They come fast and furious out of the gate. Even as a professional it can be hard to keep track of all the new services targeting small businesses using social media. It’s no surprise that when I go and brief clients and give consultations, they have yet to hear about many of the services, let alone started planning how to use them. To that end, I’ve assembled a quick list of the new services that businesses should be paying attention to.
- Foursquare: The king of them all, at least for the time being. Foursquare’s power is in its simplicity. It is a geo-location mobile application for iPhone’s and other smartphones (like Google’s Droid and the Palm). The opportunity for businesses on foursquare is tremendous because for the first time you can target customers as close to the Point-of-Sale as possible. Foursqaure enables businesses to offer specials and discounts, which people are made aware when they “check-in” on Foursquare whenever they are nearby. The ROI for businesses is still pretty shallow, I’ve implemented Foursquare services with several clients and its certainly a work in progress. But Foursquare is closing in on a million users and has reached critical mass. The company is staffing up quickly and will be working hard to monetize it, which means helping businesses bring in more customers using their service.
- Groupon: A group buying service that lets businesses make fantastic offers available to Groupon’s enormous database. They started in Chicago but have branched out to over 20 cities. Groupon is very powerful and there are tons of case studies available proving it with testimonials from business owners. Word to the wise though, Groupon takes 50% of all business they generate so rather than being a profit center, its best seen as an occasional marketing tool to attract new customers which you can hopefully retain. I am urging my clients to at least give Groupon a chance to work their magic. And the they’ve embedded a great gaming quality into their service. In fact, their coupons only go into effect if a certain number of people
- Social Mention: A really great and free tool that businesses (or anyone else for that matter) can use to track their brand, or their clients’ brands (Hello PR FIRMS!) mentions all over the social web, whether its google, Twitter, blogs. A really wonderful tool that, although far from perfect, still provides great value. Business owners should get comfortable with it now and check in a few times a week. It takes all of 30 seconds to bring up hundreds of your results. Listening is perhaps the most important stage for late adopters. You’ve missed out on the first wave of social media adoption. So what! Frankly, a lot of businesses are better off waiting on the sidelines. Social mention is a great listening tool and will show you what you need to know, and just how many conversations revolve around your business. From there, its a hope, skip and jump to understanding how your brand is perceived and by whom.
These are just a few and I’ll be doing a few more of these posts. Stay tuned because business is changing and the tools of social media are forcing that change. Are you ready to evolve?
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I've heard of SocialMention before and tinkered with it. Isn't it essentially the same as Google Alerts but more real-time and intended for those where GA would be intensive?
yes but i find it a bit different than google alerts. It is better for blogs
other than one's own, to see mentions, links, pingbacks, etc…
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