Hi. I’m Rob.

Twitter?  That’s so 2009.

Just as you’ve gotten used to telling your Twitter followers and Facebook friends what you’re doing, there’s a new trend in the sharing of the mundane details of your life with others: Telling people where you are.  A new crop of social networking services aims to organize its data around places, with some fascinating implications for marketers.

Facebook brought this trend to the forefront of media attention recently with the introduction of its “Places” feature.  Using a mobile phone, you can “check in” to your current location and broadcast a message to your friends where you are.

Let me stop you right there.  I know what you’re thinking:  “Now why on Earth would anyone want to do that?!”  Sure, you say that now.  But five years ago, did you think you’d be sharing pictures of your family vacation on the internet with long-lost high school friends?  Did you think you’d be going online to publicly wish your cousin a happy birthday?  Yes, sharing your real-world location online has some very real privacy implications.  You wouldn’t want to announce such information in a completely public forum (an invitation to burglars that says “the coast is clear!”).  But, location sharing also has some interesting benefits.  As a user of the services and a marketer interested in their potential, I find them fascinating and fun.

Before Facebook Places, some smaller companies were on the scene with location-based services, such as Foursquare, Gowalla, and Yelp.  I use Foursquare and am drawn to it by several factors:

• Where My Homies At?: Foursquare allows me to see when my friends are nearby.  Oh, you’re at the Mercer Island Farmer’s Market too?  This would be an even more compelling scenario if I was some bar-hopping twenty something.
• Try the Mango Margarita: People can leave tips behind at the places they visit.  The collective wisdom about a place accumulates over time.  If you were the owner of a local business, what would you give for such rich insight into the behavior of your customers?
• Keeping score: There’s a fun gaming element to Foursquare:
  • Points are awarded for checking in to places, bonus points for checking into multiple places in a day or a new location, etc.  You can then see who among your friends has accumulated the most points.
  • Foursquare rewards users with badges for achieving different sets of feats on the service.  For example, you can unlock the “school night” badge by checking in to a location after 3AM on a school night.
  • Unlock the “barrista” badge by checking into 5 different Starbucks locations.  Check into a location more often than anyone else at a given location, and you are named “The Mayor” of that location.  I’m currently the mayor of Mercerdale Park!
• Discounts: Every once in a while, checking into a location will unlock a discount code sponsored by that location.  The other day I checked into a Gap store and was presented with a 15% coupon, redeemable by showing my phone at the checkout counter.  Another time, I was at a resturaunt and was presented with a coupon for a free drink at a nearby bar.

In it’s initial incarnation, Facebook Places only offers the first of these benefits.  For the other benefits, and the ability to maintain a separate, smaller network, I still prefer Foursquare.  But, it’s more important for us marketers to understand the broader implications of these services than to care which company is “winning” in this nascent market.  The companies and features will change over time, and consolidation is likely.  But in 2010, location is an emerging trend to watch…and enjoy.

Following up on my earlier posts: Twitter 101: Why I Bother and Twitter 102: Twitter Terminology Explained, I thought I’d come back with a third lesson for people just getting into the whole Twitter scene.

You may have noticed that every once in a while, you get a notification that User XYZ is following you.  It’s a person you’ve never heard of, and have no idea why on earth he or she would be interested in what you have to say.  Sometimes it’s a self-professed “social media expert.” He’s got 30,000 followers, follows about 30,000 others, and tweets nothing but random quotes.  Other times it’s a scantily clad woman, with a profile pic that looks like a post-wardrobe malfunction Janet Jackson.

So, why do they follow you?

It’s the first of a two-step process by which Twitter’s seamy underbelly of spammers try to game the system.  They follow you in the hopes that you’ll follow them back.  If you don’t within the next few days, they unfollow you.  Then they wash, rinse, and repeat.  Over time, they build up a following of the easily duped.

There are two lessons to take from this odd wrinkle of Twitter behavior:

• Don’t worry, no one’s stalking you. If you’re creeped out by the fact that some dude in Romania is following your tweets, don’t be.  He doesn’t give a rip about what you have to say.  He’s only in it for the followers.
• Not all followers, fans, subscribers, etc. are alike. It’s tempting to make the same mistake the spammers make–albeit in a more well-intentioned way.  We chase the raw number of followers, fans, subscribers, leads, etc., without thinking enough about the getting the right people:  People who will be engaged with your brand; people who know your product or industry; people with whom the conversation you’re having will ultimately matter.

So, be happy that users with names like AffiliateDood, MLMNinja, and BustyJuggs1234 are among your Twitter followers.  Just don’t follow any of them back!

I decided it was time to shake up the tired old resume format that everyone’s been using since the Eisenhower Administration.  The result?  Something that shows off a little bit more me than that bland collection of bullet points and text, rendered in a predictable Times New Roman font.  To the whiteboard we go!  (Note the fullscreen, print, and download buttons for easier viewing)

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