Digital Trail

The number of users will hit a critical mass before Foursquare suffers the great abandonment that Twitter endured, with users forgetting about the service after a week or two of frenzied activity. Does the Newbie badge hook you in enough or does the negatively loaded semantic label do more damage than an easy-pick-up-badge?

The Twitterfication of Foursquare – trending businesses will receive great attention and jostle for rank but will it be based on a true rank of popularity or an adjusted algorithm to reflect that populated centres with easily accessible venues (Presumably commerce based) will always outrank the humble independent retailer. And what of multiple Starbucks in a heavily populated area, will trending businesses be variations of a café chain theme?

The death of conversation. Where Twitter has allowed for conversation and given the ‘@’ a new lease of life, there is no real conversation platform available on Foursquare. The gaming of the platform is always going to win out over the opportunities for a virtual guide book of locally sourced recommendations.

What makes you want to come back to Foursquare, if you get constant updates from the one or two of your friends that check-in here, there and everywhere (and suprise, suprise, they are the Mayor of their own house) Or if you are a latecomer to Foursquare and the prospect of catching up with friends is too daunting? If there is no catching them, what else are you in the game for, especially with the aforementioned game prioritisation of points and league table positions?

Putting aside the obvious need to make it a financially viable application, what would you do to improve Foursquare?

Consider this–social media–all bells and whistles and caught up in a storm of hype and false industry. Been knocking around for a while finding its feet and having many people shout about what it is but where is it going?

There is a lot of talk and trumpet blowing by those who use social media about just how great it is. This is dull, I’m guilty of it myself. If we are to take this highly polished conker and to make it last, it is imperative to talk about the ‘how’ and not the ‘what’ in order to defend its role and to gather a pool of wisdom on how best to utilise it.

You can varnish and buff up a Conker to make it look good and if your the kid in the playground you can talk it up as you take it into the challenge ahead in a Conker fight. You can blow the trumpet of social media all you want and talk it up as a great thing but that won’t keep it up there or concrete it as a true marketing practice of value and return. Just because it looks good and on the surface does not mean it has a soft and vulnerable core when the challenges come in.

I invited Brrism member Nigel Legg to offer his insight into the matter of how social media can offer value for businesses looking to get in on the act and where it fits in the marketing mix. Based on his expertise as a social media practitioner who researches its nuances and practical applications, Nigel said:

“The only way you are going to be able to measure ROI is with numbers – so it is vital that you decide what numbers you want and how you are going to measure them before you start. And the appropriate metrics for a biscuit company may well not be appropriate for a construction firm – the metrics will depend on who you are, where you are, and what you do.”

In October there is an exciting conference on the horizon that has set it’s stall out from the start in saying it will focus on the ‘How’ and less so on the ‘What’. Of particular and crucial focus is the look at return of investment to be had from social media.

I shall be in attendance at the ‘Like Minds‘ event in Exeter on Friday 16th October and will report back on the ‘How’ and we will see if we can get this sweet social media nut flourishing into a long term practice with true value and purpose.

I think it is very true that as social media users, the honeymoon period is over and the ‘What’ is a known entity. The real way to achieve longevity is to suss the ‘How’ and to use it to supplement marketing practices, not replace them.

The power of Twitter is in the Retweet. Links are currency and you invest them in your following by sharing your content via a URL link in the hope that having piqued your Followers’ interest they will pay you back with a kind Retweet.

On the assumption of using Twitter predominantly as a ‘microblogging publishing’ platform – as opposed to Tweeting the inane what you eat or weather updates model – Twitter is a critical tool in the dissemination of your content. Your website or blog is the host of this great collection of content and you wrap up individual gems of content into a shortened link within a Tweet to get noticed in the shopping window of the constant stream of Tweets.

Tweeting is as much about maximising each Tweet’s potential as it is about sharing. Obviously the larger your following the greater your Twitter reach. Twitter reach can be measured by adding up the number of followers each of the people who follow you have to give you a figure of potential maximum exposure should each of your followers ReTweet you.

The beauty of your followers (and beautiful they indeed are, having crafted your following through careful targeting on your part, right?) is that they want to follow you and have an interest in you and what you have to say and if they deem your Tweet content worthy enough they will share it with their following too.

Now you have written your spot on article, blog post or uploaded your latest set of stunning photographs etc, you want to show it off to the world. You know you have to work within the confines of the 140 character limit set by Twitter and you know you know you need to a) grab the attention of the reader and get them to click through to b) your shortened URL directing them to your target content.

The best tip you should heed for getting your wonderful Tweet Retweeted by a follower is to work to a character limit short of the 140 but still making it attention grabbing and informative. You need to leave enough space for your followers to start their Tweet with the following:

RT @yournamehere…

Doing this sets your Tweet free on a journey into the unknown and spreads your content to a wider audience, because after all, you put time and effort into your content, you certainly want as many people as possible to see it and as Twitter for Business expert Mark Shaw says:

@markshaw: The life of a single tweet is minimal. The life of a retweet is exponential. Spread great tweets. thanks @unmarketing

You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here

As part of my ever increasing and ever exciting PR Support role with BHP Information Solutions and their Donut projects, I have written the first of a number of blog posts for the latest addition to the Donut family. The Start-up Donut is for the entrepreneurial amongst us who have always wanted to start a business venture but never known how to do so. I will be blogging on issues relating to starting-up and the general theme of my posts will lean towards the social media aspects of how to go about starting-up. The first can be found one click away:

‘NoWhere is NowHere’ – Starting up and naming your business

+++UPDATE+++

I have now also written something for the lovely Marketing Donut-click below:

‘Monitoring your company online – Tweetdeck‘