There are also perks from local businesses for dedicated Four Square users as Mashable reports:

Every popular venue has a mayor — the person who has visited the most in a given time period, and mayors are often entitled to perks like free coffee or sandwiches, depending on the place. At the very least, mayorship equals bragging rights, and many a Foursquare user has been unwittingly caught in an epic mayor battle.

I have to wonder if Four Square goes too far in terms of virtually eliminating your privacy.  On the flip side it bridges the gap between virtual relationships and the real, face-to-face ones that are fast becoming a thing of the past with the advent of Facebook and Twitter.

Foursquare is a social network that actually gets you out of your cave and into the real world with other living, breathing people. Once you nail a few basics down, it can add exponential value to your social life. Oh, and did I mention the free sandwiches?

In this recession, marketers have learned that interactive marketing is more effective, and advertising less effective, per dollar spent. While budgets for online have decreased, they decreased less than other budgets. Six out of ten marketers we surveyed agreed with the statement “we will increase budget for interactive by shifting money away from traditional marketing.” Only 7% said “we have no plans to increase our marketing budget.”

And it means that social “media,” which will account for $716 million this year between social network campaigns and agency fees, will generate $3 billion in five years. And this doesn’t even count displays ads on social networks (which are in the display ads category.) Of all the parts of digital marketing, social network marketing one is poised for the most explosive growth.

How are you marketing your business?  Are your marketing dollars being used most effectively?  Is it time to change with the advertising times?  Get Started with your new interactive marketing and social media plan today!

]]> http://www.virtueagency.com/2009/07/advertising-times-they-are-a-changin/feed/ 0 http://www.virtueagency.com/2009/05/freedom-of-social-speech/ http://www.virtueagency.com/2009/05/freedom-of-social-speech/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 14:57:58 +0000 Tela Kayne http://www.kayneinteractive.com/?p=452 Social Media is a wonderful tool for old friends to reconnect, colleagues and associates to network, and businesses to promote their services and products.  However with the recent Facebook controversy related to the Holocaust denial group being allowed to remain on Facebook, inevitable questions are raised as to where the line should be drawn when it comes to freedom of speech versus terms of use violations.

Due to the power of social media, messages are broadcast to the world quickly and easily.  Personal opinion can be positioned as truth, propaganda can turn into news, and freedom of speech is sometimes used as an excuse for tolerating hateful agendas.  Due to the nature of social networking, the wrong “speech” could turn into broad scale hate-mongering.

We live in a country that provides us with great freedoms and people should be able to say whatever they choose even if it’s hurtful to others. However, it’s unfortunate that technology provides those with a hurtful intent a forum on which to spread offensive messages.  Which raises the question…are social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook responsible for keeping offensive content at bay?   To what extent do you feel they are responsible?  Facebook bans pornography…by allowing the Holocaust denial group to remain on their site, is Facebook sending the message that pornography is worse than hate speech?

Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

It’s been recently reported by the leading online social media news provider, Mashable, that the Swine Flu Outbreak is recording 10,000 tweets per hour on Twitter. This number boggles my mind. It’s amazing the viral reach that Twitter can measure (no pun intended!). However I can’t help but wonder if the power of social media could potentially inspire mass panic during a situation that is merely watch and wait? How do we filter the information coming from thousands of Twitterers to determine what is truly legitimate information? And if you are one of the truly legitimate organizations, how do you separate yourself from a pack of impassioned Twits who merely want more followers and do not have any valuable information to share? I’m confident that these questions will be answered as Twitter evolves. In the meantime, I believe, as in life, those who have hidden agendas will eventually be revealed and the truth will prevail. In order to be the ultimate champion and succeed within the world of social media, you must stay true to your customers and provide them with real value.

Particularly by package-goods standards, that $1 million digital outlay with one site was large. But Dunnhumby has run similar studies with smaller digital campaigns.“Just about every one has seen some positive results,” Mr. LaRocca said. “And the ones that have had negative results … just had a poor message or poor targeting.”

Success stories related to social media and how it has a direct correlation to increased revenue are becoming more and more common .  And the return on investment is usually high, considering that social media has little to no hard costs associated with it, and is more of an investment in time and strategy.  Even for those companies who opt to have a third party manage their social media on their behalf, the ROI is still high as compared to traditional advertising methods.

That leads me to the point of this post.  What’s your social media success story?  Please respond with a comment if you’ve had any improvement to your business as a result of using social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter.   Whether it be a single new customer, an increase in revenue, improvement in your customer service, positive testimonial or all of the above, please share your story!

You can also share your story in the discussion section of the Kayne Interactive Facebook Page, so your friends can see and pass along the good news to their network!

While it may not seem old-fashioned at face value, technology through the use of social media allows you to do both if used correctly.  Social media is an online marketing tool that can reach a mass audience in a targeted manner.  It helps your customer to understand the core of your business values.  Social media is a unique marketing platform in that it also provides you insight into what your customer wants and allows you to respond to your customers immediately and in a personalized manner.

It’s important to understand that when harnessing the power of social media you must be real.  No PR spins.  No one-sided positioning.  No in your face, buy-it-now messaging.  Instead, share your story.  Encourage feedback (good and bad) and respond in a manner that tells your customer that you are listening and that they are valued.  While you may not be able to physically reach out and shake a hand, your customer will still feel as if they know you personally, will be left with a positive impression about your business and will likely refer their friends.

Are you ready to tell the story of your business?

“I’m not sure it [social networking] hurts bands that don’t do it, but there’s no question it can help the ones who do,” said TopSpin CEO Ian Rogers. And some networks (Facebook, Friendfeed, Twitter, etc.) reach not only interested fans, but also their potentially interested friends. “The connection to fans … turns a casual listener into a fanatic,” added Rogers. “It makes them marketers of your art, in many cases, since those fans are plugged into not just you but networks of other similarly-minded individuals.”

If social networking can turn a musician into a rock star, imagine what it can do for your business.  Expand your “listener” base, build your fan club – Get Started today!

All growing businesses at some point have to deal with an unhappy customer and the outcome is not always a happy customer (no matter how hard you try to turn a negative experience into a positive one).  Since the advent of blogs and social networking, it has become much easier for those unhappy customers to broadcast their negative consumer experiences to their networks of family, friends, colleagues and whoever else may be listening.  As the company who may be the target for negative rantings, it’s important for you to be prepared to compete with unhappy customers.  The best preparation…a blog of your own!

Blogging and social networking for your business allows you to broadcast positive customer testimonials to your own group of family, friends, colleagues and whoever else may be listening (i.e. potential customers).  It provides a platform for your happy customers to EASILY report on their positive consumer experience. (People are less likely to share a positive experience than a negative one, so it’s important to make it easy to report the positive and perhaps even provide an incentive for them to do so.) That coupled with enhanced search engine optimization will ensure that your positive messages about your business overshadow whatever negativity about your business that may exist out there in the blogosphere.  And the best part?  Getting your blog built is easy and cost-effective – Get Started today!

Another shout out to Seth Godin for inspiring this post.  I highly recommend that you follow his blog!

When there were old-school parking meters in New York, quarters were precious.

One day, I’m walking down the street and a guy comes up to me and says, “Do you have a dollar for four quarters?” He held out his hand with four quarters in it.

Curious, I engaged with him. I took out a dollar bill and took the four quarters.

Then he turned to me and said, “can you spare a quarter?”

What a fascinating interaction.

First, he engaged me. A fair trade, one that perhaps even benefited me, not him.

Now, we have a relationship. Now, he knows I have a quarter (in my hand, even). So his next request is much more difficult to turn down. If he had just walked up to me and said, “can you spare a quarter,” he would have been invisible.

Too often, we close the sale before we even open it.

Interact first, sell second.

After reading the above, I started thinking about how this applies to Kayne Interactive and what we are trying to achieve for our clients. We are after all an “interactive” company, so interaction is key to our business.  And with the rising popularity of blogs and social networking, there is no better time than now to evolve your marketing campaign into an interactive format.   Traditional media is one-way communication.  You broadcast your message to a limited audience and receive little to no feedback as to who was reached or the impression that was left.  Interaction on the other hand is two-way communication.   Blogs and social networking encourage a community of people to interact with one another from the comfort and convenience of their homes and offices.  The reach of your message is global, the potential size of your community is limitless, and your reader is engaged and ready to listen to your pitch (and provide feedback if they are so compelled).  All this for less than the cost of running  a traditional newspaper ad!