RyanShell.com

Marketing, public relations, social media... and a little of this and that.

Foursquare Location Updates to Twitter/Facebook

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We need to have a chat about location based services. More specifically let’s talk about the updates to Twitter or Facebook after you “check-in” with a service such as foursquare.

I don’t mean to be a downer, but I think we established some time ago that no one cares if you’re “Eating a cheeseburger” or something of that nature. Now, if you’re “Eating a cheeseburger next to Tiger Woods” that might be a different story.

The same thing goes for the constant updates from foursquare (and other services) that have the “I’m at X location.” Do people really care? If you’re at X location doing something fun or have something remotely interesting to share… share away.

Like others, I use foursquare on occasion, but what I don’t do is have it set to share each and every check-in on Facebook and Twitter. Doing so is a bit obnoxious.

After sending the above tweet I received this message via email,

“When I check in and it goes to Twitter my followers drop. Shouldn’t that be an indicator?”

I can’t say whether or not the individual that sent that email is losing followers due to checking in on foursquare, but doing things that others find annoying could certainly be a trigger.

I’m not saying you should never state where you are or what you’re doing – those updates are generally a bit more telling than “I’m at X location.”

If you disagree with me that’s ok, but if you constantly push location updates I can almost guarantee that I’ll stop following you on Twitter or will hide your updates on Facebook. The stream is valuable space…

“Ah ha” Stories are to be Loved

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There are many things about PR that I love, but there’s one thing that always seems to stand out… and that’s creating stories.

I’m not talking about the ones that simply fall in your lap. I’m talking about the times that the well has run dry and the “easy” stories are no where to be found.

More so, I’m talking about when you stop, look around and have that “ah ha” moment and realize you just thought of a story that might not have seen the light of day had you not thought of it.

And while coming up with these “ah ha” stories is great, seeing them on TV or in print is even better.

A good example of one of these stories is the overdraft story seen below that ran on the local NBC affiliate that featured my employer.

“On Your Side” TV Segments

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Let me just come right out and say this – I very much dislike the “On Your Side” consumer stories that many TV stations do.

Not because they can at times make a business own up to mistakes (this can be dealt with), but because a majority of the time they only tell part of the story (not so easy to deal with).

As you may have guessed, I recently had to deal with one of these and the end result left me somewhat discombobulated due to how faulty the reporting was. The reporter did his best to make it appear as if his TV segment was the lone reason a positive outcome was obtained for the consumer and only told half of the story.

I’m all for allowing the media to help consumers, but the goal of a majority of these segments is to show that the TV station made something happen… and that’s not balanced.  

After the segment aired I did a significant amount of damage control and in doing so highlighted several flaws in the reporting which caused the story to be pulled out of rotation and deleted from the stations Web site. This took place in a top 25 market and I think it speaks volumes about the reporting given that the story was pulled.

Did the station do a follow-up story to highlight the flaws? Absolutely not. Think about the irony. They went after a business for a mistake, but when the station did something wrong they didn’t own up and correct the mistake – they simply made it go away.

I have no problem dealing with negative stories, but I do have a problem with faulty reporting.

Value: A Completely Random Story

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I’d like to take a moment and tell you a completely random story.

When I was younger my mom helped me learn the importance of being financially responsible – and I’m talking very young.

Around the age of 11 I, like many kids, wanted to have some extra spending money (I played tennis and the money helped buy rackets, clothes and balls). Knowing that my allowance would only get me so far I opted to come up with ways to either save or make extra cash.

At first I started saving my lunch money, which was a great idea until I realized not eating hurt me at tennis practice in the afternoon. I even sold golf balls that I found when walking the creek at a local golf course – it was great selling a ball back to someone that had just hit it in the water, theyd’ typically laugh and fork over $1.

But I eventually stumbled on a way to make a decent amount of cash (for a kid) in a much shorter amount of time.

If I remember correctly, I was at a neighbor’s house (still around the age of 11) with my mom and he was talking about the need to paint his mailbox. At some point in the conversation the idea of me painting his mailbox to make a few bucks came up… and I gladly accepted the offer.

All I needed was some sand paper to get rid of rust (all neighbors had the same metal mailbox – this was good for me!), black paint, red paint and a paintbrush. It was pretty simple to do, so simple that I decided to offer to paint other peoples mailboxes as well.

$10 for the black part and $2 extra to have the flag done – I was in business!

Here’s the great part, and possibly my first experience with marketing/promotions.

If I hit a dry spell and couldn’t get anyone on a particular street to let me paint their mailbox, I’d do one for free. Once one of the mailboxes looked nice and new, the others looked less than desirable which prompted people to see the need for my service – it was great for business!

This was a great lesson that I think still holds true today. People may not always see the value, but part of the marketers job is to help them do just that.

That’s it. This is the end of my completely random story.

Corporate Web sites and Social Media Implementation

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As time passes you’re going to see corporate Web sites implement more and more social media functionality. A time will come, in the near future, when consumers will start to think social media sharing options is the norm on pretty much all Web sites they visit.

Here’s a short excerpt from Web-Strategist.com titled “Matrix: Evolution of Social Media Integration and Corporate Websites” that highlights some things to consider before jumping in head first.

“Many brands are jumping on the social media bandwagon, without giving proper though about the impacts to their marketing effort.  In particular, many brands are putting ’social chicklets’ on their homepage to “Follow us on Twitter” or “Friend us on Facebook” without considering the ramifications.

[Brands that arbitrarily adopt social tools may be unknowingly undermining their own efforts. Instead, first understand the full ramifications as you integrate social with your corporate website. Secondly, have a clear roadmap]

Marketers spend millions of dollars to get people to visit their corporate website, so why would they be so quick to send them away? Use this strategy matrix to help make your decisions. Be deliberate by first understanding the ramifications:”

Click here to read the rest of the article. Take note of item number 8 in the chart, it’s what I was referring to in the second sentence of this post.