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.

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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!

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A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking to a PR course for entrepreneurs.  Refreshingly, most of them came from outside the world of technology.  There were authors, painters, shopkeepers, and professional service providers–people doing real world work in industries that were doing just fine before Twitter and Facebook, thank you very much. They knew they wanted to get started with social media, but didn’t know where to begin.

Rather than jumping into the tactics and technologies of social media, I decided to focus my talk on attitude.

Traditional marketers often make the mistake of thinking of social media as just another marketing channel; another megaphone through which to yell at their customers.  They update their Facebook feeds with 10% discount codes, blast out company news through their Twitter feed, then wonder why nobody pays any attention to what they’re saying.  Without the right mindset, social media can be frustrating and fruitless.  It can feel like throwing a party to which no one shows up.

Don’t think of social media as a marketing channel.  Think of it as a new approach to doing business.  It’s an approach that requires us to give in order to get.  It’s an approach that takes time, but eventually pays dividends in both sales and insight.

Here then, are my 7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Media Marketers:

1) Be a Listener – Your social media campaign is not starting in a vacuum, and not all of your social media activities are going to happen on your home turf.  People are already talking about your brand.  Your customers, your potential customers, and influencers in your market are all out there, and they’re carrying on a conversation about your brand with or without your help.  The first step is to understand what they’re saying and where they say it.  Are they on Facebook, Twitter, or some specialized network dedicated to your industry vertical?  If you’re a local business, have you claimed your listing on Yelp?  If you’re a lawyer, have you seen what people are saying about you on Avvo?  Has any blog written about you lately?  You do have a Google Alert set up for your company name, right?

2) Be Part of The Conversation – So you’ve listened, and you’ve discovered someone talking about your brand or industry.  Terrific.  Don’t be afraid to jump in, but remember, this isn’t just about you.  Participating in a conversation isn’t the same thing as giving a sales pitch.  Step out of sales mode and be a part of the conversation, even if it doesn’t lead back to what you’re trying to sell.  Some examples of joining the conversation are: answering a question related to your industry, suggesting a helpful website, sharing a good idea you’ve seen elsewhere, or even saying “thank you” for a kind review your product.

3) Be Out There – After you’ve listened and participated, get out there with some social outposts of your own.  Start a blog.  Start a Facebook page.  Maybe there are others to try as well (Twitter, Flickr, Yelp, FourSquare, etc.), but don’t feel like you need to do it all at once.  The important thing is to commit to them fully and for the long haul.

4) Be Frequent and Broad – Before blogging, Facebook pages, Twitter, etc., companies felt like they needed to be judicious in the frequency with which they communicated.  For one, it was expensive to send a press release over the wires; expensive to hire a PR Agency to pitch the story; expensive to wine and dine the handful of journalists who mattered to your industry.  With social media, you don’t need to wait for some earth shattering news to put yourself out there.  Loosen up the constraints around what “meets the bar” of something you want to share with your audience.  Make a goal of posting once, twice, three times a week and delegate the task around your organization.  Being frequent also brings with it the opportunity to be broad.  What you share through social media doesn’t always have to be a straight company announcement.  It could be an interesting study on your broader industry, something related to the local market in which you do business, or occasionally just a glimpse into life at your company that humanizes your brand.  Other ideas for content: Share access to some “behind the scenes” information about your company, tips on using your product, examples of unusual uses of your product, “fan only” offers, and of course, new product announcements.

5) Be Responsive - If I wasn’t so determined to keep the “be X” structure of this post, I would have called it “don’t be a brick wall!”  Blogs, Facebook pages, and other forms of social media are all two-way conversations.  As I said earlier, social media isn’t just a new way to yell at customers.  People will make comments (both positive and negative) and ask questions.  What a wonderful opportunity to engage with actual real-live customers, and share that conversation with others.  Don’t blow that opportunity!

6) Be Share-able - Give your audience the tools they need to share your story.  Ask them to share items on Facebook, to tweet them, etc.  And, you should be a sharer yourself.  Have a new blog post?  Cross promote it on your Twitter feed and Facebook page.  Keep a running tally of your latest tweets or a feed of your Flickr photos on a sidebar of your blog.

7) Be Patient – It’s going to be a long, hard, slog.  So much of social media marketing occurs at the top of your marketing funnel: it creates awareness of your brand, which can lead to consideration, then preference.  Eventually, they may buy.  Beyond purchase, there’s the opportunity to forge deeper connections with and better understanding of your customers.  Embrace this new dimension of doing business and commit to it for the long term.  Keep at it though, and the benefits will be very real indeed.

What do you think?  Is your small business stuck in the first gear of driving a social media strategy?  Was this a helpful way to think about the task at hand?  Use the comments feature to discuss and please share with others.

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Over the past few years, people have been predicting an explosion in the use of mobile devices--bringing about changes to society that would equal or surpass those brought about by the personal computer.  For much of that time, I’ve been skeptical.  Sure, the convenience of having a device anywhere was great, but limitations on connectivity, input, and screen resolution made me think that mobile devices would always be supplemental to the PC. 

And then I got an iPhone. 

While it’s far from a perfect device--the battery life is too short, calls drop, and typing is no picnic--it has made me see a potential in mobile devices that I hadn’t seen before.  The iPhone’s extreme portability and vast library of applications tip the scales for me.  And the technology built into every iPhone--a touch screen, accelerometer, compass, etc.--make experiences possible that are neither practical nor commercially feasible on the PC.  Other technologies, such as e-ink, flexible displays, and advances in minitiurization will further differentiate what’s possible on mobile devices from what we do on the PC.  The PC will have its own advances, but their impact will be incremental compared to the changes brought on by improvements to and ubiquity of mobile devices.

These changes will also challenge us to think about the consequences of the technology: data security, personal safety, and the proper role of government regulation.  But hey, if I can watch Curb Your Enthusiasm on the beach while ordering a pizza, I say bring it on!

I was prompted to write this post by a YouTube video I saw by a mobile communications industry group.  The video both recapped the growth of mobile to date and predicted the changes we’ll see in them over the next decade.  Its predictions are bold, but they’re also plausible and specific.  If half of them come to pass, we’re in for a wild ride.  The video starts off with a bunch of new-agey corporate mumbo jumbo, but eventually picks up steam and gets more interesting.  Watch:

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