The Crunked Badge on Foursquare

The Crunked badge on Foursquare is unlocked by checking in four times in one night.  Now go get crunked!

Click here for a complete list of Foursquare badges.

If you’re a business, here’s some articles on Foursquare marketing.

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The Foursquare Bender Badge

The Foursquare Bender Badge is unlocked after 4 consecutive nights of check-ins.

That shouldn’t be too difficult for our uber social and borderline drinking problem readers.  Go get it gang!

Click here for a complete list of Foursquare badges.

If you’re a business, here’s some articles on Foursquare marketing

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The Superstar Foursquare Badge

The Superstar Foursquare Badge is unlocked after 50 different check-ins. These are a piece of cake so go get these badges based on number of check-ins quickly.

Click here for a complete list of Foursquare badges.

If you’re a business, here’s some articles on Foursquare marketing .

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The Foursquare Explorer Badge

The Foursquare explorer badge is unlocked by checking into 25 different places.  Pretty easy to achieve, now go get it!

Click here for a complete list of Foursquare badges.

If you’re a business, here’s some articles on Foursquare marketing

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1. How to Unlock the Adventurer Badge on Foursquare The Adventurer Badge on Foursquare is unlocked by checking-in to...
2. How To Unlock The Crunked Badge On Foursquare The Crunked badge on Foursquare is unlocked by checking in...
3. How To Unlock The Foursquare Bender Badge The Foursquare Bender Badge is unlocked after 4 consecutive nights...

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The Adventurer Badge on Foursquare

The Adventurer Badge on Foursquare is unlocked by checking-in to 10 different places.

Click here for a complete list of Foursquare badges.

If you’re a business, here’s some articles on Foursquare marketing

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How To Create a Successful Social Media Strategy

Here is a presentation on the business strategy of social media marketing.  I presented this at The Business of Social Media Conference just outside of Chicago, IL. My talk was dedicated purely to strategy as it relates to social media marketing.

The presentation include steps your business should take before diving into social media marketing.  If you have already been engaging with folks through business profiles, these strategy tips should be taken immediately.

Feel free to email me with any questions about getting your business on the right track. Email: scott@realtimemarketer.com

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Need Some Help With Social Media Marketing?

I Need Your Help!

I’m going to be conducting newbie digital business strategy and execution utilizing social media marketing, and I need your help.  In order for this education to be the most accurate, I’m choosing to use REAL companies.

I know I could use a made up profile as an example, or clients I’m working with now…but I want fresh opportunities to prove that social media marketing, done right, works.  The folks I work with are usually already too advanced.  I’m looking for newbies.  Someone who has no profile for their business, or a new profile that they’re not sure what to do with, or one that isn’t getting much traction.

Does this sound like you?  Do you have someone you would like to recommend?

What I’m looking For:

• Business Looking To Utilize Twitter more effectively
• Business Looking To Utilize Facebook
• Possible LinkedIn Opportunities (Depending on the Business)
• A Blog That Needs A Make-Over Or Doesn’t Have One
• Businesses Confused About What Content To Put Out There
• Businesses Needing Leads Utilizing the Real-Time Web
• Lost Souls Needing Social Media Marketing Help

How To Sign Up

I’m using a few different businesses or at least one per bullet.  If you think you would like your business to be used for this, please contact me at scott@realtimemarketer.com .  Use “SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING” as the subject line.  Please include the name of the business, what you do, what you need help with, and contact info.

I will begin this ASAP so email me now.  I don’t expect these to last long.  I’ll use my own criteria for judging who I work with…it’s not based on a first come first serve basis.  I’m looking for a variety, so you have nothing to lose.

Email me! – scott@realtimemarketer.com

*Note: I will be tracking how I build up and execute the strategy for your business.  You will be used in Webinars and Videos and results will be shared on this blog and or other websites.  You’ll be getting the results, but I will be sharing the success for others to learn from.

Looking forward to hearing from you!!

Get the Real Time Marketer Directly to Your RSS HERE

Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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Are You Showing Off All Of Your Feathers?

The social media marketing scene is completely saturated with companies that most likely do and sell the same things as your business.  Fortunately for you, most of them do not do it well.

While creating your social media marketing strategy, in addition to goals, you’re going to create execution tactics and procedures to achieve these goals.  One of the areas that should be on the top of your mind is “How Do We Become Memorable”.  Like most marketing, within the social media realm you’re biggest competition is not with companies selling similar products.

Your biggest social media competitor is people’s attention

What is going to make you memorable?  Why would someone choose to engage with your brand?  There are several areas to concentrate on that will boost user engagement, but I think one the most overlooked yet highly important is Personality.

Here are 5 quick tips to start inserting some personality into your social media marketing. (If you’re not convinced brand personality is for you, read THIS)

Use Pictures

Bring your social media posts to life by using pictures.  Let your  fans and network see a little behind the curtain of your world.  If you have any unique office decorations show them off.  At an activity or event, take a pic.  Use pictures to allow a behind the scenes look at what your company does.  (My favorite service for Twitter is Twitpic)

Have Opinions

This is going to cause most higher ups at big offices a massive panic attack, but the fact is that real people have opinions.  Real people have dislikes and favorites, some things drive them crazy, some songs make there work day go faster.  You’re a human being, not a robot.  Have opinions.

Obviously you need to be conscious about what you’re projecting to the universe, but this doesn’t mean you need to be walled up behind a boring ball of plain Jane posts.

Personal brands can get away with a lot more flexibility than big corporate brands, but being part of a large corporation is not an excuse to not showcase and share opinions.  If you never say anything of substance, why will anyone care?  I can disagree with someone’s opinion and still support their product.  If I see a brand out there and sharing their real experiences I’m much more likely to follow that brand and engage.

Use Video

There is no better way to show off your personality than using video. Video is a medium that offers an opportunity to bring to life what print cannot, you.  Video offers a chance to be a moving breathing person.  You audience isn’t reading your words, they’re seeing you.  After watching a few video posts, if done correctly, your audience can really feel a sense that they know you.  (I really need to take my own advice, I plan on rolling out some video posts soon).

Engage

I recently had a conversation with a Chicago sports radio personality and blogger about getting more exposure for himself.  In our discussion we researched a few Facebook Pages that would fit his demographic, one of these pages was the Chicago White Sox.  They have about 200,000 fans, and a large amount of fan posts and comments.  Unfortunately, there is no engagement from the actual team…none.  The administrators post and walk away.  Sports fans are loyal.  They’re not likely to leave their favorite team because of lack of Facebook engagement, but the team might have better opportunities to sell merchandise and fill events if they were.

St. Louis has the 3rd biggest Mardi Gras in the world.  The official Facebook page for this event has 7,000 fans.  Again, you’ll see lots of fan engagement with little to NO interaction from the page administration.  I’m willing to bet more than 7,000 people showed up to the more than 30 events that were hosted.  If the page had more interaction perhaps the smaller events would have had better attendance.

As much as I scream about social media Engagement, Engagement, Engagement…it’s still not the rule but unfortunately the exception.  You should feel lucky and honored someone out there actually likes your brand enough to take the time to leave a comment or ask a question.  The least you can do is thank your fans and answer their questions letting them know they’re appreciated.

Think Outside The Box

Get creative!  Or if your creative juices aren’t flowing, then just look and see what others outside your industry are doing that you love, and apply it to your business.  Some successful examples are…

Mascots – Not every brand can get away with an alter ego but Chicago’s Berry Chill does a great job with Yogi Jones.  The lovable character tweets daily and thanks his fans when Berry Chill is mentioned on Twitter.

Contests / Events – Groupon is creating a contest called Live Off Groupon that will give away $100,000 to one person that can live an entire year off of their coupons and not spend a dime.  (don’t bother applying, I’m already going to win it! )  What better way to show off their service than have a fan live there whole life for one year on it.

The battle for attention is going to be your biggest competition when executing your social media marketing strategy.  Succeed by creating some brand personality in your social media marketing.

This is DAY 15 of my “28 Day Blogging Challenge“

Get the Real Time Marketer Directly to Your RSS HERE

Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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Who Do We Trust?

Who do we trust?

It’s a valid question, and one that PR giant Edelman recently tried to answer in their continued survey for measuring their “Trust Barometer”.  Their conclusion is…we put no value into our friends or peers opinions anymore.

According to Edelman, you trust your friends and peers WAY less than you did two years ago.  The drop from 45% of people saying their friends were credible sources about companies  in 2008 compared to 25% in 2010 is substantial.  It’s such a dive, that I don’t regret not having any friends and devoting all of my time to this blog.

But for those of you out there with friends and or peers…what happened?  So do you really not trust your friends opinions anymore?

Rather than rely on survey data…I prefer to put my eggs in the basket of common sense.  No one puts complete credibility into their social networks, and everything is relative.  If I’m seeking information about a particular product, obviously I’m going to weigh different answers by the relevancy of who is giving their opinion.  Let’s say you’re a regular reader of this blog…that puts me in your “social network”.  If you ask me about blogging platforms and the best tools to reach the most people…I can give you solid advice.  If you ask me what restaurant you should take your wife for her birthday, my opinion means nothing.

So how can you answer the survey?

The curse of this survey is the choice of wording and lack of follow up questions.

There are no set standard terms for what a “friend or peer” mean?  Were they speaking about Facebook friends, Twitter, LinkedIn, coworkers?  A Facebook “friend” is a title, nothing more.  Being a “friend on Facebook” has no association with being a true friend or valued confidant.  No more than a Twitter “follower” is an actual follower of mine as if I’m leading some rapidly expanding cult.  As they explain in the study the fact that most social networks are becoming more open, may decrease what they’re defining as “trust”.

But is this true.  Search on your Twitter stream and you can count the number of peers seeking answers and opinions left and right.  LinkedIn has an entire portal dedicated to asking strangers for opinions and answering questions.  So how can we devalue our friends opinion so much?

Well, at least it’s not all bad news…although your friends have all turned lousy and become half as trustworthy for information as they once were…CEO’s are climbing back.  And great to see with all of this awesome economic news that financial analysts are booming at 52%.

Here’s the breakdown of the Trust Barometer: (NOTE: I’m only focusing on actual people, not mediums like TV / radio)

• CEO’s:  26% (increase)
• Government officials 27% (increase)
• Financial/industry analyst 52% (increase)
• NGO representative 44% (increase)
• Academic experts 64% (increase)
• Company employees (decrease 28%)
• Friends / Peer 25% (decrease)

Really? News and information about a company coming from the mouth of a CEO or a Government Official is MORE trustworthy than if it came from a  friend or a peer.  Am I the only one who feels like I’m taking crazy pills?  Forgive my skepticism.

Whether it’s deserved or not, Vince the Sham Wow guy has better credibility than most CEO’s and Government officials these days.

My instinctual response to these results are that they are utter nonsense.  As I wrote in Most Twitter Statistics Are Worthless…I take 90% of social media stats beyond number of users with a grain of salt.  Otherwise every spokesperson should be an Academic Expert.

As easy as these number are to argue, I don’t want to waste valuable reader attention on trashing every aspect of a survey.  The individual numbers may be inaccurate but the overall theme is not.

We’re a skeptical bunch when it comes to products and companies.

Question:  So How To You Get Consumers To Trust You?

Answer:  You Don’t.  Trust is not something you can do…it’s given to you after you earn it.

Very few products have the luxury of a spokesperson that can sell the product no matter what it is (I.E. Michael Jordan in 1992.  I would have bought cardboard shoes as long as “Air Jordan” was on it).  To reach your audience and penetrate this wall of skepticism, you’re going to have to spread a variety of information across multiple avenues.  Hmmm, sounds like a job for social media.

• Focus on results.  It’s hard to argue with facts.  If your product is good, show some statistics to back them up
• Always be focused on creating value, with every aspect of your marketing
• Focus on end results, not features.  What emotions can you connect with?
• Build communities of enthusiasts.  Rather than trying to cast a wide net, house your cats under one roof with a community they can interact with other customers
• Rather than posting everything about you, you you…promote some of your customers and how they are succeeding with your products
• Constantly seek open feedback…and publish how you’re learning and improving
• Stay consistent.  Speak consistently across social media platforms

Although these numbers should turn marketers on their head, I say be resilient.  My trust barometer with my friends may only be at 25%…but my trust barometer for most social media surveys is around 10%.

This is DAY 8 of my “28 Day Blogging Challenge“

Get the Real Time Marketer Directly to Your RSS HERE

Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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Well, it’s definitely not shiny…at least not yet.  But I wanted to begin writing before the world and marketing thinkers and other bloggers pass me by.  This blog will focus on what I am labeling Real-Time Marketing.

I have a passion for this area of marketing and we are finally at a time where the technology and accessibility of tools can finally make this a reality.  I look forward to your comments…stay tuned for much much more!!!

And yes, I’m aware that the aesthetics are less than pleasing.  But i wanted to get writing and I’ll worry about making it look pretty later.  Just please be patient.

Talk with you soon,

Scott

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