Here is a quick list (courtesy of good friend Cheryl Harrison that I have expanded on) of things you can do to promote foursquare checkins:

+ Loyalty card. “Free x for every x number of checkins.” (printing, business cards, brochures, etc.) Daily, Weekly, Monthly Be unique and get people’s attention by offering more than 10% or 20% for a “one time” offer. Brand loyalty comes when the customer service experience turns into word of mouth marketing not spending more money on traditional marketing techniques. Make them feel special and unique.

+ As a bonus or upgrade. “Free x everytime you checkin on Foursquare.” These can be throwaways that don’t cost the company a lot of money, but attract people to come in.
+ As a way to boost foot traffic on slow days. “40% off on Wednesdays when you check in on Foursquare!”

+ Make it a group thing. As an incentive for bringing friends. “Free x if you checkin with more than 3 people.”

+ As a vehicle to give out something unique. “Limited edition x if you checkin on Foursquare!”
+ As an added value for your sponsors. Having a conference? Offer attendees the ability to check in at each of your sponsor’s businesses to get half off their admission fee. In media? Offer swag if people check-in at the place of your live remote, your #1 advertiser, etc.

+ If you have event you are trying to promote you can spike interest in the swarm badge party.

A lot of these promotional ideas are based on Chris Anderson’s Freemium business model. When creating Foursquare promotions think like a radio station would. It doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the businesses product or service. Promote tickets to a local sporting event or concert, etc. However, make sure not to get gimicky or your efforts will lose value quickly. Be careful though people can do “drive-bys” and cheat. Make them come into the business and take a twitpic for proof. Much like what WeReward is doing.

Here are a couple case studies from a fraternity brother and well known social media marketer and events coordinator extrordinaire , Jason Keath:

Pros:

Why Foursquare Drives Business What You Need To Know
How To Drive More Customers To Your Local Business

Cons:

How the biggest coffee company in the world got it wrong (aka what not to do by offering too small incentives for such a big brand – size DOES matter):

Starbucks Fails to Deliver on Foursquare

For your business you should be able to click on the “Are you the manager of this business?” to setup promotions and track statistics, etc. All this is only half the puzzle. The other half is promoting it on Facebook and Twitter.

If you are interesting in learning more feel free to contact us to see how we can help your business.

However, I believe it is always important to self educate by reading a couple of books from leading authors on any given subject for supplemental and continuing education.

Tribes by Seth Godin: It is a quick read and is intentionally not an in depth book in that it gives you the broader scope/bigger picture as the why network marketing is so important for long term goals and building relationships

Trust Agents by Chris Brogan: Chris builds off of Seth Godin’s book, but then starts to scratch the surface as to why. He points out that while we are still riding this wave of “social media” network marketing buzz, human interaction is still king for several reasons.

The New Rules of Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott: In this book David talks about how to get away or at least add on new media to traditional methods of marketing whether it is for a company brand or personal band (which in a lot of cases the line is blurred).

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie: This is the book you should start with first. It is at the top of any list for a reason. It has stood the test of time and a great foundation to build off of with regards to network marketing.

The Referral Engine by John Janstch: John is hot right now when it comes to online and offline network marketing and sales. The is the how-to book on getting people in your network to refer to your business otherwise known as the cheapest and most trusted kind of marketing (aka – word-of-mouth marketing).

Engage by Brian Solis: Brian is one of the smartest young talents in the network marketing industry right now. This book essentially combines all the books above and breaks down the how-to’s of social media and social networking sites for company and personal branding as a starting point for building traffic to your website, sales leads, and sales conversions.

I think the economy still recovering and the value of personal brand gaining ground or being almost as important or level with company brand adds fuel to the fire. We have talked about it to death, but you know as well as I do that the cream rises to the top due to being a Trust Agent in being genuine and transparent while leading through innovation and reinvention to be a sustainable brand or business.

In today’s social media world building a personal brand means doing “all the above.” If I had to make a choice I would have to say blogging because you can always integrate podcasting and viral videos in to that. That being said blogging is more of a platform in which to distribute your content via podcasting, viral videos, etc.

More importantly than the communication platforms/channels you decide to use is the content itself. The paradigm shift that is social media has done away with the gatekeepers and turned everybody into their own CEO. No longer is the target audience necessarily a captive one. They can make the decision within seven seconds (average viewer’s attention span) if they want to continue to to read, watch, listen to what you have to say. It becomes about creating content that will extend that that seven seconds and make your target audience want more. People want one of two things and that is to learn something or be entertained and in a lot of cases they want both. It boils down to what we like to call, “added value.”

When you have that part figured out then you have to be consistent and stay relevant in keeping up with trending topics within your industry or market niche. This is the same reason Hollywood stars do rash things to extend their fifteen minutes of fame and it is because we have come to expect more from them and they fail to produce because the quality of the content is not there anymore and so we as the target audience move on. The same has to be said for online media distribution.

Whatever it is you decided to do make sure you focus on your strengths/passion and your sphere of influence, or Tribe as Seth Godin among others puts it, will grow. Keep in mind there is no immediacy in establishing a personal brand. Just like in Field of Dreams, “build it and they will come.” It takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but create great content and distribute it on multiple marketing communication channels and they will come.

My last piece of advice is get involved with your local Toasmasters Club. The most successful personal brands take the online into the offline arena as presenters and public speakers.

Four book suggestions for Personal Branding:

Tribes by Seth Godin
Trust Agents by Chris Brogan
Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuck
Me 2.0 by Dan Schawbel

Are they truly active and staying relevant beyond their resume? The great thing about Social Media resumes is that it is easier to go on fact finding missions. Some say personal branding is becoming more important to a company that the company brand itself and I tend to agree because it is the people who make that brand what it is. Social media has changed the way we think and act on what was traditional marketing campaigns. A good friend Nate Riggs talks about this in his blog.

Checklist for any resume whether it is for a social media resume or not is:

+ Blog/Website URL
+ Branded Email Address (preferably to blog or website)
+ Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter URLs
+ Link to a site that provides an expanded resume like VisualCV
+ Link to SlideShare URL

All that being said some of the best resumes I’ve seen are the online ones and more specifically the ones that usual VisualCV.

http://www.visualcv.com/ariherzog

http://www.visualcv.com/scobleizer

http://www.visualcv.com/guykawasaki

Here is mine, although it is in desperate need of updating it gives you an idea of some of the important elements to look for in a social media marketing resume: http://www.visualcv.com/christianadams and my blog is a mess, but I currently write on various subject matter related to the internet at http://www.mashingthenet.com

I would say the person to look for is the one making waves locally and if they are at various business and social events offline or ask if people have heard of that person. Mashable also has a good post about HOW TO: Build the Ultimate Social Media Resume.

While Joomla had great backend 3rd party plugins like CRM, forums (VBulletin) and ecommerce bridge solutions like OS Commerce it was bloated and took a lot of time for a non-developer. Fast forward to today and WordPress has changed from a purely blogging focused platform to a more robust multi-dimensional website management tool without having an over abundance of programming knowledge.The great thing I love about WordPress now vs. then is that it has been easily adapted by programmers and plugin developers to be much more interactive and integrated with Social Media Networks for further exposure of marketing/advertising campaigns of a product or service.

WordPress works on both Windows and Linux based systems and is built off of php programming language, but has recently made strides in the jQuery (javascript), Java, Flash and Ajax programming languages. As an Account Manager for a web hosting company I would say we deal with more problems troubleshooting Windows based systems than our Linux based systems running the same set up using WordPress.

As far as e-commerce solutions there are a couple of pretty good choices without having to bridge an account like a forum. There is Shopp http://shopplugin.net/ and then there is one that our company is looking to offer with hosting packages called wp-ecommerce http://www.instinct.co.nz/e-commerce/. So in my opinion WordPress, in recent years, has gone from being just a blogging site and evolving into a fully interactive CMS website solution for businesses and Universities.Harvard is using a multi user version of WordPress called WordPress MU which is what wordpress.com runs on as well. http://mu.wordpress.org/

This summer I attended WordCampColumbus and some representatives from WordPress/Automattic http://automattic.com gave us glimpse into what they had in mind for the future including full HD video integration sans Youtube. http://videopress.com/ The great thing is because of the community support and the commitment of core developers from the company I only see WordPress gaining more market share. It use to be a lot harder to develop a website pre web 2.0. WordPress has narrowed that gap between traditional web developers and the average hobbyist. The best thing I like about WordPress is that it was named in the top three of CMS scripts that maximize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) out of the box. Drupal and Joomla were the other 2 in the top 3. I’m not going to provide a link on this because wherever you search you will get a biased review (including myself) so take it with a grain of salt. Just so you know, while I have talked WordPress up in my answer, I am in no way affiliated with WordPress, Automattic, or any of the other links mentioned in this answer. I just think it is a great php script that has really come a long way since its inception and will only continue to get better.

1. Picture of yourself or likeness.

2. Where you live. iPhone/Google longtitude/latitude numbers don’t count. That makes more work for me. I’m not going to stalk you.

3. Give me a description. It can be work or non work related. What you are passionate about will come through in your tweets.

4. Don’t auto-dm me upon follow. It is like getting a form letter from my congress person. Their secretary wrote it and stamped used the signature stamp.

5. Half your tweets must be @replies or RTs that you share common beliefs in. If you’re just tweeting information you’re traditionally old. You still haven’t got the point of Twitter. This includes you major news sources (CNN, WSJ, et al). You are not exempt if you’re not listening.

6. Change your Twitter background. Doing so shows you are a creative person and we all are creative in our own way. You could draw stick figures and I would find it better than someone who doesn’t take the time to care about public perception.

7. DON’T YELL. It won’t get your point across anymore.

8. Don’t RT major news all the time for the sake of karma. Nine times out of ten everybody else I am following has RTed the same thing too. Common bonds = common interests = common knowledge.

9. Your tweets must make sense. It is a 140 characters. Make sure you still use the lessons taught to you by your HS grammar teacher. I’m not going to click on a tweet with a bunch of buzz words thrown together.

10. Be yourself. Living in a PC world takes a lot of work. It forces you to live within certain constrains. It limits honest, openness, and ultimately communication. This is where you have to know your audience and find the balance between being funny and sarcastic or being mean and hurtful.

I don’t want to sound like a total Debbie Downer because I agree that there are a lot of positives to social media including better exposure to non-profit groups and general improvements in community awareness. Karma seems to play a very important role and is an underlying current in the world of social media. The proof is in President Obama’s pudding with the positive impact of lending/giving/endorsing in social media, but it is only a matter of time before the old guard catches on and uses it for something other than good. Heck, if the Pope is getting in on the act as the leader of the Catholic Church, or his inner circle, to embrace technology and change the way the organization operates, you know that speaks volumes. Social media, like other new and popular mediums that reach a wide audience, is an opportunity for crooks to hijack Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), religion or anything else with genuine and honest intent. There will always be somebody naive enough to take something at face value. It makes the work harder for those who are the “real deal.”

My biggest frustration right now is the PR/marketing types that don’t get it, but are referring to themselves as experts through respected organizations like the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Just because you invite a well known blogger like Arianna Huffington to be a keynote speaker doesn’t make you an expert in an emerging industry. It helps, but that is only one piece of the puzzle. Now I am probably being harsh because everybody needs to learn about social media and there are those who in the PRSA that do get it, but their message is packaged in such a way by the marketing department that is comes off as though they are authorities on the subject matter which is the opposite of what social media presents itself to be.(#) I find it is a turn off and in some ways it has the potential for alienating a target audience that can find the same information elsewhere. Social media is changing how PR/marketing types conduct business from a reactive role to a more proactive role.(1)(2)(3) Although Social Media entrepreneurs like Jason Kintzler are changing the game with products like PitchEngine. The energizer bunny of the social media world, Gary Vaynerchuk, made two very good videos on the current state of the public relations industry that I find to be spot on. (1)(2) In so many words, Captain from Cool Hand Luke says it best, “We have a failure to communicate.” I promise that is my last movie reference.

However, anything worth doing takes effort and those who get the results are the ones who will rise to the top. The ones that rise to the top are genuine and passionate about their product and/or service. If I have a client that comes to me and asks, “Can you do this?” and I don’t have the answer, I would rather build the relationship by referring them to someone in my network. It is better not to make a sale and learn how to have that product or service available next time and learn and grow rather than risk my reputation for taking on something I can’t handle. The question then becomes is gaining more customers (quantity) more important than retaining repeat customers (quality) and building on that foundation? As of now social media does a fairly good job of rooting out the crooks and liars through transparency which is different from perceived transparency. I do worry though because another trend I see as a result of social media is the PR role in the reactive aspect of brand management as it pertains to defamation and libel suits. You have to be careful of what you say and who you offend. (#) I think it definitely depends on one’s education and how one utilizes it. An MBA professor of mine once said, “The best way to avoid a PR disaster is simply tell the truth, within reason.” I agree with him in that I actually think it takes more effort to do otherwise. These days’ people seem to expect the worse. Take responsibility, hold people accountable, admit wrong doing, and attempt to resolve the situation. The public is more forgiving if you as a brand or company show a willingness to take responsibility for your actions, face the ramifications, and fix the problem. It isn’t rocket science!

The question that will remain to be seen is, are we wading through the BS or creating more of it? Do short term gains in the name of commercialism outweigh the importance of the long term big picture health of the world’s resources? The CEO of an SEO/SEM firm sent me a video to a great Louis CK clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoGYx35ypus

For example, journalists have gotten a bad PR rap lately. Whether it is because of the “liberal media” (#) or unethical journalism it is hard to say. However, some reporters who completely fabricate stories only help to further a negative perception. As I said before, “sex sells,” moreover contraversy sells as well. The only thing that doesn’t seem to sell anymore is the truth. I would like to put a lot of the current state of journalism, the current state of our culture, and entertainment in traditional media, but not all, on Rupert Murdoch of News Corp with his creation of the FOX Televison Network (#)(years before FOX News was created).

When FOX first started out in the mid 90’s they were the underdog with programs like the Tracey Ulman Show/The Simpsons, Current Affair, Geraldo Rivera, and Bill O’Reilly’s Inside Edition. While they were OK shows they were not bringing in the ratings. Then with the emergence and focus on its news division as an offshoot of its earlier days with Inside Edition it started to gain some ground on the “Big Three.” (ABC, CBS, and NBC) Most of the stories were sensationalistic which boosted ratings while the “Big Three” tried to stick to journalism’s code of ethics. Yes, there is one, but very few seem to use it anymore in order to “get ahead.” It use to be about getting the facts by asking the tough questions rather than quoting other news sources or fabricating stories – doing the legwork! The media (bloggers and pundits) today consists of opinion interjected stories with subjective viewpoints and maybe a dash of fact.

The problem with the big three is that they eventually had to cave into FOX’s style of journalism because of the ratings/revenue game. There has never been a “liberal media” in the sense that it is the majority or only one of its kind. The “liberal media” is a catchphrase developed by political strategists and marketers to distract viewers from the real issues and implementation of the journalistic code of ethics.

The only one more dangerous than Mr. Murdoch is his right hand man, fellow alumni (Ohio University) , and former coworker with my mother in the Nixon Administration, Roger Ailes. In an article in Ohio University’s 2009 summer edition of Ohio Today, Ailes talks a lot about his career and the impact he has had on picking up where Ted Turner left off. He also goes on to talk about how, “OU is a little too liberal for me, but that’s OK as long as there’s an additional point of view from time to time so people don’t get brainwashed.”(#) I think the most ironic part about that is a kid from the small town of Warren, in the historically red state of Ohio, calling OU liberal. My father who grew up in Marion, OH and graduated from Kent State told me when he first started teaching high school social studies in Maryland, that he had an early mid-life crisis because everything he had been taught up to that point about black history had been wrong. The fact that he was able to re-educate himself and continue to have an open mind about finding the truth was a testment to getting out of small town thinking. There is something to be said about, “History is written by the winners.” Ailes admits to, “What I did is I changed 24-hour news to something that was watchable, saleable and winning.”(#)

Many times in the article he goes on to tallk about, “looking at both sides of the issues and have an open mind about things.” The problem I have with that is, at least when I was there, we were taught how to learn, not how to think. When your resume includes political consulting for Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush, as well as working with pundits like Rush Limbaugh, et al., while not having any experience across the isle, essentially towing the party line, it is hard to put much value on “Fair and Balanced.”

Many people will follow these pundits (“opinionators”) because of similar beliefs, but what they say isn’t necessarily the truth, including some of today’s talking heads of politics. These people know their target audience is too lazy or doesn’t have the time to cross reference the truth. Often the target audience is too busy just trying to make a living. On the other hand you have an educated audience that is tired of journalists giving politicians and public figures softball questions when it comes to policy making, and “investigative” journalists are afraid of reprisal and never getting an interview with the public figure again. The only one on a major news network I see asking tough questions anymore, of public figures, is Matt Lauer. You have a lot of pundits asking tough questions, but to me it is more “garbage in garbage out” to the point where the pundits from competing networks attack each other and the focus is no longer on the real issues. Spinning a story to benefit one side over the other is big business and right now business is good. Big business bought and paid for the US Government a long time ago with the help of conservative pundits who have hijacked the term “middle America” to distract from the small percentage of self-made millionaires versus wealthy families born into money who use lawyers to keep it. Terms like anti-trust, deregulation, laissez-faire, and corporate social responsibility come to mind. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of left leaning pundits who pander as well. My point is we have to come back to the center with common sense. Bickering like children as we all know solves nothing. Do what your parents told you as a kid and “listen.” It adds no value to the conversation and serves no purpose except to divide us as a nation.

The biggest trend I see, as it relates to my industry, is more online video content creation and more redesign of business models and business websites to be Web 3.0 compatible. Service industries, and more specifically the marketing communications industry, are and will become more condensed with regards to human resources leadership having more part-time, freelance and independent contractors than ever before. Video production companies and web development companies that normally would be separate are merging in order to stay competitive due to this paradigm shift to social media and marketing budgets being cut by their traditional clients. Storytelling is critical in any medium, but even more critical on a global platform. Video, done correctly and with a concise message, helps add credibility to the written word. Getting the right media mix for the right campaign strategy in social media is essential. In saying all of this, social media is not hard or revolutionary. It is about implementing best business practices and due diligence on new channels. Creating the message for the niche market will be as important as delivering the message. The economy might be bad right now, but people need to stop living in fear because it is disruptive innovation that will mean great new strides in efficient business growth, especially for small businesses that succeed in a renewal stage of American business history. It is this renewal in new and small business growth coupled with more interaction online that you will see an uptick in the ecommerce industry. Jack Nicholson said it best as, Col. Nathan R. Jessep, in A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth.” (#) The average American cannot handle the truth that the 40 hour work week is a myth. What worked in 2005 will not work in 2010 or later.

Social media has turned everyone into their own CEO in that they don’t have time to wade through new business venture pitches, but learn through news, information, and entertainment they do or do not need or want. Social media is customized content that the end user cares about. Make it short, sweet, and to the point. I myself am breaking all the social media rules by writing this long article rather than being concise and to the point. The problem with that though is that it forces a writer to sometimes leave out key and important parts of a bigger picture. Then it comes down to who is a better storyteller given the space, time, accuracy, and overall entertainment value for the end user. The Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How is Journalism 101. However, I always say debate and open communication (engagement) is good because it allows others to understand and learn another viewpoint. Social media is a place where every kind of language and dialect is clearly understood to make the world a little smaller. In doing so we grow as individuals, improve as businesses, a nation, and evolve as a human race because without questioning each other we don’t learn.

Social Media/Social Media Marketing/Social Media Networking can also be a confidence booster in that it can translate into job interviews or sales prospects and conversion through no pressure personal branding. In doing this you surround yourself with good people who are smart, energetic, and driven with great ideas and shared resources. Social media helps start/extend your network online in order to build strong business relationships offline.

A perfect example of a company dragging their feet, with regards to social media, is a local TV station that actually went in the opposite direction and put a radio promo out that said in so many words don’t take up all your time with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, etc. when you can get all your news and information in one broadcast. TIVO still has its place, but broadcast news in its traditional form does not. The TV station I am talking about has always been in 3rd place in the ratings in its market and from this radio promo they are happy to stay there and broadcast versus engage their audience because the other two competing channels are good examples of how social media campaign strategies should be implemented. Another big case study of an organization that has traditionally dragged its feet, but is becoming hip to the game recently, is the Catholic Church.(#) With dwindling numbers and public relations problems in recent years, from not adopting technology to help with brand management research, the Vatican has decided to take a new direction with regards to how it communicates to its faithful followers. Good business leaders who “get it” will understand the difference between being available and accessible in a niche market where it no longer makes sense to broadcast a big net to the target market.(#) Another applicable example of this that comes from scholar and author, Warren G. Bennis, “Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right.”(#) This is how the class system has always worked. This plays into this constant battle of the various waves/ages we all learn about in school that “knowledge equals power.” The agricultural age, industrial age, technology age, etc.(#) This thinking will and has adapted to social media. Some may see it as an adaptation, but to others it might be more on an extension. The content hasn’t changed, just the way it is being delivered. You can apply the same thinking to any category with regards to marketing (product reviews, testimonials, advertisements, infomercials – i.e.- Billy Mays, etc) and PR. The message hasn’t changed just the vehicle. Access from a politician went from the form letter in the mail to the form letter via email, etc.

Bloggers for a long time were never taken seriously by traditional media journalists because they were criticized as not having the formal education to be content providers with access to credible sources or resources. They have spent years building up a loyal following in whatever their core target audience is. The appeal and attraction is the level of honesty that cannot be faked. People are drawn to each other through common bonds, interests, and things they care about. As soon as marketing types attempt to try to invade that space it becomes clearly evident. Every blogger would like to make money, but as soon as they start pushing a product to help pay the bills (quickly becoming known as Sponsored Conversation) (#) much like stars on talk shows get paid for talking about products, that they wouldn’t normally endorse, it is seen as not being genuine and they run the risk of losing their core audience and will be quickly called out on it. This is why bloggers like Alaina Sheer (#) and Chris Brogan (#) are so successful and making a full time living at it. They blog about issues they care about or effect them in some way and stick to a niche rather than writing about things they think will get them more unique visitors and return visitors. Alaina and Chris have enough of an influence, or what Chris is referring to as trust agents, in a target market to give a thumbs up or down on a product or service whether it is local, regional or national for brands to take notice of what they are saying. In doing this it ultimately forces companies and organizations to actually listen to the customer where as before Web 2.0 and social media said company was the information gatekeeper. The transparency of social media allows customers in every sector to question authority and value of statements by PR types. Bloggers are having the last laugh where traditional media and businesses have previously dismissed its legitimacy on a repeated basis. Traditional media journalists lash out at technology that threatens their way of life especially when they refuse to be proactive and embrace it. The evidence is all around us with layoffs in TV, radio, and newspapers.

The only reason there is a paradigm shift happening right now is because there is nothing to watch on TV (except all the “reality shows” dumbing down America), almost everybody has a computer or Internet ready device, so people can get their news customized and in real time, and the economy is in the dumps thus ramping up the new technology apps and Google/Apple dominance. Convenience has killed traditional media and they are playing a reactive game. Some may say they saw it coming and that is why you had deregulation of FCC rules for company owners who at one time could only own so many radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers. Those rules weren’t just there for money purposes, but potential influence purposes liberal, conservative or otherwise. Only time will tell. Todd Defren(#) makes a good argument, “The tipping point has not only not been reached, but could still tilt away from Social Media.”