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FourSquare

Find A Lifetime of Success in 2012 by understanding “Time” & “Why?”

January 1, 2012 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Ready to understand why some people are far more successful than others?

Brace yourself! I am going to share my perspective on why 2011 was such a success for me and give you something to think about in 2012. Here’s the funny part, I made more money in 2011 than I have ever and that little fact actually has little to do with why I was so successful in 2011.

I have had some great mentors and it’s all due to listening! You see those that know me might think that I am more of a talker, but I do a lot of listening. The fact that I actually hear what I am listening too makes it all the more effective. A lesson that’s valuable for life and Social Media.

TIME

In the movie “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” the Character Gordon Geckko turns to a young man and tells him that “time is the most precious commodity that I know of” a statement of absolute truth! While Einstein argued that time could be something of perception, in the case of the “theory of relativity” scientists make assumptions and simulations that space-time and other aspects of physics and astronomy  do not change the current state of time, in relation to the phenomenon of life.

During my masters program, we studied a concept that fascinated me on its own, supply and demand. The wildcard here was that demand was driven by perception. The concept became even more exciting when later we talked about the monetary value of leisure! The economic evaluation for leisure comes when there is not enough value to make the individual work more, or in the tipping point where the individual is willing to work during a time period traditionally reserved for leisure.

Time is clearly something that holds financial value, and in the case of supply and demand, we have a market where supply is consistent. There is only so many hours in a day, so many days in a week, so many weeks in a month and so many months in a year and so many years that we live. However, what if life is not as long as we believe it to be? The supply may be shorter or  longer then perceived. Demand seems to be the one thing in America that we do not have in this equation.

Whatever you choose for your profession, do not let it dictate your life. Travel, Family, Exploration and the Art of Doing Nothing are just as important and I believe a healthy part of a successful life.

WHY?

I will tell you right now, if you work for or with someone who answers “Why?” with “because I said so” or “that’s how we do it” RUN!

That person is likely, lazy, selfish and/or just plain ignorant! Yes, ignorant! I have had these people just like everyone else and it made for a negative professional career experience in the fields of education, banking and sales. There is probably nothing more dangerous to the health of an organization, its culture, and our economy then these people. “Why?” is crucial to success!

Why is how we learn, grow and develop. It is crucial to success both for individuals and organizations. A supervisor, manager or superior has an fiduciary responsibility to both the organization and the client to teach their subordinate everything they know. I pride my work in student affairs with the notion that I had started teaching my staff from day one what I do and why so. In my absence, everything, for at least a while could run as consistently as if I was still there. If you don’t believe that you should prepare for your absence, then what will you do if you should be promoted? Do you not believe that your people are  more effective contributors to a culture where you have empowered them?

A small business owner should have the same relationship with their consultant and media professionals, if you do not invest the time to teach them about your business how will they be able to understand its culture? If you do not understand “Why?” the consultant or media professional is doing something then how will you know what to do in their absence or to communicate the evolution of the business. You may not be able to do what others due, either because of talent, skills or time, but you still better understand why they are doing it.  

Both “Time” and “Why?” are a crucial part of life, not just business or professional development. Adapt a plan that encompasses learning and educating the “Why?” to those around you, and you will find “Time” which will bring you prosperity in 2012.

It was a great 2011, I am looking forward to an even better 2012! Hope you’ll Join me!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WahafF8Y_E0]

Sources:

  • The Price Of Leisure
  • Theory of Relativity   
  • Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Filed Under: Blog, Business, Business Networking, General, Sales & eCommerce Tagged With: blog, brand, business, conferences, facebook, FourSquare, LinkedIn, news, PR, publishing, Puglisi, Social Brand, Social Media, video, Visibility, website, YouTube

#SMWF: NASA’s ‘Out-Of-This-World’ Social Media Engagement Success

November 30, 2011 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

NASA has quite an impressive social media plan in place that has already created quite a social buzz. There innovative and interactive ideas has gained them a solid reputation for achieving success with social engagement. At the Social Media World Forum in New York, I had a chance to hear Stephanie L. Schierholz, Social Media Manager talk about what NASA has been doing with Social Media, and specfically location based services recently.

NASA Partners with Gowalla

Gowella, a mobile and web service, partnered with NASA in 2010 to provide them with an interactive contest where users check in via Gowalla to help locate four NASA-related virtual items. Those items were a NASA patch, a spacesuit, space shuttle, and a moon rock. NASA displays moon rocks from past moon missions at expositions, planetariums, and museums throughout the world. Moon rocks were easily located when users checked in to any location where an actual moon rock was on display.

Gowlla in collaboration with JESS3 created a special edition of a visual map to help users locate the moon rocks and the other required treasure hunt items could be found by checking in through Gowalla at any one of the over 400 science centers, observatories, nature centers, aquariums, museums, and planetariums that are part of NASA’s large Museum Alliance. Gowalla users that collected at least three of the four required items received a special pin in their digital Gowalla passport.

Plus, the first one hundred people who collected three of the four items also received a hardcopy version of the map in the mail.

Tweets from Above and Beyond

During this impressive social media campaign, NASA also had Astronaut Douglas Wheelock, or @Astro_Wheels, check in from Space Station announcing. “Houston, I’ve just unlocked FourSquares’ NASA Explorers badge.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rztX3xZR9go]

Check out the NASA Explorers Badge at FourSquare.

Campaign Statistics

This NASA social media campaign turned up some pretty impressive stats for Gowalla and Twitter. Gowalla had never had a past completed by so many, so quickly. Over thirty-thousand of each of the four required items were located through check-ins, and followers were increased by 4,278 during this campaign.

Since this campaign began more than 10,000 people have unlocked the NASA Explorer badge, and over 130,000 people now follow NASA on Foursquare.

Aside from the statistics, NASA’s campaign on Twitter has had other benefits as well. Some of the photos posted by any given @Astro to Twitpic can be what Douglas Wheelock referred to as ‘life-changing’ such as this photo of the earth’s aurora from space.

Incredible!

You Don’t Have to Be an Astronaut to Learn from NASA

Check out what the social media manager for NASA has to say about their relationship with Twitter and how they engage with their followers, as well as how you can engage yours!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-u_hKhtxAI]

Some lessons that NASA social media staff has taken away from their campaigns may help you as well.

  1. Use Twitter yourself first. Know the format and how it works. Get familiar.
  2. Identify the specific business case for your use.
  3. Locate new resources for growth.
  4. Keep the account active.

“You may not have a spaceship, but your company has a fan base. They won’t think of themselves as fans until they’re in a room with like-minded people. They won’t think of themselves as members of a community until YOU bring them together.”

-David Rosen, @davidhrosen (group VP, Makovsky + Company)

 

Sources:

  • Gowalla
  • JESS3
  • NASA And Gowalla Launch Partnership With Search For ‘Moon Rocks’
  • NASA on Foursquare

Filed Under: Blog, General, Mobile, Mobile & Technology, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics, Video Tagged With: brand, FourSquare, Gowalla, Location Based, NASA, news, PR, SMWF, Social Media, Visibility

Main Stream Social Media: Foursquare, Twitter and the NYC Mayor

May 11, 2011 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

If you needed proof to how much social media is becoming the mainstream media, here’s a little tale:

Mayor Bloomberg, of New York City, made April 16 the official “Foursquare Day” in the city of New York.

Foursquare.com, a location based application that offers its subscribers the ability to “check in” through their smartphones and text messages, into an establishment to tell their friends where they are at the moment. By doing so users get prizes, collect virtual badges and redeem them for free stuff. They can also meet other users whom they don’t personally know but are at the location at the same time, and, as they say, let serendipity take its course. Foursquare has more than 8 million users.

So Mayor Bloomberg visited the Manhattan office of Foursquare, a social media platform, and made a proclamation through Twitter: “I’ve officially declared 4/16 @Foursquare Day in NYC #4sqday,” he tweeted and posted on Facebook as well. Together he reached at least 100,000 followers (70,680 on Twitter and 30,660 on Facebook).

Why this date? 4/16 – four squared. And the company is trying to get other cities around the world to declare it so for next year.

What a way for a mayor to boost his city’s economy.

A day later we learned the results: 3 million people checked -in in New York City alone and a lot of activity in charities they support. Foursquare events collected food, donated money to Japan disaster victims, supported the Red Cross, Humane society and more. On their blog they write “We love the fact that 4sqday helped contribute to these causes in a spontaneous, grassroots way” Mayor Bloomberg.

Sources:

  • 4SqDay
  • NY Times
  • TheNextWeb

Filed Under: Blog, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, SEO Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Topics Tagged With: advertising, blog, brand, FourSquare, internet marketing, local, Marketing, PR, Social Brand, Social Media, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Loopt: A Social Location Tool

April 26, 2011 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Let’s say you step out of class or a business meeting or a long day at work, and you wonder; where are my friends right now and what are they up to? What fun activity am I missing?

Loopt, a mobile application, helps you see a clear picture of your social circle, without making a round of calls or texts. This virtual social application is meant to be a facilitator of the real social world.

Founded in 2005 and launched in 2008 as an iPhone app, Loopt is growing and incorporating other social media platforms. In January 2011 the site came up with a 4.0 update that changed the look, added new features and is applicable on all smart phones. At the moment, Loopt has more than 4 million users and have partnerships with Google Maps, Facebook Places and Twitter, among others.

Their application lets you see at a glance and in real time where your friends are hanging out. It will show you who is at a nearby place and wants company. It will show you where is this new place everyone is talking about and who’s there. You can text your friends and get a map how to get there.

Another service they provide are recommendations to places you have never been before. If you are on a business trip, in a new city, wouldn’t you want to get first hand recommendations about places to eat or hang out? Again, you might meet a tall dark stranger who is on your network of virtual friends.

In the latest update, out in April 2011, you can get at-a-glance recommendations about a place. Let’s face it, say the makers of Loopt. Most of the remarks are either very good – people loved it enough to write about it, or very bad – they were really unhappy with something. Who has the time to go through all those posts? Their Loopt Q, lets you see it in a graph form. Good reviews vs. bad ones. You don’t have to stand outside a restaurant for half an hour and read all the posts. This service is now available only in San Francisco, with a plan to roll it soon to other cities as well.

Sources:

  • Crunchbase
  • Blog.Loopt
  • Loopt
  • ReadWriteWeb
  • Wikipedia

Filed Under: Blog, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, FourSquare, Location, Marketing, mobile, Social Brand, Social Media, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Foursquare – Location Marketing and Check-in Technology

February 17, 2011 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Although the knowledge of location marketing may be old news to some, to those who are just tuning into the usage of Smartphones and as well as other advanced mobile digital equipment, it may be an entirely new concept to others.

I did an article about FourSquare a few months ago, but in review I thought it be useful to take a bigger step back and reevalute this so new visitors could see a better picture, or blog! (Original Blog Entry – Promotional Social Interactive – FourSquare)

Simple Concept?

It is indeed as simple as it sounds. Location marketing is marketing that is targeted to people based solely on their geographic location. With GPS available on Smartphones, this type of marketing is not only much more realistic, but much more lucrative. With the huge influx of Smartphones and other similar mobile devices, location sharing services seem to be drawing a large crowd.

Foursquare was quite possibly the first location marketing and sharing service to succeed. With Foursquare, Smartphone users can check in with nearby friends and family as well as take advantage of possible discounts from other Foursquare members in the area. With a unique rewards system that encourages users to take advantage of its features, it seems to have no trouble keeping many users rapt.

Who is Taking Advantage of Foursquare?

Although there are certainly specific demographics, usage can also vary depending on aspects of each locale. The statistical answer is that only around 4% of web users were utilizing the location-sharing services available to them, however, this still amounts to around 38.9 million people, certainly no small market. It is predicted that location-sharing services are expected to double between the years of 2010 and 2015.

Currently primary users are mostly younger men who use it to check in all around town to some of their favorite places, or with their favorite people. Over 70% of reporting male internet users between 18 and 34 say they have previously or currently use their location-sharing services capabilities. Females around the same ages report about a 64% usage of the same services.

Foursquare Highlights

The lady hunter. Wheretheladies.at uses Foursquare to do one simple thing, locate the ladies in the locale. Foursquare will actually retrieve public data from locations nearby and direct you towards the one with the highest density of ladies. Talking about tracking down the ladies! However, I think this is just technologically advanced enough to be considered unique and cool, and not stalky and worrisome.

  • National Foursquared?

The National Archives and Records Administration has been Foresquared. You can now check in at the George W. Bush library with Foursquare. You can now say you have step foot into the place where all former presidents have deposited some of the most important papers and archives associated with their terms. The claim is that by joining Foursquare with the National Archives, social medias can help to invite users to learn more about their nations history.

  • Check into Dinner

While McDonalds and Dominos have reported relatively good check in responses, there has been no real measure taken of just how good, and why it mattered. Even these corporate giants have no idea how many additional people, or extra sales the check in offer even generates.

  • The Best Check in Ever, The Big Game

The Superbowl has Foursquared itself too. On the recent Superbowl they created a special Foursquare badge that has fans checking in and being given a code that can be redeemed at NFL shops for up to 20% off of their merchandise.

  • Foursquare My School

Syracuse University became the third school to gain its own badge that users were able to unlock by checking in. Harvard and Stanford Universities also have their own badges as well.

There is no doubt that this kind of marketing capability could mean endless possibilities, and an endless flow of people in your area looking for your own products or services. It seems like it is just a matter of technology in mobile devices becoming more common in worldwide users, that may be preventing Foursquare from turning into a widespread GPS type of service that only directs us to where we actually want to go.

Sources:

  • DailyOrange: SU Becomes 3rd University to get Badge
  • FourSquare: Blog
  • International Business Blog
  • LifeHacker:Five Wys to make productive use of FourSquare
  • NYTimes: FourSquare learns Spanish, Japanese, Itlalian
  • Read Write Web
  • TxT4Ever: FourSquare uses redemptions …

Filed Under: Blog, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, SEO Search Engine Optimization, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, FourSquare, local, Social Brand, Social Media, Social Media Social Brand Visibility, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Social Brand Visibility: Gowalla, Mobile Web

January 10, 2011 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

A relatively unknown as of yet, Gowalla is a mobile and web service that allows people to connect, communicate and win prizes for their effort. It helps people keep up with their friends, share and comment about favorite places and discover new ones.

Users can share their physical place with friends and family using GPS locator that lets people know where you are physically, so you can get together. Gowalla is geographically available in over 7,500 cities around the world and has categorized listings of businesses and location-based listing to search from. It has a social “to do” lists called Trips, and rewards users when accomplishing stuff, like checking in to an establishment or posting a good review of a place. The items can be picked up and dropped, and they are giving out a lot of prizes.

You can receive pings when your friends check in or ‘shout’, and you can meet other Gowalla users who happen to be in the same location as you.

Founded in 2007, and launched in 2009, this Austin Texas Company is the brain child of Josh Williams and Scott Raymond. It is a competitor to Foursquare and had a similar launch. Foursquare took off immediately and now Gowalla is catching up with them.

According to Williams, Gowalla has over 600,000 active users and sees about 20,000 check-ins a day. It is ranked 3,216 in US traffic.

Sources:

  • Gowalla
  • Mashable
  • Alexa
  • Crunchbase
  • Wikipedia

 

Filed Under: Blog, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, Business Coach, Business Consulting, FourSquare, Location, Long Island Business, Social Brand, Social Media, Social Media Social Brand Visibility, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Promotional Social Interactive – FourSquare

July 12, 2010 by basilpuglisi@aol.com Leave a Comment

Promotional Social Interactive – FourSquare

My reaction to AOL cover story – http://www.switched.com/2010/06/30/testing-times-square-what-is-foursquare/2#comments 

FourSquare was developed a short time ago. As a Social Media application it was met with the “So what,who cares” as Twitter and Facebook seem to be the only Social Tools that the masses have taken to.

FourSquare uses Twitter and Facebook to deliver its content and purpose…. WHAT?

That’s right, FourSquare’s update “micro blog” posts to both Twitter and Facebook.  However,  if you are an avid Twitter user you already can set your tweets to syndicate on facebook.

What does this mean?

Well, this means that FourSquare leverages the followers and friends to maximize exposure, communication and interaction. The interaction is the new “oooohhh” shiny toy. FourSquare is a location- based application that allows users and businesses to interact and promote on a mobile level that Twitter and Facebook are yet to capitalize on.

FourSquare uses locations and has tips and the coveted “Mayor” status. Let’s talk about Starbucks, the location is at, yes you guessed it, Starbucks…. so you go to Starbucks, your favorite location and you “check in here” the mobile application logs you in, detects your location and then lets you “micro blog” or tweet what you want. You get points for checking in at that location and all your friends, FourSquare, Twitter and Facebook now know you’re at Starbucks, even if your tweet didn’t say Starbucks the location and link does. Now that’s direct advertising. In addition to you blasting out your location and hoping someone else nearby sees and decides to stop in and say hello, you can read about tips, deals or specials as posted by that location or other visitors.

Mayor status: Once you have checked into a location, over the course of sixty days, more then anyone else you become the mayor for being the frequent visitor. The Mayor status is an opportunity for the business, i.e. Starbucks by me offers a free coffee or half price Frap anytime the mayor visits the location.

Tips: This little feature can really help you be the winner, let’s say you go to Paces Steak House in Port Jeff, NY. The Tips section can tell you to ask for a “Fun Platter”.  This local treat is not on the menu and unless you ask for it they are not giving it to you. The “Fun Platter” is a mix of Steak, Salad, Seafood, Olives, Fresh Clams and more…now without FourSquare Tips you may have missed out on this opportunity.

Visibility by Puglisi Consulting Group

We know why you should know this…..

Filed Under: Blog, General, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: FourSquare, Puglisi, Visibility

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