On Location Based Social Media Motivations

I foursquare checked into the beach today, and I liked it.

In fact, I share my location on Foursquare, Instagram and Facebook pretty frequently for all kinds of reasons. Not too long ago, I took my car to the dealers to have some work done and brought along my copy of Location Based Marketing for Dummies.

While perusing this book I also happened to foursquare check in to the dealership. Low and behold, there was the check-in special for a discount on the service I was currently having done to my car. I redeemed the coupon and felt a combination of silly and satisfied that while I was learning about and thinking about this topic, I cashed in on it as well. Mind you, all of the positives were there, I felt more brand loyal to my favorite car dealership and I felt excited about sharing my location and gaining gamification points on my profile

I also became the mayor of a Cinnabon this morning. While in my mind, this was a thrilling accomplishment (also one that has me a little worried about my snack food habits) I got to thinking about the large amount of people who still don’t understand the concept of check-ins, location based sharing and mayorships.

I use location based social media because I love it, and I love to think about it from  a marketing and strategic viewpoint as well. I place a lot of weight on what I think the future of this type of social sharing and data networking can have. However, the learning curve seems to be taking longer than marketers or users might like.  Just a few weeks ago I had to totally explain what foursquare was to a coworker. Something that is such an everyday part of my life and engrained into the way I think about the digital landscape, may not be as well known as I perceive it to be.

I can’t turn it off. Even at the beach, a place where most people WANT to disconnect from social media, I’m happily snapping, tweeting and checking in. So I did some ruminating about the motivations behind these actions today:

Fear of Missing Out

While legitimate articles have been published recently on the anxiety of missing out, I think it still holds very serious sway in people’s personal motivation on social media. Sharing an iIstagram photo of that cool place you are, that famous person you just ran into at a super market or just your Netflix screen as you are proud to spend the night in is almost like digitally justifying your day.  I would argue that consciously or subconsciously, most people want to appear cool in their digital expression of themselves and their lives.

Gamification

Because we already started talking about appearing cool in our every day lives, apps like Foursquare allow us to gamify and enhance our everyday lives. In college, I checked into the same classrooms every day. I earned badges and points which made my daily routine more exciting. I also checked into my favorite Starbucks almost every time I went there. By the end of my senior year of undergrad, I’d checked in to that Starbucks over 150 times. Instead of making me think about the insane amount of $$$ I was spending on my caffeine fix, I felt an odd sense of pride that I had this statistic about a mundane daily activity. I like the way that location based campaigns can help me quantify my life and make connections, such as the way that Foursquare lets me know the last time I was in Ohio.

Memories

This one doesn’t need explanations but it’s a cool digital log and digital share of the things we do and see.

My copy of location-based marketing. An ever changing field.

Those are three things that motivate me to use LBSoMe, but what about more casual users, people who aren’t social media professionally, academically, completely.

Which begs the question, while I ADORE location based campaigns and location based social media, are there enough committed social media users to allow such campaigns to make a big enough marketing impact? Does it matter? Perhaps your merit is in pleasing and reaching that growing niche market.

This could be entirely biased because social media isn’t only what I like, it’s what I do. In fact per this article that I spied on Twitter this week, 21,000 people carry the title Social Media Manager, and that’s not even including the vastly multiplying demographic of jobs who’s description includes a ton of social media although not as the primary function or title.

Fascinating: There are now 21,000 people with the title “Social Media Manager” per @LinkedIn. http://t.co/nilra5mwBa h/t @davepeck

— Craig Kanalley (@ckanal) October 5, 2013

Taking all of this into account, here’s three tips on reaching an audience via Location Based Campaigns from someone who maybeeee loves it a little too much:

1. Teach your audience. Once you target and know the people you intend to reach with a location based campaign, be it a check in special, some incentive for sharing your location or giving people a badge for being a frequenter of your establishment, then think about who these people are. Do they already check-in? Or are they totally new? Maybe it’s a demographic who wouldn’t even have the needed app downloaded on their phone. You may want to consider being a teacher, a thought leader for your customer. If you feel the benefits of location based data and sharing are ones your company would really benefit from, then take the time to show them why they should care. Consider giving an additional special for first-time users, or holding a clinic or fun event (Social media lounge!?) showing people how to do it. You’ll gain customer loyalty in the process.
2. Call to Action. How are you prompting people to participate in your campaign? It will differ based on your audience. If you want to reach those superusers, those crazy people who check into the beach on a sunday afternoon, you might want to plant the idea somewhere difficult to find. While this sounds a little crazy, this target audience just might love you all the more for making them work for it. Just like the joy you find each time you come across one of the mysteries of the universe easter eggs on the LOST dvd, planting digital location based clues (geocashing?) may be a way to go after a different audience. On the opposite of that, a printed flier or window sticker may be enough to reach the casual or new users.
3.  You’ve been 48 times this year. The quantifiable, bragging rights aspect is one that I think is worth harvesting. Find a way to reward ,perhaps with tiered offers, the people who share their location the most. If it’s someone’s first visit in a year, make use of the information. Greet them and find out why it’s been so long. Make it an enjoyable experience for everyone.

Potential KPIs for Sports Orgs

While social can serve as an important reinforcer for sports teams, allowing fans to crave that constant in-the-know feeling while feeling satisfied and connected to their favorite sports stars, it also has the potential to be measured as conversions to sales. Social can be used to push sales not only to tickets to games and merchandise but also sales in an arena or stadium, maximizing the profitability of a game day.

Social scheming in the moment 

Business Insider published this graph last week depicting which social sites are generating revenue:

Via Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-social-commerce-is-set-to-explode-2013-7

The graph shows, not unexpectedly, that the largest amount of referrals are coming from Facebook and Twitter. However, e-mail’s share in all this seems to be going down. Just a couple of years ago, and judging by the number of daily emails I get from businesses for many even still, email remained a monstrous push for sales conversation. Twenty-four hour only sales or e-mail coupons worked to drive in revenue and get customers to the page. But I feel as though many people have become just a numb to this as flyers in the mail or telemarketing. While all of the aforementioned forms of marketing still have their value and can absolutely become a push for sales, I think social has a unique opportunity in today’s world, especially in sports and live events.

Applying it to in-game content creation and analytics

Considering this opportunity, there are a number of potential key performance indicators that I think teams could create and measure to see how influential their social channels are and to use them in improving profitability. As always, successful KPIs will absolutely change for each organization based on their needs and specialities, but here are a few scenarios I’ve been thinking it might be cool to watch play out.

1. Foursquare concession coupons: Whether with a check-in special or a Tweet, prepare a special for say, a free hot dog with a drink purchase. The customer will need to show the coupon or tweet at POS in order to gain the free item. The tracking can then be done in the register system (if its sophisticated to know how many free hot dogs were given away) or by creating some sort of social redemption pull like providing a hashtag to show your free hot dog off. A hashtag like #freehotdogadventures or something more situationally specific can show you enthusiasm for such a campaign and will also help you identify which types of fans are engaging with your content so that you can tailor your next special to their interests and gain even more social traction. When it’s all said and done, your KPI here will be how many free hot dogs redeemed. This can turn into some sort of sponsored content and also give you a gauge of how many people, if any, are checking in and wanting a next step. This can help you decide if its something worth pushing in the future.
2. Ticket Sales: An obvious KPI is a conversation from a social link to tickets sold. I think the best way to measure this would be to choose one outlet and find a way to distinctly control the sales funnel through basic marketing principles such as attention, interest, desire, action. This could look like this for a team: attention– start with content, a instagram video, a simple twitter image, something with analytical tracking attached to it. interest– Maybe it’s a promo for a big game coming up or big rivalry that hasn’t been sold out yet, use statistics or even an emotional pull in efforts to convince a potential customer that it’s THIS specific game they need to come to. Desire may or may not be created in the steps above, but likely, desire will come inherently from fandom. Lastly action, which can be the most difficult part, but needs to be the most measured part. Devise a system unique to your situation that tests social networks and can have solid data on which attempts are being converted into sales and which should stick to different types of content.

Additional Looks

A classmate of mine at Newhouse created a slideshare presentation for a class getting into her ideas about sports and the sales funnel including looks at relationship building.