Check out Brizzly the web-based Twitter client. It’s a new way to view content from Twitter and Facebook in a clear, simple way
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Foursquare is one of the next big things on the web. Yesterday Foursquare shared details of features it plans to release to help local businesses use checkin data. Traffic to the location-based social networking service, has tripled since November 2009, says Hitwise quoted in the Telegraph. If none of this makes sense then read on…..
What is Foursquare?
It’s a place to review businesses, it’s a game and its a city guide. It’s competitive, addictive and fun to use. It’s 50% friend-finder, 30% social city guide, 20% nightlife game.
Foursquare has recently implemented location history data. What this means is that it goes back in time to show you who you were with at a certain venue when you were there. Why is it interesting? It means you look back and see not only where you were on a certain date, and who you were there with. A social timeline bridging life and virtual reality capturing memories and events .
This could have huge implications for insight into people’s behaviour, social networking and building communities. Trouble is how do you convince your friends to use Foursquare or other location-based services? Why not text or bell the mobile?
What are the benefits?
- There are numerous add-on services and applications (see OneForty for the definitive list)
- Duct Tape marketing explain why Foursquare is important to small businesses
- The map overlays have huge potential to join up social networking and physical locality. E.g You can checkout who’s in a bar in real time before you even enter
- It provides an opportunity for businesses to have an easy-to-use loyalty program
see also Mashables local face-off yelp, foursquare, gowalla
What other tools are like Foursquare?
Brightkite
Brightkite is the simple way to keep up with friends and places. It lets you see where all your friends are, so you can spend more time with them. You can also discover places in your local area and meet other locals along the way. You can share to social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
Good points
When logged in you can see other users that are around you.
Downside
However users are more likely to find spammers and bots making autoposts.
Yelp
Yelp has a mix of reviews from restaurants, shops, events to yoga classes and local schools. If it exists in the real world, you can review it on Yelp.
Downsides
Many reviews (esp London) are written by tourists not locals so you don’t get the insiders view. As more Londoners join this may even itself out. Wouldn’t it be great if London taxi drivers with ‘the knowledge’ signed up!
User recommendations and reviews of where to go and what to do. Find the best shops, restaurants, bars, nightlife, gigs, services and more. One of the great things about Qype is qualifying for a Qype ninja. A little cuddly thing that my 9-year-old would die for.
Unfortunately the reviews on obtaining one of these goodies are not good which is not exactly great coming from a reviews focused tool. They are hard to get hold off and you need to have ninja fingers to write enough reviews to get one. Still no pain, no gain. Visit the Qype blog at http://en.blog.qype.com/
Good points
Reviews written in different languages. Qype supports (or permits) five languages.
Gowalla
Gowalla is a location-based travel game that rewards you for visiting both everyday and extraordinary places with your Palm webOS, iPhone, Android or Nokia N900 device. Check out all the Gowalla Videos, the Gowalla FAQ and Blog.
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This post updates an earlier post entitled Yammer in Local Government – an experiment in internal social media.
Yammer is like an internal discussion board where anybody can post a response to a message. It helps people exchange ideas and send real-time messages in small or large groups. The “enterprise-Twitter” can also help to break down departmental walls, flatten the communications structure of the organisation and help people get more done by being better connected.
Yammer, Inc., the leader in Enterprise Micro blogging and Real-time Communications, recently announced the availability of Yammer Communities. Yammer Communities provides secure, business-to-business micro blogging covering a multitude of inter-company communication needs.
Brighton & Hove City Council tried Yammer as an experiment in internal social networking. The freemium Yammer site initially grew very quickly and currently has 132 members. Some groups of workers have formed in the web, marketing and contracts team. One of the issues has been sustaining the momentum and exploiting Yammers many features as an internal communications channel and productivity tool.
There is great potential for internal communications to develop, educate users and evangelise enterprise blogging throughout the workforce. For example to target communications to particular staff groups or in emergency situations e. bad weather. The experiment may have proved more successful if it was targeted at staff who work in different locations e.g. refuse or social services staff or through mobile devices.
To fully utilise the potential of Yammer it needs to be led by internal communications with a focus on communication, collaboration and knowledge management. Yammer can be integrated with SharePoint 2007 for example. Over 60,000 companies and organizations already use Yammer to improve internal communication and collaboration. Communities will allow users to create secure invite-only private networks for people outside email domains (i.e. other agencies, councils, citizens)
Yammer’s freemium business model encourages viral grass roots adoption, but the most successful company networks have a business owner who sponsors the initiative and a project mgr that works with Yammer direct on a phased deployment internally. Another idea is setting up a private group for executives and senior mgmt to interact on Yammer, which turns them into advocates and gets them thinking of the various use cases.
This type of initiative should be lead and sponsored by Internal Communications to make it successful. Connecting remote offices, crisis communication, flattening the organization, mobile access, group collaboration, learning and development.
Communities can be used for external communication (customers, partners, etc.). There are many admin/security options for organizations who want more control. Yammer was recently mentioned in the NY Times, Economist, Forbes, and Business Week.
- The New York Times – (http://nyti.ms/5ppoSD ) – January 16, 2010
- The Economist – (http://bit.ly/asdWgn ) – January 28, 2010
- Forbes – ( http://bit.ly/b6TaqE ) – February 18, 2010
- BusinessWeek – (http://bit.ly/96N6K4 ) – February 18, 2010
Case studies
- SunGaurd CEO: The Flatter, The Better (NY Times Article)
- Qualcomm: A Case Study for Microblogging (Slideshare Presentation)
- Deloitte: Watching a Yammer Network Explode (Blog Post)
- DC.gov: Massive Storms Don’t Halt D.C IT Ops (Computer World)
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Business Link supported by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) hosted today’s “What’s Stopping You?” an event at the Thistle Hotel in Brighton designed for every woman interested in working for herself or who has started a business in the last year in South East England. Working for yourself could be easier than you think! The FREE one-day event delivered expert advice, information and inspiration needed to make working for yourself work for you.
We were treated to entertaining and insightful presentations from highly successful business women across the South East. The event kicked off with a punchy and practical performance by the inspirational Julia Chanterey (nice suit) of The Joy of Business. Julia’s message was simple but persuasive …
Hard work + confidence + the right thing = success
- have confidence
- be prepared
- be the best at what you do
- have a great business plan
- get resources to make it work
- Don’t be put off by the scary things – they don’t hurt half as much as you think!
The networking sessions hooked me up with Caia a colourful visual artist who could be a friend for life, Joanna Zara Millenary – hat was just gorgeous! Della Minett Woodward – an editor with flair, Sarah Turner a talented hypnotherapist at Strategic Therapy. In the interval I had a spookily accurate session with Gill Routledge of Soul Colours a consultant offering colour analysis and Aura-Soma, a holistic colour therapy.
The ‘She Means Business’ programme included more inspirational presentations on finances, accounting, PR, design & marketing from :-
- Carole Jordan – Business Heads
- Paula Seagar – Natural PR
- Caron Howe – More Food
- Beverley Gray – Cleaning Contractors
- Rachel Boyle – ABC Magazine
- Fiona Humberstone – Flourish Studios
Returning home humming ‘walking in the air’ (with a bag full of info and a free marketing book) I felt I’d grown two inches. All in all, a highly recommended event for any woman who wants to start a business and network with other kindred spirits. Power to the sisterhood!
Find out more…
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/
Support to help you startup
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Fascinating series on the Beeb at the moment. The Virtual Revolution charts two decades of change since the invention of the World Wide Web, weighing up the huge benefits and the downsides. Scientists are trying to understand the impact the World Wide Web is having on our brains. They want to know whether people who use the web a lot are different to people who don’t.
By taking the Web Behaviour Test, you will discover which species of Web Animal you are. The Beeb need as many people as possible to complete the what web animal are you experiment. Share your web animal with your friends on Facebook and invite them to take part.
I found out i’m a Web Ostrich which is nice to know 
. While you are on site check out the original uncut interviews with inventor of the web Tim Berners Lee, Stephen Fry, Jimmy Wales, and many others. Enjoy!
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There are various conflicting definitions and blog posts on what digital planning is about. Sagittarius digital say digital planning is…
“the art of taking a brand, product or service and getting it in the right place, at the right time, to the right people with the right promotion. ”
My understanding is that a digital planner looks at the many digital communication channels available and provide recommendations to suit customer preferences and business objectives. Think t-mobile dance - genius!
Why do you need to digitally plan? Well…. if you don’t know why you are doing something or whether its making an impact, you could be wasting a lot of energy and time.
Digital planning is very much like marketing planning. It’s seeing the marketing mix in a different light. Dave Chaffey calls this the marketing re-mix in his book e-marketing excellence. The marketing world is moving from the traditional marketing 4 p’s (price, product, place, promotion) to integrated online marketing communications. It’s giving customers a choice but steering them towards the most effective online channels.
Online planning starts with customer insight, it’s the same process you would carry out for an offline marketing campaign. Nowadays, the online and offline elements of a campaign are being integrated into the planning cycle from the start in a blended, seamless reality.
By understanding the value of communications through appropriate channels, planners have begun adapting the media mix, focusing on digital channels as they are often more cost effective.
Digital planning activties could include :-
- analysis of your objectives and goals
- indentifying target audiences
- listening to and observing actual online behaviour
- holding focus groups of prospective customers
- understanding people’s motivations – including psychology
- thinking about user experience
- looking at brand experience – e.g through online reviews
- looking at conversion rates – how people behave online e.g through Google Analytics
- keeping on top of new media developments
- spotting the next technology and working out how it can be beneficial
From this research, the solution for identifying the right channels for your brand, product or customer can be crafted.
References
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Word clouds, tag clouds and tweet cloud tools I’m a big fan of creative visualisation – as a result i tend to ’see’ the bigger picture which i consider an asset. That’s probably why i am fascinated by word clouds and view them (like tasteful graffiti) as a bit of an art form. They also have great potential for e-learning and for different target audiences, for example people with learning disabilities, who prefer communication through images e.g makaton . Please comment if you know any case studies or have any other suggestions for how these could be used for social good?. Here are some links to resources to play around with – have fun! 
- Tweetcloud – Tweet Cloud is a service that lets you generate a cloud of the words your tweets mostly contain.
- Tagcrowd - Create your own tag cloud from any text to visualize word frequency. Enter the URL for a web page you wish to visualize e.g http://www.bbc.co.uk. Paste (or type) the text you want to visualize into the text box or upload a text file to visualise. You can create an image of the text cloud by taking a screenshot (print screen on your keyboard) or printing to a PDF. Here are screenshot instructions for Windows.
- Wordle –Wordle analyzes words – it’s a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide whether that be a blog, blog feed, or any other web page. Just type in a list of words to make a cloud. Although this is great fun, it’s also thought provoking and makes you think about the keywords that surfers and bloggers may use to find your information. Wordle lets you choose the font, color and orientation of the word cloud and even lets you print it. It also has a cute gallery of word clouds where you can see word clouds generated by other users.
- Tagul – Each tag in Tagul cloud is linked with an URL and is “clickable” that enables visitors to use it for navigation. Maybe useful for web interface design.
- Wordsift – If you place text in it, it gives definitions and thesaurus connections. Great for students and search engine optimisation.
- Lovely charts - Not specifically related to clouds but a very useful free tool for creating diagrams and flowcharts that are indeed lovely.
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If you are a small business you and are not listed on Google you should be using Google Local Business Center. Increasingly mobile users are plugging into Google Maps to find local businesses. Optimizing your web site for local search is an extremely important part of your marketing mix.
The Local Business Center gives you control over the way your business listing appears in Google Search and Maps. It’s results pop up in Google search especially when you type in a local area. Here’s an excellent tip from Duct Tape Marketing on how to tweak the categories on your listing to enhance your profile – but don’t over do it!
See the official Google Local Business Center video below for how to get listed…
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Hi! I advise small businesses, (social) entrepreneurs on how to develop effective, common sense online marketing strategies. 
