Gowalla Steadily Moves Past The Check-In With City Pages, Business Listings And More

It’s no secret that both Foursquare and Gowalla are expanding their location-based social networks past the check-in, developing other incentives for consumers to use the services. Gowalla, in particular, has focused on adding innovative features to its platform to make the social network more interactive, through photos and comments. Most recently, the startup added local highlights, which allows users to essentially tap into their social graph to not only see what’s popular in a particular location, but also provide contextual information around what are the best sights, places, restaurants and activities in a particular locale. Today, Gowalla is adding a few more features for businesses that help the network move beyond the check-in, including City Pages, Verified Businesses and Venues; and the Stamp Calendar.

via techcrunch.com

Posted via email from Social Persuasion - The Social Media Marketing Agency Blog

Facebook Places: The Real Target Is Yelp. (What's The Best Social Network Target for Your Business?)

Most of the attention paid to Facebook Places, the new location feature that the social network launched on Thursday, has focused either on the privacy implications of the service or on the impact it could have on location-based startups such as Foursquare (which some have said they expect to be "crushed" by the new feature). Facebook's real focus with this launch, however, isn't individual users or even Foursquare: Instead, it sees Places as a way into the local business and local advertising markets, and the company with the target painted on its back is Yelp.

via businessweek.com

Google Places, Facebook Places, Foursquare Location Layers & Mayors. Having trouble keeping up? Will Yelp have to partner with Gowalla or another smaller check-in startup to stay ahead of the million-business-pages-strong Facebook checkin tsunami? What is your business doing to get listed in all of the social network places? Why should you even consider spending your valuable time or marketing dollars on something like this Facebook Places or Yelp or Foursquare advertising or promotion? Drop me a note at brent[at]stirgroup.com and I'd be happy to answer your questions or setp a time for a free phone consultation to discuss your business and whether getting on the Facebook / Yelp / Foursquare / Gowalla check-in marketing train is right for your business, products or services.

Posted via email from Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

Facebook Places Launches - Check In Service Similar to Foursquare and Gowalla

Starting today, you can immediately tell people about that favorite spot with Facebook Places. You can share where you are and the friends you're with in real time from your mobile device.

 

 

Checking In with Friends

 

Ever gone to a show, only to find out afterward that your friends were there too? With Places, you can discover moments when you and your friends are at the same place at the same time.

 

You have the option to share your location by "checking in" to that place and letting friends know where you are. You can easily see if any of your friends have also chosen to check in nearby.

 

To get started, you'll need the most recent version of the Facebook application for iPhone. You also can access Places from touch.facebook.com if your mobile browser supports HTML 5 and geolocation.

 

Go to Places on the iPhone application or touch.facebook.com site and then tap the "Check In" button. You'll see a list of places near you. Choose the place that matches where you are. If it's not on the list, search for it or add it. After checking in, your check-in will create a story in your friends' News Feeds and show up in the Recent Activity section on the page for that place.

 

Example of a Place page on the iPhone application.

 

Places is only available in the United States right now. But we expect to make it available to more countries and on additional mobile platforms soon.

via blog.facebook.com

Is Facebook places going to force some of the Foursquares, Gowallas and the Yelps of the world to check out because they can't compete with the budget, might and userbase of Facebook? Have you tried any of these location-based social networking games yet? How much harder will it be to become the Facebook Places version of "mayor" of your hometown Starbucks now?

Posted via email from Social Persuasion - The Social Media Marketing Agency Blog

New: Facebook Places - Facebook introduces check-in feature similar to Foursquare, Gowalla

Social-networking giant Facebook has entered the check-in world.

Facebook executives on Wednesday announced the launch of Facebook Places, which -- similar to services such as Foursquare and Gowalla -- will allow people to use the GPS on their mobile phones to let friends know exactly where they are.

Facebook Places is available immediately in the United States through the latest version of Facebook's iPhone app and, for other advanced mobile phones, through the company's site for advanced mobile devices, executives announced at Facebook's headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

via cnn.com

Posted via email from Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

ShopKick - Score Loyalty Points for Walking in a Store - No more bogus Foursquare / Gowalla check ins?

Shopkick is an app, which will be available in the next few weeks on the iPhone and later for other kinds of phones, that retailers can use to track when shoppers have entered a store and reward them with points or discounts.

Other location-based apps, like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt, also function as virtual loyalty cards. Shopkick says it is different in a few critical ways.

The other apps use cellphones’ GPS signals. That means that someone could stand on a street corner and check in to a place to earn points without ever setting foot inside. Foursquare’s new automatic check-in service, for instance, checks people in when they are within 300 meters of a location.

“Check-ins are a really nice start, but unfortunately, most of them are fake,” said Cyriac Roeding,  a founder of Shopkick.

But users of the other services say they are encouraged to check-in to where they actually are, since the point is to alert friends to their location.

Still, Shopkick wants to reassure retailers that they are only rewarding actual customers.

Instead of relying on GPS or Wi-Fi signals, Shopkick installs small devices in stores that send out an inaudible noise. Cellphones with the Shopkick app pick it up with their microphones.

via bits.blogs.nytimes.com

No more bogus Foursquare / Gowalla / Yelp check ins?: Sounds good.
I actually get points I can use across several online and offline brands, including making charity donations: good. It’s only on the iPhone: not so great, but it'll likely work on Android soon I'd guess. There aren’t enough retailers to make it a must have: also not good - especially here in Canada - but maybe one day Shopkick will arrive in Vancouver...

Posted via email from Social Persuasion - The Social Media Marketing Agency Blog

Foursquare Tips: Become SuperUser and get Editing Rights

Hello superuser!

We've seen that you've either been checking-in a lot (woo!) or adding lots of new venues (thx!) which is why you've been upgraded to "Superuser" status!

There are 3 different levels of Superuser status, each giving you a little more control over things on the site. As you contribute more to the site, you'll unlock more Superuser power.

You're currently at level 1: You can edit venue info (address, cross streets, Twitter names), mark places as "closed", and let us know about duplicate venues.

You'll see these tools when you visit a venue page. For example, to edit venues look for the little pencil icon: .

So that's it for now - thanks in advance for any fixin'-up you may do!

via foursquare.com

If you're wondering why you can't edit locations or do other stuff some of your other friends on Foursquare can, it's likely you need to spend more time using Foursquare adding new locations and checking in to earn the right to be called a super user!

Posted via email from Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

Zagat Wins Foursquare’s Battle Of The Brands - Foursquare Leaderboard & Foursquare Marketing

At least according to the folks at custom badge site Osnapz, who have created a Foursquare brand leaderboard stack ranking the location based service’s many promiscuous partnerships in terms of follower count, with Zagat in the top slot at 48,136.

For the uninitiated, the leaderboard is a glimpse into some of the more obscure Foursquare brand tie-ins and badges,

via techcrunch.com

What badge do you hold that you're most proud of? Do you even notice or care about your badges? Did foursquare make up the word crunked?

Posted via email from Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

Yelp Says It's Not Afraid of Foursquare - Yelp Mobile and Geo Local Social Network for Restaurants, Shopping and Businesses

Starting tonight, local businesses that have created free accounts and claimed their listings on Yelp will receive additional analytics specific to mobile user traffic: the number of times they've shown up in mobile search, the number of times mobile users have clicked to call them by telephone and the number of times users have clicked for directions to their business.

Yelp says that 2 million unique users searched on a mobile Yelp app last month, performing 27% of the total searches the company saw. The entire Foursquare network claims 1.8 million users. Yelp said this Spring that it sees 31 million unique visitors to its website every month.

via readwriteweb.com

Did you know Yelp was for more than just restaurants? 15 times bigger than Foursquare. Wow. Check it out today at http://www.yelp.ca in Canada or http://www.Yelp.com for USA or Yelp.co.uk for UK, and about 38 other domains Yelp! Inc. owns. Of course there's always the http://www.yelpsucks.com domain which Yelp was smart enough to purchase themselves -- for use, I suppose, if they start thinking their own service isn't that great. Which do you prefer? Foursquare or Yelp? Would you use a mobile device that allowed you to check in and submit reviews to both Foursquare and Yelp at the same time?

Posted via email from Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

Olay, Gap, Pepsi Run Geo-Social Campaigns - but Not on Foursquare

Foursquare is hands-down the leader of the location-based/geo-social marketing space when it comes to hype. But other services are making their marks among both brands and users.

In fact, three of the five location-based services briefed below have more users than Foursquare, which has roughly 1 million. Like Foursquare, most utilize the mobile "check in" system, while rewarding users for registering an arrival at a store, restaurant, or another kind of business. Though, the services are being leveraged in different ways by brand partners.

Here are snapshots of recent campaigns by name brands on five prominent location-based platforms not named Foursquare:

via clickz.com

Posted via email from Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

Geomarketing: Ten Foursquare marketing campaigns

Geolocation-based social network Foursquare just might be the internet's 'next big thing'. While it isn't anywhere close to the size of Twitter or Facebook, the young company last month passed the million user mark.

That's a memorable milestone for any consumer internet startup, but the company's progress is perhaps better measured by the number of marketing deals it has inked with bigger companies. Here are 10 of those deals.

via econsultancy.com

Posted via email from Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

Foursquare’s Yelp problem

Well, Yelp (CrunchBase info on Yelp) has now copied the checkin gesture that Foursquare (Crunchbase info on Foursquare) introduced to us all and also they added badges of their own. I already am the baron of my favorite Mexican restaurant in Half Moon Bay.

This copying behavior demonstrates to me that Yelp is definitely jealous of the attention Foursquare is getting and isn’t able to innovate on its own.

This seems to be a problem for Foursquare. But is it really?

Yes.

Here’s why.

via scobleizer.com

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

FourWhere = Gowalla + Foursquare + Yelp (by Sysomos)

FourWhere helps you to find comments, tips for venues left by Foursquare, Gowalla and Yelp users. FourWhere automatically retrieves and aggregates user comments and visualizes them on the map. To use FourWhere, provide your location, and then click on the map to see venues (locations) or tips (comments written about a particular place).

FourWhere is public service so there's no need to register or sign in. All you need is your web browser. Go ahead, start discovering the world around you.

FourWhere is built by Sysomos using the public data from Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and the Google Maps API.

via fourwhere.com

Got your basic all in one geo location gizmo we've all longed for. Foursquare, Yelp & Gowalla

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Social Media Marketing Consultant Canada

20 Interesting Things: Foursquare Marketing Case Studies

1

Geo-location based services seems to be growing at an exponential rate. Much like the early days of micro-blogging, there is a crowded playing field as various platforms compete for user attention. Foursquare is not the biggest of these services, but they seem to be in the early stages of separating from the pack with some of the smart marketing partnerships they have made. This deck serves as a quick introduction to Foursquare and explores some of the marketing efforts that brands are already pioneering in this space.

20 Interesting Things: Foursquare

View more presentations from David Stutts.

via luckierethinktank.com

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Social Media For Business - Foursquare and Gowalla universal check-in macro geo-location social shopping

While Gowalla and Foursquare checking in and gathering badges and become a place-mayor is still a novelty, many businesses can take advantage of check-in incentives as an additional way to lure the tech-savvy to their establishment. What happens, however, when nearly every store in a shopping mall offers something free if you're their Foursquare mayor or offers virtual Gowalla goodies redeemable for real stuff? Will people take the time to open those different social apps to explore what check-in incentives exist at each store they like? Will a geo-location macro hybrid app that runs on most mobile devices that lists all participating stores in the the whole shopping mall (or nationwide) make it easier for people if, say, when an opted-in app-user came within a short distance of the shopping area the app pushed a text message announcing available deals for stores of interest? What apps have you seen to date that are trying to accomplish this? Perhaps both Foursquare and/or Gowalla will add functionality of this nature and make it much easier not only for customers to use to find businesses offering incentives, but also for small businesses to buy into geo-location incentive marketing campaigns.

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Tools For Businesses On Foursquare - Social Media Marketing for Business

Should your business join Foursquare?

The answer depends on what type of business you are and the demographic of your customer. Local consumer oriented busineses that depend on foot traffic will get the most out of Foursquare, especially if your customers are gadget-friendly, smart phone owners. However, your business has to be something that people want to tell others about. It might be pretty hard to get someone to check in to a dry cleaner store, but if you offer check in incentives (like dry cleaning coupons), Foursquare just might work for you.

via searchengineland.com

Need assistance with using Foursquare, Gowalla and other geo-location mobile apps for your business or non profit marketing campaign? Contact social media marketing consultant Brent Purves in Vancouver Canada at brent[at]stirgroup.com today http://www.BrentPurves.com and http://www.StirGroup.com

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Is Foursquare's growth boxed in? Foursquare marketing for business growth

But beyond that, if Foursquare is going to be the next Facebook or Twitter, the basics of the service will have to change to meet the social-media desires of an audience that's dropping off kids at school rather than dropping into 2-for-1 happy hour, or hunting for tips to find the best place in town to get that 21st slice of pizza.

via news.cnet.com

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

From Addiction to Apathy: The Five Stages of Foursquare (and Gowalla) Use

Foursquare, the smartphone app that gives you points and badges for "checking in" at clubs and convenience stores, is about to reach the one-million-user mark. That's a big deal. But it's also a reminder that, try as we might to cover its every move, most of you haven't tried Foursquare yet. (Or you're using its scrappy archrival, Gowalla.) Here's what to expect when you do:

via fastcompany.com

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It doesn't take long to get to stage five on Foursquare or Gowalla without an active network of friends using the same social application. Even then, with just getting virtual stamps, mayorships and virtual goodies it might get boring quick. What's next to keep people checking in? Find real money or songs or tv shows or movies or movie tickets or coupons instead of virtual goods? Become the real mayor of a town for a day after 250 check ins at city hall? Move to Rally Up http://www.getupandrally.com to cut down on the stalking and frequent home break-ins when you broadcast to the world you're out of town?

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

From Addiction to Apathy: The Five Stages of Foursquare (and Gowalla) Use

Foursquare, the smartphone app that gives you points and badges for "checking in" at clubs and convenience stores, is about to reach the one-million-user mark. That's a big deal. But it's also a reminder that, try as we might to cover its every move, most of you haven't tried Foursquare yet. (Or you're using its scrappy archrival, Gowalla.) Here's what to expect when you do:

via fastcompany.com

It doesn't take long to get to stage five on Foursquare or Gowalla without an active network of friends using the same social application. Even then, with just getting virtual stamps, mayorships and virtual goodies it will get thin quick. What's next to keep people checking in? Find real money or coupons instead of virtual goods? Become the real mayor of a town for a day after 250 check ins at city hall? Move to Rally Up http://www.getupandrally.com to cut down on the stalking and frequent home break-ins when you broadcast to the world you're out of town?

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Rally Up is a Location-Based Network For People Who Like Privacy

A new geolocation app for the iPhone was released today called Rally Up. What differentiates Rally Up from the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla is that it has a strong focus on privacy and content sharing. Rally Up bills itself as “a social network for real friends,” letting users share messages and photos with the people they trust.

To this end, Rally Up takes a very different approach to friends lists and friends management from other social applications. For instance, Rally Up doesn’t integrate with Twitter (). What?! I hear you gasp. As the saying goes, “It’s not a flaw, it’s a feature.”

via mashable.com

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves

Facebook vs. Google: The Billion Dollar Battle to Be Your Default Social Profile

“What’s next in social media?” It’s among the most popular questions out there. But while most folks currently answer with “location-based services” (i.e. Foursquare (), Gowalla ()) or “group purchasing” (i.e. Groupon, Twongo, Living Social), the real battle may be between Facebook () and Google ().

The fight between these two Internet giants to become your default social profile has been brewing for a long time, and the prize is an enormous potential revenue stream. Let’s take a closer look.

via mashable.com

Posted via web from Vancouver Internet Marketing Consultant - Brent Purves