone and type of problem,” says Josh Karpf, manager of social and emerging media for PepsiCo. If somebody doesn’t like a piece of advertising, the company accepts that. But if a person has had a problem with a product or is attacking the company in some way, Pepsi has a process in place to resolve the issue directly. The company responds once in public, and if the person stays negative, they switch to DM and then to email or phone if needed. Internally, a cross-functional team can help solve problems.

The logistics

Pepsi’s assistant marketing manager, Rachel Mills, works closely with two agencies to coordinate the @Pepsi Twitter account. With Mills’s oversight, one agency does the day-to-day twittering. But Mills sees all the tweets, and she gets involved if there’s a problem of any kind. Another agency helps Pepsi develop its digital promotion calendar three months ahead of time.

The calendar—along with guidance on tone of voice and how to respond to certain types of comments—help Pepsi maintain a consistent brand presence across the Web, including its Twitter account.

Finally, Pepsi requires that staffers maintain personal accounts on social media sites—not to interact on behalf of the brand, but to learn about the channels. “It’s very hard to talk to agencies if you have never used the tools,” says Irazabal. “So we ask our teams to use these tools to learn what we can get out of them.”

Measuring success

Like many brands, Pepsi looks at the number of followers it has. But the company also looks at the sentiment of tweets, rating them on a scale from positive to negative. The balance changes from week to week, and the company—which considers itself to be in experimental phase with Twitter—is still figuring out what affects consumer feeling and how to measure it.

Takeaway: “We’ve got a lot ahead of us, and we’re learning every day.” In other words “Have a go”