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

Resort Combines Facebook Places, Gowalla, Nike+ for Social Media Skiing - Resort Social Media Marketing Company

Colorado-based Vail Resorts is launching a new location-based social media service at its many mountain destinations--some of which are the largest in the U.S. Called EpicMix, the service acts as a cross between Nike+ and Gowalla, and enables users to check-in on the slopes through Facebook Places to earn pins and rewards for various skiing accomplishments, view the location of friends and family on the mountain, and track ski routes and vertical feet traveled. Vail's EpicMix is an innovative use of social media, showing that it's not just a tool confined to big cities or national companies, but has a more intimate application too on a hyper-local level.

Using an RFID chip embedded into lift passes, a skier's journey is captured through every scan it receives on the mountain. No smartphones are required--check-ins are automatic and can be accessed at anytime online or through EpicMix's mobile app for the iPhone, Android, and other devices.

via fastcompany.com

Looking to plug social media into your resort's online or offline marketing strategy? Contact us today for a free 30 minute resort social media marketing consultation today here: http://stirsolutions.com/consultation Read about our social media marketing services here: http://stirsolutions.com/social-media

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

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

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

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