All the major US and Canadian sports leagues are looking to grow their social presence, digital business and fan experience. With these goals in mind it would seem that a marriage between Foursquare and these sports leagues is a no brainer.

It’s odd that Foursquare has not incorporated events into the fold but I would suggest that a partnership with the NHL, MLB, NBA and NFL would be an easy and mutually beneficial place to begin. Let’s me take the perspective of the respective sports leagues and their teams.

The major sports have all been able to grow their business in the digital world through partnerships (e.g. fantasy gaming is huge) and content syndication but none have really been able to take a leadership role in the social space. With the knowledge that social interaction and building upon the passions of sports fans in an effort to connect them to their team in a social manner will ultimately translate into a more one-to-one sales and marketing relationship (see upcoming pieces for the value of Social CRM) and a better customer experience, better feedback loop and opportunities to direct sell, these leagues need to figure out how to do more than have Twitter accounts and Facebook fans. One thing that is clearly working in social media is the idea of “check-ins” and using these check-ins with business discounts driving sales and loyalty programs there is nothing for sports leagues to lose. However I wouldn’t suggest it for just those reasons, they’re obvious enough.

An Instant Loyalty Program

I believe that if the major sports leagues worked with both Foursquare and each of their digital media departments they could immediately grow their social presence. By making every game in every park/stadium a check-in opportunity the leagues could easily run contests to reward the most loyal fans, the fans who traveled the most to see their team etc – an instant loyalty program! However if you really want to get social, the check-in at the game should instantly send the user a special offer for league merchandise at the game (upsell) and with it an opt-in chance to be part of the game community. Other offers could be made throughout the game, but the key would be that during and after the game an instant community (people are checking in from mobile phones and iPads after all) can emerge where Tweets are all hash tagged with the check-in tag, users are able to vote on in game polls, participate in fantasy games and have a fully social experience at the game. After the game it can’t stop there, the leagues can then continue to populate the community game page and fold the users into the larger team and league social community.

Simply by taking advantage of the growing user community of Foursquare users (a partnership tat Foursquare would jump at) the major sports leagues could open the door to a hugely social group of fans and be able to increase their social presence both at the game and afterward.

The key would of course be in the execution of how the league and team used the check-in to open the door to an in and after game social experience but there is a tremendous opportunity out there for one league to take the lead and explore.

I do know that the leagues have all formed partnerships with Fanvibe, but trying to force users onto a sports only site is of no advantage to the leagues when Foursquare is already at approximately 2,000,000 users and growing each day – this is one of those times where you go where the people are you don’t try to build your own competing service.

What do you think, are the leagues missing an opportunity here?

When was the last time you were deciding on a new restaurant, cafe or pub and didn’t turn to the Internet (whether at your desk or on your phone) to get directions, a review or even see who else might be there? Since I’m pretty nerdy the answer for me is that it would be completely out of character not to do a little online reconnasence work about the place before I suggest it to a group of friends. While I am on the far end of the spectrum that spectrum has definitely tipped to the point where I believe the majority of us now look up a place online before making a decision to go there.

Therefore, I am often surprised when I talk with small business owners and specifically owners of restaurants, coffee shops, bars etc how few of them are really aware that they have an amazing opportunity to promote their business by simply making it easy for customers to write positive (the negative reviewers seem to figure it out for themselves cuz their pissed) reviews or encourage a “check-in” on Foursquare, Yelp or Gowalla. Of course most of these businesses are already to be found on Yelp (and other review sites) but too few business owners have taken the time to beef up the user generated content (that makes up their listing) with their own images, descriptions and announcements. Even less of them seem to realize that there is a real bottom line business benefit to using these sites as a marketing channel and growing their brand by making it easy for the customers that love them to say something nice in an online review.

While it would take a lot more than my personal surveying to put hard numbers to it  (one study by the Yellow Pages Association and comScore found that local search for businesses, products and services grew 58 percent last year and reached 15.7 billion searches, more than a tenth of overall search traffic) I’ve made mention of my theory of “check-in currency” in a previous post so won’t dive into it here but in realizing how few of these business owners are taking advantage of this new digital currency I thought I would share some examples of businesses that are taking advantage of social media and local search to drive retail business and leave you with some simple tips that businesses can and should be using to promote themselves via online reviews.

There are many great examples of companies that are really using social media and local search to their advantage. As I have shared before Tasti D-Lite has integrated FourSquare into their loyalty program but you can also look to Jeff Diamond, co-owner of Farmstead Cheeses and Wines as a leader who makes sure he takes the time to reply personally to every comment/review left on Yelp. In one case, a reviewer complained that the person behind the counter was rude. Mr. Diamond sent a private message to the customer, apologized and asked for details. It turned out the employee who helped this customer was hard of hearing. By the end of the exchange, this onetime critic had joined the store’s wine club. He has since become a loyal customer. Or how about Danny Leclair, co-owner of Studio DNA hair salons in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, Calif., who uses Yelp and local search to promote special offers he said 50 percent of his new business now comes from Yelp, 30 percent from Citysearch and 10 percent from Google searches.

These businesses are not run by the most tech savvy individuals, but they’ve taken the time to invest a little bit of brain power in learning how to make the most of what are essentially free marketing tools. Telling you all this is of little value if I don’t leave you with some easy things you can do to boost your local and social marketing efforts today with $0 invested.

Starting at the very top of the heap lets talk Google and specifically Google Local which is now technically Google Places. The point is that you don’t want to miss having your proper store information, pictures, links etc on Google so that you show up when people try to find you specifically or even when they make a general search. Believe me your business seems a lot more important when it shows up on a Google Map and your competition’s business is nowhere to be found.

So visit Google Places and get your information in there. I would also recommend you ensure your listing at Bing is up to date

Head here at Yelp and take the time to watch their video and understand how to get your business online if it is not already there or claim your listing if someone else has review you.

Yelp also gives you some great tools to understand who is visiting your listing and offers you all the tools you need to respond to reviews. If you think you will have the time to consistently reply to reviews on Yelp I think that it offers an extremely personal way to let people know that your business is about people regardless of what it is that you sell.

Next go to FourSquare and claim your business and if you really want to be amongst the coolest kids on the block create some specials based on the number of check-ins at your location and of course reward the Mayor. Foursquare makes it very simple to do and you’ll be shocked how many of your iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android toting customers appreciate your way of recognizing them. FourSquare will even help you get some stickers to promote that you are a welcome place for users and a great check-in location. People who check-in buy things and in the end you’re the winner.

Not only does FourSquare also provide you detailed stats like Yelp, it also has a proximity based mobile ad network that you will be a part of by offering FourSquare specials. These tools are again free so really what are you waiting for.

Of course every business should be knocking it out of the park with Facebook and nobody has laid it out better than Mashable here and Tamar here.

Finally, I’d highly recommend you begin Tweeting if you are not already using Twitter you read this guide by Mashable and started right away.

Remember that social and local can be your best friends if you take advantage of a few free tools and follow through on the best practices you find.

Good luck and thanks for reading.

There is no doubt that 2010 is all about mobile, geo-location and ultimately reviews, either through actually writing them or word-of -mouth generated by a check-in which is usually accompanied by a Tweet. This post is a compilation of my thoughts from a couple of events that randomly seem to fit together.

First the power of reviews and why I include them in a post entitled “Check-In Currency”. Reviews are the one area where Google knows they dramatically need to improve in order to have search become more complete. I don’t think this is conjecture on my part because it is no secret that Google recently tried to purchase the review site Yelp. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Search is pretty awesome these days, you can search for most local businesses by name and be directed to a page that includes the phone and address, hours of operation as well as a Google Map. There will often be some pictures posted and perhaps the odd review. I don’t think you could ask for much more. However try to do the same search for local coffee shops and you get a listing of them and even though there are some ratings its tough to get a real semblance of which one is best, perhaps closest but best, I’m not so sure. So if you’re Google you don’t want to lose people to sites like Yelp, because, while you’re Google. So you first try to acquire them but get rebuffed, and know everyone realizes that reviews are worth a big pile of cash to Google and everyone cares about something Google really cares about.

Moving on to why reviews and check-ins are tied together.

Foursquare Mayor Deals

If you’re Yelp you better figure out a way to fight Google and that is going to take (1) money and (2) a dramatic increase in the number of reviews. The first part was simple enough, Yelp recently went out and raised a bundle of cash. The second part however is not so easy. But Yelp was sneaky and realized that they needed to make you think of their app every time you visited a new establishment, and as such make a review. How to get users to always think of Yelp when they went to a new spot?Yelp took a look around and realized that Foursquare was doing a pretty amazing job at making it semi cool to check-in at each location. So Yelp went ahead and released a new version of their iPhone app that takes direct aim at Foursquare’s “check-in” feature. Whereas Foursquare was not asking users to review places directly, you don’t have to work very hard to realize that each time someone checks-in and Tweets it to the world it ends up being about as good a word of mouth review as you could hope for, even better since it goes to a huge potential audience. So Yelp went right at Foursquare’s check-in feature and built it into their

iPhone application. It may or may not work but it makes me fairly certain that check-ins and reviews are going to be linked for quite some time.

Finally I’ll sum up with why this all builds to the idea of “check-in currency.”

If you’re a savvy business owner and you realize that if people Tweet every time they visit your establishment it will be great for business then you’ll put in place a system that actually rewards customers for checking-in at your establishment. Case in point both Tasti D-Lite who has added Foursquare check-ins to their loyalty program and what are now regular advertisements in the Metro newspapers (see image) that reward both check-ins and the Foursquare “Mayor” of each establishment. The establishments have now actually given check-ins a tangible value, something Foursquare has to be extremely pleased with. So check-ins now literally equal currency, it’s quite an amazing little phenomenon.

There is no doubt that people love loyalty programs and retailers love the fact that you come back time and time again spending hundreds to earn a free item or small value perk. However when was the last time you actually wanted to take the time to dig through your wallet for your loyalty card? How many of those little tags can one person actually carry on their keys? Basically the loyalty program was getting stale. Sure there were iPhone apps that stored your card and let you present it virtually but that doesn’t do much to advance these loyalty programs in a way that made them work for the new ‘connected’ and ‘social’ customer. So I was impressed earlier this month when Mashable reported on a story where Tasti D-Lite (a frozen yogurt chain) announced that they were rolling out a new program (called TastiRewards if you care) that incentivised customers that linked both Twitter and Foursquare to the store’s loyalty program. It’s an incredibly simple concept when you think about it and the idea of loyalty combined with location services and social networking has a ton of potential if Foursquare (or others) help build out the business and make it simple for retailers to get on board. It’s this last point about integrating and showing value (versus simply signing them up to get numbers) to retailers that I think Foursquare will need to concentrate its efforts in order to make loyalty programs a decent size revenue stream.

Foursquare Loyalty Requires Metrics & Analytics

To keep it simple I will use the Tasti D-Lite as my example throughout. Like most loyalty programs, Tasti D-Lite has a traditional card program where customers can use their TreatCards to earn points for purchases, however those that opt-in to the new social media part of the program will automatically earn additional points for their ‘check-ins’ which are shared on both Foursquare and Twitter. It’s brilliantly simple, customers register their cards on the MyTasti website and then enable their Twitter and Foursqure accounts to automatically send tweets and check the customer in (with a ‘shout’) on Foursquare. From the consumer perspective you’re pretty damn happy as you earn points just for showing up in the store and then get a bonus (on top of the regular rewards) for each dollar you spend.  Tasti D-Lite is also thrilled with this arrangement because they instantly get the best advertising possible, word-of-mouth and they get to tap into your social network without having to take the time to advertise or court any of them. It’s actually the epitome of a situation working for all involved.

Foursquare = Tasty Rewards?

So this seems to just work and kudos to both Foursquare and Tasti D-Lite for the innovation. However, I do believe that for this to be a sustainable revenue stream for Foursquare they will have to offer more value to the retailers than simply linking up with their existing loyalty programs. In order for Foursquare to be able to make some real money off this they will need to actively partner with someone to create a  back-end loyalty CRM system that retailers can log into and actually get some useful data from and will further have to help retailers utilize these loyalty programs. Let me explain…

If I am a retailer I intrinsically believe that it is great that my customers will now be telling each other of the rewards they earned and will help promote the business via tweets and check-ins, but if there are no metrics available it will be impossible for me to really attribute increased revenue with the loyalty program and to further know what pieces of the social media loyalty program are working (including at which locations) etc.  It will be tough for Foursquare to ever fully monetize because neither they nor the retailer will be able to objectively determine the value of non-tracked tweets and check-ins. Further without a good system for actively tracking metrics and actively monitoring (+ reporting on) the tweets (e.g. think CoTweet with some Salesforce built in) there is a risk that the program will become nothing more than an afterthought for retailers and nobody pays for an afterthought. Finally, by having a metrics and analytics system that allows for some decent reporting Foursquare would be able to aggregate information from all the loyalty programs and create a professional services/consulting arm with best practices etc.

Following this idea of professional services or at least some consulting, I also think that Foursquare will have to come up with a standard loyalty program for retailers with no current program and loyalty program ‘connector’ so that they can easily integrate those major retailers who have already invested time and dollars into their own loyalty program. I say this because while someone at Tasti D-Lite was obviously quite savvy and was able to work with Foursquare to implement this program it is apparent that the critical mass of retailers will not be approaching Foursquare, rather Foursquare will have to approach them (or at the very least have a sales person who is trying to sign them up) and explain why the program will work for them, how they get started and perhaps even hand-hold (e.g. create templates for emails to be sent to existing loyalty members or get tons of Moo Cards printed to hand out with a street team) through the launch process.

I don’t know exactly how Foursquare is planning on monetizing their business but loyalty programs seem to be an obvious source of at least some recurring revenue. You’d be surprised at how much money, time and even more money traditional retailers pour into loyalty programs. While they will be tempted to try out Foursquare, if it does not connect into their traditional program and/or Foursquare cannot offer its own metrics and analytics I just don’t believe there will be enough of a business case for retailers to see it as anything other than a gimmick.

In the Mashable article they raise a very similar point and they go on to point out that with a little effort Tasti D-Lite (or in my mind Foursquare in conjunction with any retailer) can use the data it receives from check-ins to  ”collect, analyze and apply to budget discussions around allocating resources to social media efforts.” However I think the analytics need to be a bit deeper than simply being able to get accurate accounts on the quantity of tweets/check-ins with card swipes – Loyalty programs are not new and those who do them well (e.g. Air Miles) know that there is a wealth of information to be gleaned from consumers through these programs. While Foursquare is definitely on the right track with this cool initiative it will be interesting to watch whether they really go after loyalty programs as a real revenue stream or just one that has netted some positive publicity.

Given my propensity for nerdiness and specifically my passion for entrepreneurial businesses in the online world I often get asked by friends, family and tweeps about what company or service I would recommend for this or that related to the Internet or online marketing. I am happy to give one of advice but find myself recommending the same companies and services time and time again so I thought it would be worthwhile to break down months of recommendations into a usable list of technologies and/or services I use or recommend you use in your business. I’ve tried to include some brief information on why I use the company/service and what I find valuable about that particular company but there are two things that you can be sure are true of any company that makes my list. First the company must be hell-bent on customer service, if there is one thing that every company (online or offline) should be passionate about, it is customer service and creating customer evangelists (I think I qualify as example A with this list) so if a company has made my list you can expect that while they might not be Zappos, they’ll treat you with respect. Second, to make my list the company/service has to be one that does not require a second mortgage on your home to use, if it’s on this list then in my estimation the benefits of use far outweigh the cost.

I’ve tried to break these down into some sort of usable categories and would be happy to expand on my experiences with any of these companies so feel free to drop a comment or ask anything that’s on your mind.

So here is my inaugural list of companies that rock!

Collaboration/Communication

What good is working in a vacuum or not being able to effectively collaborate with team members regardless of whether they are in the next office or a different continent. As a company like WooThemes has shown, with some ability to be tech savvy and the occasional early morning (or late evening depending on time zones) video call you can create and run a successful (and profitable) company across geographic boundaries with people you may or may not ever meet in person. Most who read this post will not be in the boat of the WooThemes guys but they’ve proven that it can be done and done well. So here are my favorite companies and tools for collaboration.

Skype

Traditional communication through the telephone and ultimately the dreaded conference call can and should be replaced by a better and cheaper method, the combination of ubiqutous high speed internet access and voice over ip has made there many better ways to communicate and collaborate with your team than simply using the telephone but Skype is still the most user friendly.

I am quite sure I do not need to give you an overview of what Skype is especially considering Oprah seems to love it, but if you want to communicate with colleagues (or friends) in a free manner there is no reason to look beyond Skype. With the smooth video to video calling capability you can not only collaborate in real time from across the world but you can do it face-to-face. For people who feel that it is important to have that “face time” with clients or colleagues there really is nothing more practical than Skype.

Yammer and P2 Theme

There is no doubt that Twitter has exploded communication across the Internet and that if you could harnass just one small bit of that communication in your own business it would be a very powerful thing. With that in mind I have two recommendations.

Yammer is Twitter but behind the corporate firewall and P2 is a WordPress Theme that mimics some of the functionality of Twitter. I have included both Yammer and P2 in the same area because although I think P2 is an excellent (and free) alternative, it requires that you or a member of your team have much more technical knowledge (you need to at least know WordPress) and it certainly does not offer the applications (e.g. iPhone or BlackBerry client) nor support of a paid product like Yammer. Both offer your team increased ways to communicate and collaborate, it really just comes down to the functionality and support you require.

Yammer

I’ll start with Yammer which I have described as Twitter behind the corporate firewall. I am sure the company would list about a billion different ways to describe it’s features but at the end of the day that’s the difference maker that I see in it and the value of Yammer is really in that it is a private version of Twitter. In organizations where people are in at different times or where teams are trying to collaborate with people they don’t often get to see face-to-face, Yammer can be a good way to ensure that those teams are talking and sharing links, resources and ideas.

If however you (or a team member) has some technical knowledge and you don’t really need the full feature set of Yammer then I highly recommend you check out the WordPress theme known as P2.

P2

I was originally alerted to this WordPress theme through an article written by Matt Mullenweg (if you don’t know who Matt is, he is one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25 Most Influential People on the Web) entitled “How p2 Changed Automattic“. An article with that title from a person of that amount of knowledge and influence had it book marked in Instapaper (more on that below) for a long period of time before I got around to reading the article. With that said and if you’ve taken a moment to read Matt’s article you will immediately have a great use case for just what p2 is and why do I recommend it.

At the end of the day P2 is a free theme for WordPress that allows a traditional blog to to operate in a Twitter like fashion by supporting features like inline comments on the homepage, a posting form on the homepage, inline editing of posts and comments, real-time updates so new posts and comments come in without reloading, and more. I could do a more full job explaining the feature set, but there is a pretty slick video on the demo site that gives you all you need to know.

Go To Meeting

You really can’t talk about collaboration amongst team members without giving them a tool with which to collaborate or share documents in a conference or video call setting. With that in mind GoToMeeting is about as reliable and cost effective solution as can be recommended. The level of customer service and number of customers using the product (hence most problems are sorted out quite quickly) ensure that this is a service that will continue to advance. They’ll give you a 30 day trial and you can pay monthly so it’s a good service when you need it.

Rypple

Feedback is one of the most important things you can solicit from customers, colleagues and friends. The team at Rypple has made that pretty amazingly easy and slick. Using a customer acquisition model that seems to be based on employees at corporations falling in love with the service and then recommending it to their company – with the company paying to implement on a larger scale – Rypple is a company you should watch and get on board with.

Email Marketing

Mailchimp

For most small businesses email marketing or having a newsletter is one of those things they know they should do but don’t really know where to begin. I can tell you that email marketing works time and time again and getting started is not only easy, it’s also free. Sign up for an account at Mailchimp and you’ll be sending beautiful emails in no time. I can’t stress enough how much you should be working to get email addresses and beginning your email marketing. As you get more at ease read the Mailchimp blog and get some inspiration here.

Productivity

Perhaps my favorite items on this list can be found here, whether you’re a casual Internet user or hardcore these services will come in handy.

GetDropbox

Perhaps the most useful on the list, Get DropBox is a free service that will let you store files on the cloud and the retrieve them from any other computer or even your iPhone. It’s much better than emailing yourself and if you’ll have Internet it’s much better than any USB key. Go get yourself and account and you will not be sorry I promise.

Evernote

Whther you’re on a Mac or a PC, an iPhone or Blackberry, Evernote is another one that should be on both your desktop and your phone. We all have some method of keeping notes to ourselves, whether it is where you parked your car or your latest business idea, Evernote is the place to store them all. You can go so far as to take a photo with your camera and save it as a note with all the text shown in the photo searchable, it’s semi unbelievable. Notes sync with your desktop and phone and are basically available to you everywhere.

One non-business use for you is to save coupons as pdfs to Evernote and then have them available in store, the clerk can scan the upc from your phone.

Instapaper

This one is specifically for iPhone users but it’s an amazing and free little app that will allow you to access any web article from your phone while offline. You can all relate I’m sure, you’re working and come across an article you’d like to read but dint have the time. So you click read later and when you’re on the subway you’ve got a set of things to read. It’s a great app.

Twitter (Social Media) – Caveat, I do not know the customer service levels here

There are many who have covered the numerous Twitter clients and services better than I ever could (see this from Mashable, and this from Twitter) but I have a few services you should take a look at.

I’ll first say that my Twitter desktop client of choice is Tweetdeck and that on the iPhone I prefer Tweetie2 but here are some Twitter related sites and services.

Social Oomph

Previously known as Tweet Later, this company will allow you to schedule tweets days in advance and have them drop at a time of your choosing whether you are online or not. You can do some key word tracking using the site but that’s not its strong suit, it really is just a great service for pre-scheduling some tweets and then sitting back and watching them go.

Peashoot

There is no sense saying that you are going to use Twitter as a serious marketing vehicle if you’re not going to track your Twitter based campaigns and try to learn from them. Peashoot tracks your conversions and shows you how to improve your future campaigns. I’ve toyed with this but have not used it seriously yet but the company says it’s Audience Builder automatically follows people on Twitter who are relevant to you or your company. Over a matter of days Peashoot can increase your total audience size giving you more people to connect with and help spread the word about you or your company. More importantly the application lets you Measure ROI and respond to campaign activity. The company offers what it calls “Active Listening” technology whereby Twitter activity about your campaign is included in your campaign reports.

What The Trend

Trends on Twitter are a good way to keep yourself in the loop as to items which are topical and will hopefully draw visitors to your blog and comments if you hop on a trend and write something interesting. What the Trend is not one of those sites that you need to visit daily, but it’s a handy little place to get some topical blog post ideas.

Short post cuz the video pretty much says it all and I can’t take any credit here.

If you want to read the original post and get your hands on many of the sources as well as the stats go here. If you want to see a presentation (different authors) with very similar statistics on slideshare go here.

Grab some popcorn cuz its a few minutes but its good.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8

Of course we’ve all heard the sentiment that a satisfied customer will tell a few people but an unsatisfied one will tell anyone who will listen. When the Internet started to become a more social place, companies started to realize that their customers now could tell the world about their negative experience – just look up any company with the word “sucks” after their name. Companies that already had good customer support realized they had to do even better while those with crappy support were at least more exposed.

There is no doubt that this is good for the consumer, but recently I was giving a speech on customer service and I gave a tidbit from my personal consumer life that seemed to really resonate with the crowd. I explained to them that there is transparency in the levels of customer service that current customers are receiving and that as a potential consumer it is actually pretty simple for me to gauge the number of support issues and the way they are handled. This transparency can and does impact sales well before the point of purchase.

In the offline world when someone has a customer support issue they generally will have one of two ways of resolving it. Either they call the support number provided or they have to head to the store and seek live support. In either case generally the exchange between company and customer is private to the outside world.

However in the online world one of the ways I like to investigate a product or service that I am contemplating buying is to head directly to the support page or forums and see what problems customers are having and more importantly (to me anyway) the responsiveness of the customer support staff at said company. It’s a level of transparency and a window into what life would be like as a customer of this company that I can’t get elsewhere. I of course can and do search the blogosphere and use Twitter to seek out other’s opinions, but I find that by doing a quick scan of the support forums I can find out (1) if the product is plagued with issues and (2) how quickly and efficiently those issues are dealt with.

Some companies make you register to enter these forums and that’s ok, I don’t mind giving up a little information if it means I get to look behind the curtain of PR and Marketing to see what’s really going on with the product and company.

So what’s my point? You can and should be using this tidbit as a way to look at your own company.

Try dealing with your company as a consumer – what are the difficulties? Where does the company fall down? Take the time, call your customer support line, is it a good experience? Head to the support forums on your website and post a problem – how long until someone gives you a well thought out (not a pre-written form letter) response?

Every once and again you need to step back and put yourself in the shoes of your consumers experiencing problems – how does your company look then? Where can you make improvements?  The transparency of support is something that can be a big plus if your company does it well but I just don’t think enough companies remember to put themselves in the shoes of the consumer in an after sales capacity.

As always your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

As Oprah pulled up at the Twitter table last week it seemed like the party was over. There are no shortage of people who declared that the reason to use Twitter was dead now that it was being taken over by celebrities like Aston Kutcher (@aplusk) and the aforementioned Ms. Winfrey.

I guess that is one way you could view the happenings, yet I’m going to ask you take a look at a different group of people (all of whom are celebrities) and I think you will get the sense that while Oprah is undoubtedly like your parents (and why not follow my Dad – @actonroad) chaperoning and then deciding to dance at your prom, if you take the time to follow some of the great athletes that have embraced Twitter you’ll get a totally different view.

I am going to start by saying that I do not really think it’s fair to put Shaq or Lance Armstrong in the same column as Oprah when it comes to their “cool” factor, but I think it is essentially fair if we are just trying to compare celebr-twit to celebri-twit on my invented “this person is autograph worthy” scale.

Neither Shaq nor Oprah need any more people trying to cover their every move yet there both of them are on Twitter sharing with the world. The difference between Shaq and Oprah is that Shaq – like most athletes on Twitter – inherently seems to “get it”. I mean you really only need to look at Shaq’s tweet where he put Oprah in her place to see that he is actually protective of the Twitterverse.

Ok you say, so Shaq and Lance Armstrong seem to like Twittering and they aren’t so completely self-interested that every tweet is about themselves or their cafe macchiato – what’s the big deal?

It’s not just Shaq and Lance that get it is what is the big deal. There are a ton of athletes on Twitter who are actually using it in much the same way you or I do. They’re chatting with friends, throwing random questions at their followers and for the most part are some of the most “real” Twitter users you will find.

I could have listed numerous examples but will stick with just @jalenrose because after following him for a bit I actually think that for him Twitter is not about stroking ego.

So before you declare Twitter dead and the party over, remember that there are all types of people on Twitter – celebrity or not – and nobody’s forcing you to follow @oprah.

If you’re looking for a list of athletes to follow on Twitter there are no shortage of them out there but I found the majority of the ones I follow at Athletes That Tweet and would encourage you to check there first.

I’ve got to admit that I am really impressed with the way that Starbucks has been able to utilize the “halo effect” of the American Presidential election and specifically the renewal of promise brought by now President Barack Obama in a way that is not gimicky or based on novelty. Starbucks has effectively been able to bring a network of its customers together through a combination of online/offline marketing efforts like the I Voted or now Pledge 5 programs. At the same time the company has built much brand equity by discretely attaching themselves to all that Americans (and the rest of the world) have come to hope for in Barack Obama.

While it is obviously the execution of any marketing program that makes it worth doing, with these two campaigns Starbucks has been able to utilize the halo effect from Obama as the reason to call its consumers to action and in doing so has been able to use the Internet to connect the brand to its consumers and consumers to other consumers through their ideas, ideals and sacrifices.

Americans are fiercly patriotic and during the Internet Era never before have they been so encapsulated with a President or even the idea of the Presidency. It is easy to capitalize on this with novelty items, even some big companies that are terrific marketers like Ben & Jerry’s, Kripy Kreme and Jones Soda have gone that route. However it is much more difficult to craft a smart campaign that is not built on novelty but is built on the actual marketing principles of wanting to connect the brand and consumer with mutually shared ideas, ideals and experiences. Starbucks has found a way to get in the side-car next to the momentum train called the Obama Campaign and eventual Presidency with two separate yet connected campaigns that never directly reference Obama but absolutely grasp onto the emotions that his Presidency evokes in Americans. While this could have come across as a cheesy way for a big corporation to pretend they care I don’t think it has that connotation at all and kudos to the marketing teams who worked on these campaigns for that.

I think that the lesson for me is that if you find a way to connect with your customers over a subject that you are mutually passionate about (and is not controversial) it can be a tremendous way to engage them and show them that your brand’s support for their passion is genuine and not simply a marketing gimmick.

You can check out the latest Pledge 5 ad below, I would love your comments and thoughts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xAwKBywrEk

I love when I am able to write what I consider to be bold and attention grabbing headlines so I guess I better follow it up with something of substance.

The concept of this post is extremely simple…You may think that you are the one shaping the identity of your brand and the way that it is perceived by consumers, but in actuality it is me (well not just me, but me and people like me who could be classified as “super influencers”) who might actually have more influence on how others perceive your brand than you do so it is to your benefit to arm me with as much editable content as possible.

I say this for several reasons but for the most part because (1) it is backed up by facts and (2) I know many of you can relate to the anecdotal idea that you have a “tech” friend, a “business” friend,  a “medical” friend and it is that person who’s opinion you accept as being the bottom line within their area of “expertise”…We can call these the “super influencers”

So let’s start with some cold hard facts (these facts comer from this Universal McCann paper) that at the bottom line show the growth of user generated content online and introduce the idea of the “super influencer”

• In the previous month over 44% of Internet users have shared an opinion about a product or service by Instant Messenger and 42% have done so by email
• While search remains the number one way to find out about a product or brand, email recommendations have virtually tied this number (80.2% vs 82.1%) with an 80% monthly reach
• Writing blogs has risen from 28% to 44% & Uploading a video clip from 10% to 42%
• Bloggers are very active in sharing opinions and recommendations with 32% having shared recommended websites, 29% their favourite music and 28% on products and brands
• Super Influencers are those who generate the most content, do the most research and generally consider themselves at the forefront of new technologies.

So as I said before, you may think you are shaping your brand through your corporate website the occasional blog entry and a monthly newsletter but in actuality it is these super influencers (and they do not only exist in tech, your doctor friend could easily be one) who are producing the content that other less knowledgeable users are seeking.

Users do not want to simply read your corporate website, they want real opinions from actual consumers and it is your job as a marketer to not only identify these potential super influcencers, but also to give them the tools with which to help evangelize your product.

Super Influencers Are Going To Create Content – Deal With It, In Fact Help Them

You must face the fact that if I want to write about your product or brand on my blog, in my emails or even in a panel discussion I am giving, I absolutely will and I will speak about it with whatever level of knowledge I have and using whatever tools I have at my disposal.

I am the type of person you should be looking to appeal to with everything from easily accessible graphics (do you really want me to source your logo myself) to pre-written questions and answers about your product or brand (so I don’t have to guess if someone asks me a question you happen to get all the time).

Take a look at the graph at the bottom of this post and you will see that there is no way around the fact that content will be created. Therefore as a marketer it is your job to embrace these super influencers and their desire to create content. It is extremely simple to start and I will kick it off by giving you three easy steps to implement now, I guarantee this tiny effort will yield nice net results.

• Change Your Media or Public Relations Page To Read “Media & Bloggers” - I know this seems like a tiny change but it signals that you understand that not everyone who wants to discuss your product or brand will be writing for the New York Times. It is a little thing, but it’s a respect and recognition thing and people appreciate it.

• Give Away Your Logo & Product Images – Do you really want people to use a Google Image search and put up a version of your logo that is 5 years old? How about misidentifying one of your products with the wrong image (or even worse one you pulled for legal reasons)? – The content is going to get created whether you participate or not so why not at least ensure that it looks correct.

• Search Like Crazy & Create Google Alerts - If you do a bunch of Google searching (specifically blog searching) and set up proper Google Alerts for your brands and products you will inevitably find those “super influencers” who are already generating content and buzz around your brand. Read their posts and then engage them and let them know you would be happy to help the next time they are looking for information about your company. Again, a little effort for a huge win.