Foursquare unveils new self-serve brand pages

August 3, 2011 / posted by Norah Carroll

Foursquare has long been a fantastic resource for consumers, offering exclusive discounts, recommendations and of course, bragging rights for venue mayors. On Tuesday, foursquare made a leap forward to become an equally strong resource for brands, from bloggers to small businesses to large corporations, with their new self-serve brand pages.

First, a bit of history: foursquare launched its first brand page for Intel in January 2010, offering the company a platform for recommending local Philadelphia favorites to out-of-towners during their annual ISTE conference. As other companies expressed interest in custom-branded pages, foursquare began to build pages for them, too — all built manually by the foursquare team, behind the scenes. The launch of these new self-serve pages gives companies the opportunity to build their own pages, without needing to await approval from the foursquare team.

So what is a brand page, and what value does it offer to a company? A brand page is a custom-branded page on foursquare that allows a company to recommend venues through check-ins and tips left on foursquare. Brands lend their influence and expertise to foursquare users, who “follow” the brands to see their tips; for example, Walgreen’s leaves tips at public transportation stations reminding passengers to wash their hands after train rides to avoid catching the flu. In return for sharing tips with foursquare users, brands gain their followers’ trust by infusing their expert knowledge into their followers’ daily lives. Brand pages can also be connected to your company’s page on Facebook, so your tips can be extended beyond foursquare to reach all of your fans.

It’s important to note that brand pages function differently from typical individual foursquare accounts in a few important ways. Remember that these pages are meant to be used by brands, not as a substitute for a personal foursquare account. Brand pages can’t earn badges, and if your brand has used an individual account in the past to leave tips, all of your friends will be converted to “followers” when you create your page. That means that your company won’t be able to see where its fans check in, but everyone on foursquare will be able to see where your company checks in. It’s like following someone on Twitter — a one-way connection.

Ready to create a brand page for your company? Here’s what you’ll need:

  • A header image of 860 x 130 pixels (check out the Walgreen’s brand page for inspiration)
  • A small profile image of 185 x 185 pixels
  • A description of your brand
  • Links to share with your followers (website, Facebook page, Twitter handle, blog, etc.)

Now, just visit https://foursquare.com/create_page and click “Create a Page” to get started!

Once you’ve created your page, you’ll have everything you need to start leaving tips at other foursquare venues you endorse or recommend. Visit our blog later this week for a guide to crafting great tips through your brand page!

Curate the web with Pinterest

August 1, 2011 / posted by Norah Carroll

During the past six months, the female contingent of Lava Row has become obsessed with Pinterest, a web application that allows users to “pin” and share items they find online through themed collections called pinboards. Think of Pinterest as a sort of tumblr for beautiful images, where users share everything from decadent desserts to ingenius organizational ideas.

As a novice interior decorator on a tight budget, I love Pinterest because it gives me access to the thousands of DIY decorating ideas and whimsical products pinned by users more creative than I am. The Pinterest community is incredibly diverse, so I never fail to find something unique to “repin” or to share with my friends as I browse through public pinboards. And in recent months, tastemakers such as Real Simple, Better Homes & Gardens and local Des Moines boutique Domestica have embraced Pinterest as a way to endorse products, share breathtaking home décor from around the web, and infuse their finds into fans’ pinboards.

We see tremendous opportunities for brands to interact with their fans on Pinterest in new and truly engaging ways, but as with other social platforms, a brand’s success on Pinterest depends on its sharing more than just its own web content or products. To be a trusted influencer on Pinterest, a brand must spark authentic conversations about things the people behind the brand actually care about — not in an effort to boost sales or page views, but to establish itself as an authority in its market. My favorite brands on Pinterest are doing a fabulous job because I feel like I’m truly getting to know the people pinning the content, and because they’re sharing meaningful pins, I’ll keep coming back for more.

To get started with Pinterest, visit pinterest.com to request an invite (and follow Norah and Hillary if you’d like). Happy pinning!

Twitter’s Promoted Tweets hit the Main Stream

July 29, 2011 / posted by Hillary Brown

Yesterday Twitter announced that they’ll be rolling out Promoted Tweets in your main Twitter timeline. By definition, Promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets paid for by advertisers in order to reach a wide group of users or spark engagement from their existing followers. Per the post on Twitter’s blog, the promoted ads are a new way to ensure that users can easily access the most important Tweets from the organizations they follow directly.

The Promoted Tweets will only appear in your timeline if you’re already following the account that has paid for the placement. According to Twitter, the Promoted Tweets will scroll through the timeline like any other Tweet and will appear in your timeline just once. The ads will clearly be marked as “Promoted” with an orange arrow icon below the tweet (the same way Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets are currently displayed on the sidebar or in search). You can also easily dismiss or remove Promoted Tweets from your timeline with a single click.

Where will Promoted Tweets be displayed?
At the top of relevant search results pages on twitter.com.

In your main timeline if you follow the Advertiser.

In Related Tweets shown on the Details pane.

In the search results for a Promoted Trend.

In third-party apps like HootSuite and TweetDeck.
Twitter is also currently testing syndication of Promoted Products within HootSuite and TweetDeck. Promoted Tweets could appear in searches and user timelines in both of these third party applications.

Twitter will be testing and rolling out Promoted Tweets over the next several weeks with a select group of partners, including Best Western, Dell, Gatorade, Groupon, HBO,JetBlue, LivingSocial, Microsoft Xbox, Red Bull, Sephora, Starbucks, Summit Entertainment’s “50/50”, TNT and Virgin America and a handful of non-profit organizations, including charity: water, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Room to Read, The American Red Cross and Water.org.

So, how are Promoted Tweets different from other online ads? Twitter’s take is that since all Promoted Tweets start out as regular Tweets, they are an organic part of Twitter, which is distinct from both traditional search advertising and more recent social advertising. What are your thoughts on Promoted Tweets? Leave us a comment below!

Upcoming Lava Row Lunch: QR Codes, Scan Tags and Augmented Reality

July 18, 2011 / posted by Norah Carroll

Join us on July 28th for this month’s installment of our Lava Lunch series, a discussion about QR codes, scan tags and augmented reality — and how to make these emerging technologies work for your brand or business. As usual, we’ll share examples and case studies of how businesses are currently taking advantage of the these new tools, but we’ll also discuss what makes some campaigns more engaging than others (here’s a hint: it’s more than just sending a customer to an online version of your ad!).

Refreshments and catered lunches will be provided. We’ll get started at noon, but feel free to stop by between 11:30 and 12:00 for some good, old-fashioned networking.

Tickets can be purchased at the bottom of this post for $30.00 per person, plus a nominal Eventbrite fee. Or, skip the fee and pay us with Dwolla. Full event details and directions can be found on the Lava Lunch page.

We hope to see you on July 28th!

Google’s social network finally revealed: The Google+ Project

June 29, 2011 / posted by Nathan T. Wright

Yesterday Google launched their much-rumored push into the social networking space: The Google+ Project. I was interviewed by ABC5‘s Katie Eastman (video embed below) about the new network and how it stacks up to the main competition – Facebook.

Here are a couple of quick takeaways and initial reactions to Google+:

No friend requests. Unlike Facebook, Google+ doesn’t require mutual friendship acceptance. Users can subscribe to each other’s updates without defining one another as a friend (similar to Twitter), thereby removing some of the initial social navigation barriers, drama and decision-making. Note: Google+ users still have complete control over how their profiles appear, down to specific individuals.

Small groups. Google+ has baked a feature called Huddle into the network, which lets you create small groups of colleagues or friends to interact with. We’re seeing an explosion of group messaging apps right now, and Facebook’s recent acquisition of Beluga proves that the major players want to have a presence in that space. Beluga is something we find quite useful here at Lava Row (we have a Beluga “pod” for our work group and one with a client team). Facebook has not yet integrated Beluga into it’s standard messaging system, so it appears that Google has beat them to it with Huddle – at least in terms of layering it on top of existing products.

Where will the users come from? The biggest challenge is 750 million+ active Facebook users that “live” in that ecosystem every day. Google will need to focus on user overlap (similar to the symbiotic relationship between Twitter and Facebook) because there’s no way to shift that many people overnight. Integrating Google+ with popular, existing products such as Gmail will also be key.

So what are your thoughts on Google+? The company has been stumbled of late with their Buzz and Wave products, but they’ve been quietly succeeding outside of North America with Orkut. Please leave your comments below.

The Launch of Google+ from Katie Eastman on Vimeo.

ABOVE: Video of the ABC5 interview with Nathan T. Wright. Watch for the Shane Reiser man-hug at the end!