This morning I was lucky enough to be invited to the launch of a new partnership between Foursquare and History Channel – the first of its kind in the UK.
How does it work?
The premise is simple, when foursquare fans check-in to one of over 600 sites they will now find quirky and interesting historical tips about their location. Badge collectors will be pleased to know that checking-in four times to any of the 600 sites will unlock a limited edition badge.
The campaign currently involves 20 partner sites including The Tower of London, HMS Belfast, Shakespeare’s Globe and The Clink museum. These partner attractions will reward users for checking-in through a number of exclusive special offers that are only available through foursquare.
The team at History Channel explained the focus of the campaign is to help Londoners to uncover more and more of their city. For example, when I checked in at the event this morning at Tower of London, I received the tip ‘From 1235 until 1835, the monarch’s personal zoo was kept at the Tower and it included many exotic animals given as presents by other monarchs, including polar bears, leopards and elephants.’ Interesting stuff!
This certainly marks the beginning of new partnership opportunities with Foursquare – it will be interesting to see which brands follow suit.
A handy video
Not sure how Foursquare works? Here’s a handy video they showed at the event this morning:
Some examples
Some more fun tips you might now find on Foursquare:
• Savoy Street – This is the only street in the UK where you drive on the right. The rule dates back to the days of hansom cabs, dropping off their privileged guests at the Savoy Hotel.
• The London Stone – this simple rock on 111 Cannon Street, now lying in the wall of a Chinese bank, was once the most famous landmark in the city. Its origins are lost in legend and myth, but it was considered the city’s symbolic heart.
• The Dove – Situated at 19 Upper Mall in Hammersmith, this cosy riverside pub dates back to the 16th century, and boasts the smallest bar in England – 4 foot 2 inches by 7 foot 10 inches.
• The Thames Whale – In 2006, Britain was captivated by the fate of a 19 foot bottlenose whale that swam up the Thames and became stranded here. Sadly, the whale died and its skeleton is now in the Natural History Museum.
The future?
What’s the future for Foursquare? Will this be a turning point that sets Foursquare apart from Facebook Places? Share your view in the comments box below.
If you’ve been hiding under in bed this month to avoid the snow, it’s the only way you will have missed the UK’s biggest social secret Santa!
After having to clamp my hands over my mouth for a whole month, I can now reveal the #SoCol Secret Santa givers.
From a mini Christmas tree to Facebook ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ stamps, the gifts have certainly been creative. To see a selection of the best, visit our Facebook page or scroll to the bottom of this post. Got one to add? Just send us a pic on Twitter and we’ll upload it to the Facebook album.
Get scanning for your name and don’t forget to thank your giver. To find them on Twitter, just click on their name.
We hope you also enjoyed the little extra gift we sent to each giver. If you didn’t take part and want to get your paws on a limited edition #SoCol badge, we have a few left so will give them out on a first come first served basis.
There’s been some fantastic, measured yet insightful 2010 round up posts going around this week. And more importantly it’s great to see the intelligent thinking that’s been going in to 2011 planning and predictions this month.
But folks, it’s also December, the month of Santa, mulled wine and frivolity. So, for our end of year round up post, we’ve selected our favourite fixes of festive fun from across the social web.
Our Top Five Fixes of Festive Fun
1. The digital nativity – This has probably already graced your screens but it’s worth another view. Watch the tale of the nativity be mapped out in a fast paced overlay of social screen shots.
2. Santa, the brand – Does what it says on the tin. Remember, Santa is fond of children. Santa is not a bit creepy. Nice work Quietroom.
3. 12 days of social Christmas – A fresh take on the traditional theme tune of Christmas. Stay alert and watch out for the five angry birds!
4. Fresh Networks social Santas – What better way to celebrate Christmas, while amusing others, than renting Borris bikes and Santa suits then attempting some synchronised cycling?
5. 1000 Heads Custom Cracker – You’ve got to admire the festive spirit of the guys over at 1000 Heads. A small team locked themselves in a room for a day to create custom jokes for their loyal followers. This was the gem I received: “Santa hires elves b/c orcs stink, there aren’t enough dwarves & pixies haven’t done anything decent since 1991.”
Bonus: Essential Christmas – It would be slightly biased to include this in the official list but a Christmas fist bump should also be delivered to Felix and the guys at Essential, well, just for the tights really.
Got any Christmas corkers that shine brighter than these? Has your agency come up with a quirky alternative to the Christmas card this year? Share yours in the comments box below.
The mulled wine is a brewing and Rudolph has been polishing his nose but what will you be getting in your stocking this year?
For a special Christmas treat, your Social Collective team has joined forces with Santa to bring you The Official SoCol Secret Santa.
The premise is simple:
Register your interest by leaving your Twitter handle in the comments box below or simply tweet ‘I’m taking part in the #SoCol#SecretSantahttp://ow.ly/3cnZa‘
We will make sure we’re following you from the @SoCollective Twitter account and invite you to DM us your postal address and telephone number – don’t forget to follow us back or we can’t send you details
Once you’ve signed up we will send you your Secret Santa contact details
Head to the shops and pick your present. Try to keep the cost between £5 and £10.
Post your gift and wait patiently for yours to arrive
Once the elves have dropped off your bounty, share a picture of your pressie on Twitter using #SoCol and see if you can guess who it’s from
We will reveal the Secret Santas on Christmas eve along with a selection of the best pictures (but of course, not your contact details)
So let’s get giving and make a fellow Twitter friend’s Christmas sparkle.
Who knows what Santa will send through your chimney!
A note from your organisers: This is for fun not profit. Your contact details will only be passed on to your Secret Santa and not used for any marketing purposes.
The latest in our guest blog series is bought to you by Tom Mason, aka @totmac.
Is your business scared of its employees?
By Tom Mason
The majority of businesses are scared of their staff. More specifically, the majority of businesses are scared of what their staff have to say online. And they’re not having any of it.
A global study from Perdue University found that 81% of businesses restricted the use of at least one social network. Meanwhile, 13% of organisations had an umbrella ban on a host of sites, including Twitter, Facebook and Windows Live Mail. You can understand why: in 2009, employees spent 40 minutes every week browsing updates and photos from their friends while sitting at their desks.
But companies are missing an opportunity here. By blocking employee access to social networking sites they are losing out.
An engaged employee can be a powerful company advocate; an informed member of the team keen to share news about their projects to friends and followers. Indeed, an army of passionate bloggers and tweeters can work alongside a traditional marketing strategy, spreading brand awareness and encouraging lead generation. It isn’t as if the majority of employees don’t already have a social media presence.
And by giving staff the ability to tweet at their desks, you’re actively encouraging them to talk about their day job. An engaged online workforce, co-operating with a digital marketing strategy, can lend a passionate and personal voice to the corporate megaphone. And often, that individual presence can be a lot more effective as a brand advocate that an official account, if only for the fact that people tend to be more trusting of a Twitter account with a face and a forename.
But this isn’t to say that companies aren’t aware of their staff on social networks. Far from it. According to a survey by CareerBuilder.co.uk, 48% of UK companies monitor their employees’ use of social media, both in and outside the office. More worryingly, 28% of firms have fired staff because of something they’ve posted on Twitter or Facebook. Reasons given for these dismissals include negative comments about the company or its employees, unprofessional behaviour and sharing confidential information.
The crux of the issue here is that staff are going to use social media regardless of whether access is available during office hours or not. And it is the company’s responsibility to educate staff on what they can, and cannot, say online. I’m not referring to bad grammar or pictures of a Friday night drink here, but rather confidential information which breaches contracts. The BBC, Kodak and Intel have all adopted sensible policies for the usage of Twitter et al. at work, advising employees on how to avoid any potential pitfalls and more organisations need to follow suit. It’s time for companies to stop being scared of their staff.
This was a guest post by Tom Mason. Tom is the social media manager for Manchester marketing agency Delineo. You can follow Delineo on Twitter here.
There are two things I love more than anything else about Twitter; the debates and the banter.
Throw out an issue and you’ll find an instant audience ready to share their pearls of wisdom. One of the only frustrations is the lack of structure to these debates. I’m sure you have all spotted a great conversation that you missed because you were in a meeting or just came to the table a little too late.
We will be bringing you weekly sessions where you can debate the current hot topics, lead by two weekly guests with contrary view points. You’ll all be invited to join in and at the end of each session we’ll vote to see who’s convinced the masses and who’s going home with their tail in between their legs.
What’s the point?
a) To provide an informal discussion forum for the hot industry topics
Paul and I will be announcing the first Tweet Off topic and contenders in advance of the first weekly Tweet Off, which will be held on Thursday, 4 November 2010.
Dust off your fighting gloves and start training. The Big Tweet Off is on!
Our first Social Collective conference took place on 30 September 2010. Since the big day, we’ve been keeping an eye on the great posts the speakers inspired and are trying to pull together a selection of the reviews from across the blogosphere.
Paul Sutton of Bottle PR has also been kind enough to pen his own review, covering his personal highlights:
Why Social Collective Blew My Mind
By Paul Sutton
There are lots of social media conferences around. Judging from the number of invitations I get, I could probably go to at least one every single week. But despite the topic area being so cutting edge, many of the line ups looked tired and uninspiring. So when I first heard about Social Collective I was excited by the concept; a social communications conference that was focused on the big strategic questions, not the tactical outputs. I could very easily have been disappointed come 30th September.
I’m delighted to say that I wasn’t and that, if anything, Social Collective exceeded my expectations. Every speaker offered something new and insightful on a wide range of topics, from the evolution of online communications to the advancement of social technologies to predictions for what’s to come in 2011. From experience, I’d expect to learn or take something away from maybe three out of a typical day’s eight sessions. But with Social Collective there was something in every single presentation and it’s not overstating the case to say that I’d gladly sit through half of the sessions all over again. They were thought-provoking, challenging and inspiring in equal measure.
Indeed, such was the day’s impact on me that the first thing I did the following day was to blog the key things that I took away from the day. The conference gave me fresh thoughts and new directions, and it gave me back some of the confidence and belief in the social web that I had, admittedly, been lacking over the previous few weeks. It was a great opportunity to (finally) meet some of the people with whom I have daily contact on Twitter, and it introduced me to others. And, perhaps beyond anything else, it prompted ideas and insights that I was able to report back to BOTTLE PR that will have a direct impact on the way we do things. In fact, I’ve already held a company training session to impart some of my new knowledge.
So hats off to the Social Collective crew for putting together such a fantastic group of speakers and topics. I for one will be keeping a close eye on dates for 2011!
We would love to pull together all your Social Collective inspired posts. Here are just a handful of highlights from across the web. If you would like us to add yours to the list pop it as a comment below or send it to @SoCollective via Twitter.
We were privilaged enough to have the first look at the results from CNN’s global social media research at Social Collective conference on 30 September 2010. Our guest blogger Gemma Went put together a great overview on the day which can be viewed here.
For those who were unable to attend, CNN has put together it’s own summary of the results, which can be viewed here. This includes the video shown at Social Collective.
The key findings:
1. The study aimed to measure emotional engagement associated with online news sharing. The results showed a “halo effect” of substantially higher engagement with “recommended” news content and embedded advertising, as opposed to “randomly” consumed content and advertising.
2. The overall uplift for brands who advertise around stories recommended in social media is significant. The global online survey showed that people who received news content from a friend or associate via social media, were 19% more likely to recommend the brand that advertised around that story to others and 27% more likely to favour that brand themselves.
3. More specifically, POWNAR examined case studies including one where a major European tourism board reported notably stronger campaign cut-through with aided ad re-call up 50% and brand favourability up 32% after advertising around news that was shared in social media.
4. The results from POWNAR also showed that video pre-roll advertising had overall a superior branding effect when appearing around news content shared in social media, in comparison to display banner advertising.
Our Social Collective speaker, Didier Mormesse, Senior Vice President at CNN International, commented: “The commerciality of the social media space is fast becoming apparent and this study means that for the first time, we are able to substantiate the value of shared news from an advertising perspective.”
Some juicy stats:
What makes news “shareable”?
POWNAR identified a three tiered semiotic wheel that guides sharing patterns; comprising the three types of codes of narrative, theme and underlying message. For narrative, 65% of shared content comprises ongoing stories, 19% comprises breaking news and 16% of content falls into the “quirky or funny” category. In terms of theme, news recommendation is driven by content that is visually spectacular, stories about science and technology, human interest stories and money-related stories. The majority of stories being shared carry an underlying message of the “sharer” imparting knowledge.
The 80/20 rule applies to the findings. 27% of all frequent sharers* account for 87% of all news stories shared. The average global user shares 13 stories per week and receives 26 stories through shared social media links or emails.
Which platforms dominate?
In peer-to-peer communication, 43% of news sharing comes from social media networks and tools e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, followed by email (30%), SMS (15%) and IM (12%).
As a personal Foursquare fan, I instantly bought in to the potential for location based marketing. Unless you’re daft it makes sense. In the vast and all powerful social space, the one challenge we have yet to overcome is how to provide quality information on a local basis.
Hyperlocal news sites are stepping in to fill the void but are not fullfilling practical needs.
Hello Foursqure. OK so, it’s not really ‘there’ in the UK yet but chat to your American friends and you’ll start to recognise the power of local.
The ability to talk to the companies, venues, reastaurants and… WORLD that’s around you is huge. From a personal perspective, Google becomes defunked. Let your friends tell you where to drink, eat and make the most of your surroundings. From a business perspective, interact with your customers while they’re near you, with you and engaged.
Wouldn’t you just love it if you could apply the power that foursquare has driven to life? Wait, you can! Roll out GetGlue.
GetGlue is a social network for entertainment and everything in life you want to share. GetGlue users rate and check-in to things they like to get recommendations and earn rewards.
The GetGlue mobile app enables users to check-in to tv shows, movies, music and books, plus see what their friends are consuming in real-time. On GetGlue.com users can quickly build up their taste profile, get fresh suggestions every week, browse top lists and find taste neighbors.
The potential is endless. Although you can’t just set up a profile with ease, like Foursquare users have come acustom, it’s a minor set back. What you can do is share everything that’s relevant to you in a clean simple and user friendly way. Get stuck in and have a good play and you’ll become quickly addicted. The recommendations are genuinely useful and the competitive streak running through you will explode when you realise the stickers you’re earning will actually be sent to you in real life by the GetGlue team.
Those thinking about the impact for clients should get excited. We’ve always wanted to know exactly when how and why consumers are interacting with our brands. If GetGue becomes mainstream then we could. I can see your creative juices flowing.
Time to head over and check it out.
I became quite consumed with getting the stickers I wanted. To kick start your sticker portfolio, here are the secrets to getting your first 20 (in order of convienience):
20 Quick win GetGlue stickers
1. iPhoner: A tough one… use the iPhone app and you’ll get this.
2. Bootcamp: Some recognition for your first day on duty at GetGlue.
3. Addon Adhesive: Install the Crome browser add on and you’ll recive a googlisious treat.
4. Movie Hopper: Check in at three movies in a row and let the popcorn flow.
5. Cabin Fever: Geek out with 10 check ins for a mildly embarrasing sticker.
6. Check in pro: No shame? Go for 25 and you’ll get another treat.
7. Curious George: Let your curiosity go wild and scope out 10 other profiles. It will be worth it.
8. Fist Bump: While you’re over on your friend’s profiles, like 10 of their posts to share a fist bump.
9. Listmaniac: Work your way through the lists. It’s a great way to get started and once you’ve worked through around 20, your sticker count will increase.
10. Book Worm: Like 50 books for literary recognition.
11. Couch Potato: Like 50 TV shows for yet more attention.
12. Radiohead: You don’t have to be a fan of the band. Like 100 albums or artists and you will become a Radiohead.
13. Movie-buff: Spend some quality time in the movie lists section. Once you’ve been through a good 250 you’ll be acknowledged.
14. Clash of the Titans: Find the movie and check in and you’ll get yourself a hot little sticker.
15. Hands All Over: Check in to Maroon 5 with the phrase ‘hands all over’ to bond with this award.
16. Newman: Check in at Weeds. End of.
17. Road Trip: Check in at Weeds with this phrase and get an exclusive sticker – ‘The Newmans take a purple coupe 32 on a road trip this season’.
18. Freeloader: Head to Entourage, enjoy it, check in, reap the rewards.
19. True Blood Newbee: Same diff. Watch it, check in, get a prize for your efforts.
20. Don Draper: If you’ve watched Mad Med, you’ll probably want Don Draper. Just share that (‘I want Dan Draper’) with your friends while checking in and he’ll join your bounty.
By Beth Carroll
The Social Collective Secret Santa
