Social Mediarology

Microsoft just announced that Bing Maps is undergoing a spate of upgrades this spring. Among the most exciting for those in the tourism industry is Bing’s optional Foursquare layer. It seems that much like FourWhere, which I talked about in my last post, the Foursquare layer of Bing Maps will provide the user with real-time data that will allow you to see user’s tips as well as “who has unlocked specific badges, where and who has been crowned mayor of certain locations making it easier to explore any city in the world as if you were a local” (Bing.com).

While the Foursquare App isn’t live for everyone just yet, you can visit Maps.Bing.com and click on the Map Apps button (If you can’t see the button, click on Try It Now within the Explore the new Bing Maps button on the left side of the page) and load up their Twitter App to get a feel for how the Foursquare App will work. This kind of integration of location and user generated content is invaluable for tourism. Imagine you’re planning a trip to the Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood; simply point your browser to Bing Maps, load up the Foursquare App and you can plan your trip confident that you’re getting suggestions from the people who frequent the attractions, hotels and restaurants in the area.

It’s common knowledge that the three basic rules of real estate are location, location, location. You can have the most beautiful house in the world, but if  it’s located in a bad area of town, it won’t be worth nearly as much as it would if it were beachfront property.

Social media, and the web in general, has been slowly moving toward being more location focused for the past few years. Hop over to Google for a second and type in food and you’ll be presented with a map of restaurants in your area. Google is able to tell your general location based on the IP address of your computer. With the recent proliferation of iPhones, Blackberrys and other internet-connected mobile devices, location will only become more and more important in social media.

In addition to Google, big social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are adding location-aware code to their sites that allow you to let your followers know where you’re sending your updates from. To be honest, I think they’re trying to catch up with newcomers Gowalla and Foursquare. Gowalla is similar to Foursquare, but I’ll stick with the latter in this post.

Foursquare started out in March of ’09 as a game of sorts in several US cities. Users would create accounts and “check in” at different locations around town. Users would earn points and badges with each check in and if they had more check ins than anyone else at a particular location, they would become the “Mayor” of that place.

Foursquare offers users a great way to let their friends know where they are right now. One great example of how this information can be used is to take a look at this year’s South By Southwest (SXSW) music, film and technology festival that just wrapped up in Austin, TX. The festival has been going on for decades and in the past, several big-name bands would play secret shows, using an alias. In the past, the only way to even attempt to catch the big-name band was to check out some of the lesser known bands, but you’d never know for sure if you’d find that secret show or not. With the advent of Foursquare, people started posting immediately where they were when a secret show broke out. They were also able to let their friends know if a particular show, film or session was worth dropping in on. This immediate feedback provides users with so many more choices now.

While it began as a game, Foursquare has some amazing business uses, especially for the tourism industry. Foursquare encourages you to leave a tip when you check in at a location. For example, Julie checked in at the Hilbert Circle Theatre in Indianapolis and left a tip for where to park: “Park in Express Park on Market & Penn and follow signs through the garage to go in the back entrance of the theatre.” If you were visiting Indianapolis, isn’t that the kind of inside information you’d love to know about the theater? You’d never find that information on the theater’s website.

One of the best uses I’ve seen for Foursquare in tourism is FourWhere.com. Click the image below for a larger version or visit the site and search around for tips about attractions, restaurants, lodging facilities and more in your area. Most of the Foursquare data is larger cities, but more information is coming to smaller cities and towns as more people start using Foursquare. Just think if you integrated an app like this into your website’s map. Not only will you allow users to find driving directions to your attraction or city, but you’ll be able to give them real, unvarnished tips from people who actually visit those locations. Think of it as a mix of TripAdvisor and Twitter.

FourWhere, a mashup of Google Maps and Foursquare

You can create a Foursquare business account that allows you to offer users deals and special discounts for checking in at your location. Foursquare has a business page that shows all companies that are running “Mayor discounts”. Simply put, if you’re the “mayor” of one of these business, they’ll give you something special. For example, Pizzology – a gourmet pizza restaurant in Carmel, IN has a deal where the mayor gets a free pizza and the Carrabba’s Italian Grill in Mishawaka, IN  gives their mayor a complimentary dessert with the purchase of an entree. These deals don’t cost a lot of money, but they give incentives to customers to keep coming back! These types of incentives will only become more popular as more people start using Foursquare and other location-based applications.

The potential business uses for Foursquare and other location-based applications is nearly limitless and while they haven’t hit he mainstream yet, I wouldn’t recommend waiting too long before embracing these technologies. Even if Foursquare and Gowalla aren’t around in 5 years, the geolocation principals that they are built upon will be an important part of web marketing in the months and years too come.

Have you started using Foursquare for your business? Do you think this location-based trend has legs?

This is the story of a small indie-pop band from Chicago. OK Go formed back in 1998 and released their first album in 2002 with little fanfare. Although they had become well known in the local Chicago scene, they hadn’t yet broken through to become a big nationally-recognized band. This all changed in the fall of 2005 when OK Go created a makeshift music video for their song A Million Ways. The video features the band performing a choreographed dance filmed in a single shot in their backyard. Nearly as soon as it hit YouTube, the video became a sensation and spawned countless imitations.

OK Go – A Million Ways

After the success of their video for A Million Ways, the band released a video from Here it Goes Again, another song from their album in the spring of 2006. This video featured the band doing another choreographed dance on treadmills and soon became the most downloaded music video ever with more than 9 million downloads.

OK Go – Here it Goes Again

After the runaway success of OK Go’s Here It Goes Again video, the band spent time working on their 3rd full-length. Meanwhile they became more and more popular. By making creative and fun videos, OK Go has been able to separate themselves from many other similar bands in the country. They found a formula that worked for them and have done a great job of continuing to create new and, for the lack of a better word, viral videos for their fans.

This has translated into more than 39,000 Facebook Fans, more than 350,000 Twitter followers and millions of music video views. More than a few of these fans and followers have translated into customers, buying albums and merchandise and attending concerts. The biggest clue to me that OK Go has found success through social media is the fact that they just left the label (EMI) they had been with for years to start releasing their albums independently.

Below is OK Go’s most recent video. You really have to watch the video to appreciate the amount of work that went into this one.

OK Go – This Too Shall Pass

So, what’s the takeaway from this case study if you’re not in the music biz? In addition to making sure to utilize social media, be sure to think outside the box. Social media allows you to try some things out without having to spend a lot of money. If OK Go’s first video didn’t turn out as well as it did, they would have moved on to something else. Keep trying, keep getting creative and find what works for you and your customers.