Geolocation | PlaceWise Media

April 11, 2011 By Taj Moore

twentyeleven

If you are a student of marketing or advertising, or an “old-school” marketer looking to get savvy in the “new-school” ways of social media, this post is for you.

Last week Greg & Taj gave a one-hour presentation to the Advertising class at University of Colorado, Auraria Campus. Greg Hickman is product manager for mobile solutions and Taj Moore is product manager for social media. What did we have to say to the advertisers of tomorrow? We went through both mobile and social marketing strategy & tactics; we made sure to make most of the presentation a conversation in which there were a lot of breaks to respond to questions as well as ask some questions of our own. As you’ll see from the presentation deck and the resources we’ve provided below, there are really two main takeaways. You kind of had to be there, but hopefully you can pick up the themes in our slideshow.

The Takeaways

If we have only two things we want you to walk away with … here they are:

As an advertiser, brand or business you must go where your customers go and spend their time.
Marketing is no longer a monologue; it’s a dialogue. Brands and businesses have to start listening to the conversations that are taking place and participate.

Presentation Slides

Mobile social mf_classlesson

View more presentations from PlaceWise

Resources

Mashable

Mashable.com pretty much gets its own category. They cover everything good to know about technology and social media.

Facebook

Inside Facebook: this is the best way to stay abreast of developments on Facebook. Facebook Guidebook on Mashable

Email Best Practices

Marketing Sherpa: subscribe to the newsletter to get free access to their latest posts (limited-time for each post). CAN-SPAM Compliance: it’s not hard to be compliant; just make sure you understand the law.

Design Thinking

52 Weeks of UX: for understanding at least one perspective on how good designs are made and users’ needs are considered in the process. Don’t Make Me Think: for understanding how to design websites to be usable … a must read. Ideation and Design: Luke Wroblewski is the author of two popular web design books and is an advocate for smart mobile interface design. Mobile Tuts+: A tutorial site focused on mobile web and mobile app design and development. Best way to start is to start. 9 Mobile Frameworks to begin Mobile Development: A blog that lists out the popular mobile development frameworks with links to more info. UX Patterns: A library of user interface design.

Marketing Blogs

Seth Godin’s Blog: he wrote many good books on marketing. 50 Mobile Marketing Blogs You Aren’t Reading Yet: Mainly because none of you even use foursquare or have your own blog.

Signal vs. Noise: The blog bye 37 Signals, the makers of the product Basecamp and authors of the book Rework.

Social Media Stats & Infographics

The History of Social Media 101 Social Media Stats To Make Your Spirits Bright and Your Head Spin

People to Follow on Twitter

@garyvee @noahkagan @robwoodbridge @mobilemoxie @ericries @jowyang @mashable @coolhunting

Mobile Marketing Blogs

Mobile Marketer Mobile Commerce Daily Luxury Daily Mobile Beat Fierce Wireless

Author Profiles: Greg Hickman is PlaceWise’s product manager of mobile solutions Greg.Hickman at PlaceWise Dot Com | 720-891-4943 Taj Moore is PlaceWise’s product manager for social media Tai.Moore at PlaceWise Dot Com |720-266-4292 | @tajmf on twitter Where do you see the world of marketing in 5 years?

Facebook Deals: Reward Your Center’s Guests When They Check In

December 6, 2010 By Taj Moore

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At-A-Glance

Recently we told you about Facebook Places, the location-based service that lets you check in to any business or venue from your smart phone, and shows you where your Facebook friends are & what they’re doing. Recently, Facebook released Deals, a new way to connect your center with your guests. Deals let you “reward customers when they check in on Facebook…generate awareness, encourage in-store traffic and build customer loyalty.” The best part about deals? It’s a free service.*

How To Get Started

Creating a deal is easy, but before you do, you will need to claim your Place page. (Click here to download a PDF from Facebook on claiming your Place page.) Once you have claimed your place page, access the deal setup page:

1. Click Edit Page in the upper-right corner.

2. On the left-side navigation, at the bottom, click Deals.

3. Click “Create a Deal for this Page”

When planning your deal, you will have a handful of options to consider. “Deal Summary” is the title of your deal, and “How To Claim” is what your guests will see after claiming the deal. This is the place to be creative with your copy. After that, you will have a number of easy options allowing you to start and end a deal whenever you like, choose how many to give out, and whether people can claim more than once.

One Deal at a Time

Currently, you can only run one deal at a time. You won’t even be able to submit your next deal until the previous one has run its course. With a two-day waiting period to activate deals, you won’t be able to run them back-to-back, so plan accordingly.

Track Those Redemptions

After a guest “claims” a deal, they will still need to come to you to redeem it. Make sure all your staff knows the details of your Facebook Deal and how to track them. Will you be giving away gift cards? Coupons? Specialty items? While Facebook will let you know how many people have claimed a deal (and how many are left), reporting on actual redemptions is up to you. Mallfinder can easily support your redemption process through our profile for guest services, a promotion and loyalty management platform program. Ask your account manager about Facebook Deals and Profile for Guest Services.

Ask The Experts at Mallfinder

Mallfinder has been testing this feature since it launched. Ask us how we can help you manage your first deal.

Learn More from Facebook

Download Facebook’s PDF about Deals.

* Deals is free for businesses right now, but Facebook reserves the right to change that in the future.

Author Profiles: Taj Moore is PlaceWise’s Product Manager for Social Media at PlaceWise.com | 720-266-4292 | @tajmf on twitter

Facebook Launches Places

September 20, 2010 By Taj Moore

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Recently Facebook launched their new location-based feature called “Places.” Now you can check in to any location from your smart phone and let your Facebook friends know where you are & what they’re doing. When you go to Places in your iPhone app, you can also see who’s nearby.

Here are the important things to know about Facebook Places:

This is serious fun.

If Places sounds like a familiar feature, that’s because Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp have been doing the same thing for a while now. Foursquare lets you become the “mayor,” Yelp crowns you “duke” and Gowalla gives you “pins” when you check in enough times. On the other hand, Facebook just lets you be you…no badges, no titles, no games. Simply connecting people with their friends is Facebook’s goal. (At least, that’s all they’re saying about it today.)

It’s everywhere.

Over 150 million members access Facebook from their mobile devices, dwarfing Foursquare (3M), Gowalla (<1M), and Yelp (1.5M) by huge margins. While only a small percentage of Facebook users check in to Places today, it’s clearly easier to sell existing members on a new feature than it is to sign up a new user. Using Places to deliver rewards and incentive will drive mainstream adoption rate of this feature in the coming year.

All roads lead to Facebook Places.

Here’s the kicker: Facebook works with the other check-in services. Facebook launched Places in partnership with Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and Booyah so that users can automatically check-in to Facebook when using any of these services. It’s a win-win for everyone as check-in services become more ubiquitous.

It’s more private than people think.

Facebook has a history of pushing the edge of the envelope when it comes to privacy and enabling people to share their lives online. They have come under fire for nearly every new feature released since the Newsfeed. Places is no exception. While critics express consternation at the thought of their location data being made public, this truly is an opt-in feature. Only members who choose to use Places will reveal their location, and only their friends will see it. As the public grows more accustomed to Places and privacy settings, more people will accept embrace these location-based services.

One more thing: Places and Pages are not a good combo…yet.

It is possible to link your center’s Page with its listing in Places, but we don’t recommend it … yet. Facebook has not universally enabled the ability to merge Places and Pages, nor have they stabilized the process or design. As the MGH blog points out, “Merging a Place with a Page will DRASTICALLY change the layout of your Facebook Page.” Mallfinder believes that Facebook Places will soon dominate the location check-in market. We are exploring the integration of Pages, Places, mall loyalty programs and our SMS programs. We’re bullish on the future of location-based services and see great things happening to promote your center.

If you are interested in learning more about Facebook Places and our strategy to use it, contact your Mallfinder account representative, or Taj Moore.

Author Profile:

Taj Moore is PlaceWise’s Product Manager for Social Media at PlaceWise.com |720-266-4292 | @tajmf on twitter