Marketing Talk

This is post number six in a series of posts from Online Marketing Strategist Tommy Walker. If you have questions, leave a comment here or visit with Tommy on Twitter at@tommyismyname.

Are you a brick and mortar business owner?

Have you claimed your Place on Facebook yet?

If you answered no, I would like to take the next few minutes to give you a crash course education on one of the biggest free opportunities that you’re missing out on.

Mobile Facebook users are doing the heavy lifting for you.

There are plenty of reasons why you should be on Facebook, but if you’re a local business owner, Facebook Places should be number one.

Why?

People are already using it. Where 50% of Facebook’s users are mobile, a good percentage of them are creating and checking themselves and their friends into places in the real world.

Most businesses have to do virtually nothing to get themselves started.

When a user “checks-in” to your location, a story is automatically uploaded to theirs and their friend’s walls saying they at your business. If your Place isn’t already in Facebook’s database, most users will create the place just so they can check in. A check in gives your business that social proof that is so vital in today’s economy (more on that in a minute)

Most users will “Like” the Place Pages they check into, giving that  Place Page permission publish updates to that person’s News Feed. If you know how to stand out in the News Feed, you will have a great chance at getting people to interact with you not just online, but in your store as well. Note: You can only publish to fans News Feed if the Place Page is linked to your Fan Page. Fortunately claiming a Place Page takes about 5 minutes.

If you haven’t claimed your Place Page, you’re neglecting interaction with your most valuable customers- people “checking in” are physically at your location and promoting you to their friends. Don’t you think they might want to hear from you on a regular basis?

Facebook Places makes Deal delivery brainless.

If you aren’t familiar with Facebook Deals, Deals is an extension of Places that allows businesses to reward people for “checking in”, offering a number of “reward” systems, such as a loyalty program that acts as a virtual punch card, leaving a punch every time a user “checks in” and issuing a reward (such as a coupon) by the company. No punch cards to remember, just check in and that’s it.

This sort of hyper local, mobile experience can do some really incredible things for a business. Not only is the user getting rewarded for “checking in” but that checkin also gets published to their friends News Feed, offering that social proof that businesses are so desperately looking for in today’s online landscape.

Are you missing the two critical pieces of marketing?

If you’re running a brick and mortar business and you’re not rewarding people for “checking in” you’re easily missing two critical pieces of your marketing, customer acquisition and customer retention.

The acquisition comes from the ever increasingly important “Social proof” element we talked about earlier. Your customer’s friends seeing “John Smith checked in at (insert your business here)” lets people know that your business is a cool place to spend money. That check in acts as a vote and shows others that your business has value and it’s ok to spend money with you. Where people have become so acutely aware of their financial situations, that check in could mean the difference between gaining a new customer or experiencing another missed opportunity.

Likewise rewarding people for “checking in” gives people a reason to come back and ultimately continue to promoting your business. By saying “buy 5 crepes, get 1 half off” you’re giving a customer a reason to come back. You’re also further solidifying your chances of getting those 5 “check ins”, which should not be taken lightly.

The average user on Facebook has 180 friends, a good majority of them being people they went to high school with and other people whom they are locally connected. By rewarding that person to “check in” multiple times, you’re significantly increasing your chances of being seen by those 180 new people.

And that’s only by encouraging only 1 person to check in.

So what are you waiting for?

Stop neglecting your customers, and start rewarding those who willingly promote you.

Even if you don’t link your Place Page to your Fan Page, you can still reward people for doing something they’re already doing by hooking them up with Deals.

As a side note, By using Deals you’re also saving a couple of trees and a few orders of punch cards.

Look at you making people happy and saving the Earth and stuff.

Film critic David Edelstein made some pretty interesting comments about the Oscars this year. Most interesting was that Edelstein said that he knew Natalie Portman would win the Oscar. What Edelstein basically insinuated is that Portman, like Christian Bale and many other actors and actresses, are starting to act, seemingly, specifically so they can win the Oscar. Throughout Black Swan, for example, Edelstein says that you never forget that you are watching Natalie Portman act. You never forget how much weight she lost for the part. You never disappear into the story. In other words, Edeslstein is hypothesizing that actors are acting for the rewards, not because they find acting rewarding.

The Blog Rewards Program

It’s easy to fall into a similar trap in the blogosphere. You start out thinking, “Good grief, if I could just get 1 comment on a post telling me that what I’m saying is worthwhile, I’d be happy.” The gift of sharing your thoughts is enough to make you smile. But eventually, you start noticing that really powerful blog posts get the blogger certain things. You maybe get noticed by a really influential person. Maybe you get asked to write a book. Maybe you get retweeted so much that Twitter breaks. Suddenly, blogging as a craft, as an opportunity, doesn’t mean as much.

Are you blogging for rewards instead of for the love of it?

Have you noticed any of the following patterns developing?

• You think of a topic that would be helpful to your readers, but you don’t feel it’ll get a lot of attention, so you opt not to write it

• You scrap a lot of posts you write because you don’t feel like they’ll get retweeted much

• You write about topics you don’t know a whole lot about because they’re getting a lot of attention

• You get depressed about a post if it doesn’t get a whole lot of attention, even if the comments that you get are great

If these thought processes are running through your mind, you are paradoxically headed for less success, not more.

Rewards are not the answer

Just like acting, really good blogging hides the muppet strings, if you will. Readers will forget that you are in this competitive marketplace, that you are trying to do this that and the other thing. They just know that you are a good, reliable resource who gives them information that helps make THEM better.

If you start blogging to get more attention or whatever else you consider a potential reward, you will be dismayed at the results you’ll start to see. Here is a small taste of what can happen in this scenario.

• Your readers will quickly realize that they are no longer your priority

• Your readers will also realize that as a resource, your information is playing second fiddle to tools that get you noticed

• You will never be content (and that’s only a partially intended play on words). A post that does well will just make you want to write a post that does better.

• Positive feedback from your community will diminish in meaning as you become more hungry for your rewards

• You’ll put so much pressure on yourself that blogging will no longer be rewarding on any level and you’ll burn out

There is just one reward to shoot for

As a blogger, you have a job. That is to be a valuable resource for your community, and even for the community at large. If people are asking you questions about a topic and they are expecting you to write about it, you have an obligation to do so, even if you know that the topic is not the kind of thing that gets a lot of attention.

Here’s something that will really mess with your head. The more you blog for your community, the more rewards you will collect, and the less you will care about those random achievements. When it’s about your community, their happiness, their comments about how helpful you are, are all you need.

Which way do you want to go?

So what will it be? Will you, like our modern actors today, put aside your art and blatantly shoot for the gold statue? Or will you keep the spotlight on the community of people who read your blog and who depend on you for good, solid information? Which path are you on right now?

Let’s talk about it.

Image by Claudio Jule. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/kwod

This great contribution is by my friend Raul Colon. Raúl J. Colón is Principal of CIMA IT Solutions Corp. , an IT Consulting & Social Marketing Firm, which helps small-to-medium sized organizations in implementing adequate business processes to meet their IT and Social Marketing business goals. I sometimes also call him Kitchen Table Talks “pet” 🙂 Follow him on Twitter @rj_c!

I have been using foursquare for a good amount of time. Foursquare offers badges for different levels of customers which initially got me interested in playing along (How can Geo-Location Services Help Your Business?. Although the past few months I have been working more from home, while I am traveling I am consistently checking-in on foursquare at most locations.

I have seen how people have caught up with using foursquare but it surprises me that more venues have not moved as quickly in creating an experience via foursquare.

Not as many businesses sign up for an offer on foursquare but the few that do sometimes don’t create the experience their customers who are foursquare users are looking for. I remember reading @chrisbrogan’s “GO MAP YOURSELF” and understanding the difference in feeling like the real mayor of the venue or just being the foursquare virtual mayor.

Why offer your customers a foursquare experience?

Foursquare offers major visibility because every check in automatically reaches the network of the person that checked in. You might be able to put your Business name in front of hundreds or thousands with very little effort.

It offers various and flexible ways of promoting your services, products, and mainly your locations. You can create virtual loyalty cards, give a bonus or upgrade on an item, boost traffic on slow days, create an incentive for 1^st time visitors, create an incentive for repeat visitors, give out something unique, or even motivate people to bring their friends along.

How to enhance or create the experience

Educating your staff about the offers is a great start. I have had various experiences in which I have checked in for a foursquare offer at a few restaurants and I get a confused look from the waitress not understanding they have a foursquare offer. Educating your staff about offers is the most important part of the experience.

Greet those who checked in on your location and thank them for checking in. For example if you are in the restaurant industry have your hostess or manager verify who has checked in and take a look at their avatars or pictures have them greet them.

Remind them and apply the offer before they ask. This will create a completely different experience from having to tell the waitress or haggle with the manager to get was offered. If you are not able to identify the person via their avatar go ahead and send them a tweet thanking them for there visit and reminding them about the offer.

Know your foursquare mayor. ;[I have been the mayor of many venues in which I have not been recognized being a repeat customer and holding the title of Mayor on Foursquare.] Adding the foursquare part meant I was promoting their business to my community and networks on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.  Once you have done your research, make sure you give him some extra perks and teach your staff to recognize whom that person is. For those customers who don’t use foursquare, make sure you also show gratitude with offers for supporting and promoting your business.

No matter what tools you use online or offline. If your business is actively promoting foursquare make sure they are really making your foursquare mayor feel like he is royalty. Creating a unique experience for those that support your business should be in every business plan.

Any other suggestions on creating or enhancing your customer’s experience using Foursquare?

I saw a post over the weekend that really had me thinking I was living in a Monty Python film. Here’s the jist of what it was about.

Someone made a tweet.

Another person saw the tweet and called the first person out because they felt something was wrong with the tweet.

So then, according to this post, a third person called out the second person, saying they really shouldn’t have called out the first person.

The post itself was kind of calling out all 3 people.

Really? Are we all on a playground and really interested in pushing, shoving, and then telling on each other? Um, like, totally yuck.

So, that’s it. I’m calling you out.

Why “calling out” is detrimental

Apart from the fact that I generally hate the phrase “calling out” (I don’t know why, this hatred is irrational), there are some really good reasons not to engage in this “calling out” behavior online. Here are just a few.

• If you “call out” people a lot, your profile is going to look like just a bunch of snipey, snarky comments. Now, if you’re going for that, I don’t want to stand in your way. But first impressions and all that…

• If you keep calling out the same person, people are going to assume that you are feeling a little green. Not nauseous (although maybe), but envious. Even if you have the greatest points in the world, if you keep picking at the same person in a public venue, you will start looking pouty to other people.

• People will start becoming afraid of talking to you because they don’t want to say something that will cause you to call them out. People are unaware of your call-out boundaries, you see.

And now, ways to discuss rather than call out

This is not meant to be a muzzle. I’m not placing a mask over your face reminiscent of Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. I don’t even have such a mask, if you want the truth. I fully believe that most things can be debated. Is the sky blue? Eh, I don’t know. I see it as aqua. See? But there are ways to debate in a civil fashion and then there is the kind of icky, immature, slightly irritating “calling out” methodology.

So, how can you debate a point with someone so that other people can learn what you are trying to teach without you throwing pie in someone’s face? Well, here are some ideas.

• “I just saw your tweet and am wondering why you approached it that way. Care to share? You can DM me if you want.”

• “I had heard that tweeting the way you just did is not considered a best practice. What is your objective in tweeting that way?”

• “Hey, I just noticed your tweet and I think you may have forgotten to….”

See? Isn’t that just as good as listening to a CD of the ocean or practicing some Yoga and meditation? The calmness of it all just will wash over your Twitter stream, and everyone will not only lower their respective blood pressures but they will also learn (or ask you to expand upon) your point.

What a great deal!

And that’s not all

You may think I’m offering you quite a deal here. A calm Twitter stream, helping your followers learn things, and looking all grown up all in one fell swoop? What could possibly be added to this great deal?

Well, if you approach someone you disagree with from a standpoint of wanting to learn and teach, you might actually end up developing a relationship of respect or even (wait for it) appreciation. That’s right, building a conversation and then a continuing interaction around an initial disagreement can actually be the foundation for an extremely strong friendship.

Holy cow. What a deal!

The downside

I understand that calling out has a lot of perks. To be completely transparent, here are some downsides of refraining from the “call-out” methodology.

• You may not get to present yourself as the top authority on everything ever

• Your traffic may not spike as much as it does when you call someone out

• You don’t get to take your angst out on a person who lives in your computer -a punching bag may be in your future.

• You may not get as much attention in general if you refrain from “calling out” people who have big Social Media followings. A puppy may be in your future.

And there are probably other downsides that I’m just not thinking of. You’ll have to weigh the pros and cons, I guess, and decide in which direction you wish to travel.

So what do you think?

Can we maybe move away from the “I’m calling you out” end of the spectrum and maybe move a bit more towards grown-up conversation? I’m not asking you to use phrases like “My respected colleague” on Twitter. I mean, I’m not that much of an idealist. But maybe kind of inching towards that way, it could be nice, right? Maybe?

Weigh in on this issue, woncha please? I promise, I won’t call you out.