Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

Gowalla 3.0: All-In-One Check Ins Are Here

By Allie Townsend on December 2, 2010

Yes, you can now check in to your Foursquare account with your Gowalla App.

Will I stop opening both my Foursquare AND Gowalla Apps on my iPhone now when I want to check in somewhere and just use Gowalla's nicer-looking new interface instead? Or will I be lured back to Foursquare? Or will I simply gravitate towards only using my Facebook app and just check in there where I have a larger base of relationships? Maybe once Facebook Deals arrive in Canada and if Facebook can give me the option of also checking in to Foursquare and Gowalla then I'll let Facebook have a chance at being my one geo location app that rules them all. Until then I'll continue to open the Gowalla app and be tempted to try to remember what my foursquare email/password is so I can skip opening Foursquare all together.

As a social media marketer I love to see competition growing amongst the social networks and to see an increasing number of people learning about location based games and checkins and deals. What's your favorite location based application? Have you claimed your business in Foursquare and Facebook? Need help figuring out how to use social media marketing to promote yourself or your business? Contact me today for a free 30 minute phone consultation at http://stirsolutions.com/consultation

Sep 8, 2010

As location-based services have emerged as compelling ways for businesses to interact with potential customers, there have been a flux of marketing and social media platforms that help set up campaigns. Context Optional, SnackSquare, Geotoko, Sprout Social and a number of other platforms are helping brands run campaigns on services like Foursquare, Twitter, Gowalla and now Facebook Places. PlacePunch is launching its platform in the space, and has already enlisted a well-known brand as a client.

Foursquare has quietly added a new feature to its website this afternoon that you won't want to miss: a new "add to my foursquare" button that can be embedded on any website.

If you own a business or publish a web page about any real-world location, this very simple button will allow visitors to your website to add going to your location as a "to-do" item and receive a push-notification to their phones whenever they check-in anywhere nearby. This small button could deliver a substantial part of the promise of Foursquare - tying together our discoveries online with our experiences offline.

Interested in integrating Foursquare marketing into your online business marketing strategy? Schedule a free social media marketing consultation today at http://stirsolutions.com/consultation

Tuesday, September 07, 2010

We are at the beginning of an exciting new era of location based advertising that integrates geo-location with advertising and apps. Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla, Yelp, BrightKite, Loopt. These are just a few of the geo location based applications that are going to change everything in advertising & marketing.  Location based advertising allows anyone to target potential customers when they are within a certain distance from a select location such as a store, event or meeting place. Start thinking now how your business can integrate its goals, offerings, services and products with location based advertising opportunities.

Have you claimed your business location in Foursquare or Facebook Pages? Do it today. We can help with all of your social media marketing needs. Take control of your social media presence so your existing and potential future clients and customers can accurately find, check in and post about your business.

Most of the attention paid to Facebook Places, the new location feature that the social network launched on Thursday, has focused either on the privacy implications of the service or on the impact it could have on location-based startups such as Foursquare (which some have said they expect to be "crushed" by the new feature). Facebook's real focus with this launch, however, isn't individual users or even Foursquare: Instead, it sees Places as a way into the local business and local advertising markets, and the company with the target painted on its back is Yelp.

Google Places, Facebook Places, Foursquare Location Layers & Mayors. Having trouble keeping up? Will Yelp have to partner with Gowalla or another smaller check-in startup to stay ahead of the million-business-pages-strong Facebook checkin tsunami? What is your business doing to get listed in all of the social network places? Why should you even consider spending your valuable time or marketing dollars on something like this Facebook Places or Yelp or Foursquare advertising or promotion? Drop me a note at brent[at]stirgroup.com and I'd be happy to answer your questions or setp a time for a free phone consultation to discuss your business and whether getting on the Facebook / Yelp / Foursquare / Gowalla check-in marketing train is right for your business, products or services.

ScreenScape

Description

Use ScreenScape to bring foursquare to life in your venue. ScreenScape offers easy-to-operate, inexpensive digital signage for venue operators of all sizes. Foursquare venues can now use ScreenScape to promote their specials on screens inside their venue. The ScreenScape foursquare widget can be used to highlight up-to-the-minute: Mayor Status, Foursquare Specials, Here Now stats, Total Check In stats and more. Take your window cling up a notch! Use a ScreenScape powered display and say to your customers: “Hi, we’re on foursquare and have we got a great deal for you!”

Screenshots

Interested in doing more than having a sandwich board on the sidewalk in front of your business in Vancouver that says "Free drink for Foursquare Mayor" ? Check out http://www.ScreenScape.net . If you're a hotel or restaurant or even a college or university consider how you might be able to take advantage of using screenscape at one or more of your locations. Here's a University of PEI case
http://screenscape.net/upei

At least according to the folks at custom badge site Osnapz, who have created a Foursquare brand leaderboard stack ranking the location based service’s many promiscuous partnerships in terms of follower count, with Zagat in the top slot at 48,136.

For the uninitiated, the leaderboard is a glimpse into some of the more obscure Foursquare brand tie-ins and badges,

What badge do you hold that you're most proud of? Do you even notice or care about your badges? Did foursquare make up the word crunked?

The sign of a successful online service is when spammers get on board. We’ve seen this most prominently in recent times with Twitter, where spam is now part of everyday life. Could Foursquare be next to succumb to an avalanche of spam?

Foursquare spam is still a minor problem but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on. As a service with a fast-growing but relatively small userbase, true spam on Foursquare is difficult to find. However, it is there if you look hard enough.

One person’s innovative marketing strategy is another person’s spam

Starting tonight, local businesses that have created free accounts and claimed their listings on Yelp will receive additional analytics specific to mobile user traffic: the number of times they've shown up in mobile search, the number of times mobile users have clicked to call them by telephone and the number of times users have clicked for directions to their business.

Yelp says that 2 million unique users searched on a mobile Yelp app last month, performing 27% of the total searches the company saw. The entire Foursquare network claims 1.8 million users. Yelp said this Spring that it sees 31 million unique visitors to its website every month.

Did you know Yelp was for more than just restaurants? 15 times bigger than Foursquare. Wow. Check it out today at http://www.yelp.ca in Canada or http://www.Yelp.com for USA or Yelp.co.uk for UK, and about 38 other domains Yelp! Inc. owns. Of course there's always the http://www.yelpsucks.com domain which Yelp was smart enough to purchase themselves -- for use, I suppose, if they start thinking their own service isn't that great. Which do you prefer? Foursquare or Yelp? Would you use a mobile device that allowed you to check in and submit reviews to both Foursquare and Yelp at the same time?

Foursquare is hands-down the leader of the location-based/geo-social marketing space when it comes to hype. But other services are making their marks among both brands and users.

In fact, three of the five location-based services briefed below have more users than Foursquare, which has roughly 1 million. Like Foursquare, most utilize the mobile "check in" system, while rewarding users for registering an arrival at a store, restaurant, or another kind of business. Though, the services are being leveraged in different ways by brand partners.

Here are snapshots of recent campaigns by name brands on five prominent location-based platforms not named Foursquare: