Facebook Places officially landed last week and legitimized a new location-based channel for businesses to interact and engage with their customers (see these instructions to claim your Places). In order to help business and functional leaders to leverage, we’d like to see businesses capitalize on Facebook Places through the following opportunities:

1. Branded Applications

Today, only a handful of companies can push data to Facebook Places. This includes competitors like Four Square and Gowalla. Eventually, this will open to other companies, providing businesses a fantastic opportunity to create their own applications. A company like Starbucks — already an early adopter on Four Square — could easily incorporate a store locator with Places check-ins into their emerging mobile payment application, and a reward system that replaces the punch cards distributed at check-out.

Checking-in not only means that the person is in the store (most likely purchasing something), but is also virally spreading the brand to all of his or her friends on Facebook. And because the app connects into the larger Facebook ecosystem, it doesn’t feel like a one-off “microsite,” providing real value to the consumer.

On a side note, see this post by our SVP of Activation, Craig Daitch, to understand how people are posting fraudulent check-ins.

2. Game Mechanics

Facebook has, so far, stayed away from game mechanics. Instead, Facebook leaves them to third parties and partners. As a result, there are no out-of-the-box points, rewards or mayors.

Were Facebook to offer mayorships as a white-label service to businesses, then companies could offer their own versions of a mayorship tied to creation of content by their customers, rather than simple check-ins.

For example, visitors to Six Flags could earn a mayorship based on uploading videos and photos while in the park, thereby showcasing the experience rather than simply checking-in to it.

In the future, firms might enable customers to photograph purchase receipts as an input into mayorship qualifications, thereby preventing check-in manipulation and opening the doors to richer customer rewards. The possibilities are endless.

3. Flash Mobs

On launch, Facebook offers a unique feature that allows users to check-in their friends. While there is some debate on privacy concerns, this functionality offers a very unique way for businesses to create their own Flash Mobs.

For example, The Gap could offer discounts to customers who check into a location with ten of their friends, creating an on-the-fly sample sale.

Business that rely on critical mass could benefit even more. For example, bars have long offered specials to customers that show up with groups of friends. Such businesses could now advertise happy hour specials through Facebook Places to generate a similar result.

4. Like, Content and More

One feature we’d like to see combines the existing Like functionality with Places, as follows: Businesses who create product pages that people can Like could now tie-in Places for targeted, location-based advertising.

Nike, for example, could advertise a special for all users that Like their new Air Jordan sneaker, sending them to the nearest retailer based on their location. We suspect that this functionality isn’t far off, given the enormous potential.

We would also like to see companies attaching content to the check-in location. For now, the only activity the Place page shows is check-ins and Likes. Allowing users to upload photos or videos would enhance the experience, and provide businesses with more unique ways to connect with their consumers.

Allowing users to write posts would foster reviews in a Yelp-like fashion. Sure, this would open the gate to both positive and negative feedback, but a comprehensive listening and conversation mining strategy would allow businesses to interact and take advantage of this flow of information.

The Road Ahead

Facebook’s scale will change the market for location-based services and check-ins for businesses — from something niche and cutting-edge, to a very real and powerful marketing channel. When a 500-million-person network enters a vertical, it’s hard not to notice — even when it launches with a bare feature set and only a vague sense of a roadmap. But this will certainly evolve as consumers and business owners embrace the platform and begin to tap the potential of hundreds of millions of accounts.

On August 16 Converseon  announced an important partnership with Twitter to infuse the Firehose – all 80+ million daily tweets – real time in to our Conversation Mining platform. You can read the release here.

It’s a significant advance, and a big commitment. But it is also critical:  if you care about social CRM or near real time social engagement, you simply cannot operate without access to the full Firehose. As Forrester Research said in response to the announcement, “ultimately, this is a big step in the listening platform market…”.

And indeed it is a big step.  In our experience, general API Twitter data represents only a fraction of tweets (those limited to “high velocity) and Twitter is continuing to limit that data stream.  Just last week, reports surfaced that Twitter is limiting historical searches to four days. The plain truth is that there are currently significant blind spaces abound even for those companies who may be using paid listening services if they don’t have Firehose access.

At Converseon, we take pride in bringing a healthy skepticism to new platforms and technologies. In the early days, we too were a little skeptical about the growth potential of Twitter.  However, it indeed has evolved into the heartbeat of social conversation.  As author and technology observer Steven Johnson wrote recently in Time Magazine, “Twitter is looking more and more like plumbing (of the web), and plumbing is eternal.”

We’re proud today to plug this plumbing into our Conversation Mining solutions to finding meaning and insights – and action – in the immense stream of data to help brands harness the power of social across the enterprise. Effectively managing the vast amount of data is one challenge since in addition to Firehose we mine blogs, newsgroups, and more. Finding meaning in the data is the other.  This requires a lot of technical horsepower, advanced text analytics and human intelligence.

But we’ve been preparing ourselves for this for quite some time.  And the benefits to brands are myriad; they include demand/lead generation, customer service, real time social engagement, and, ultimately, using active listening as an engine to transform brands into social organizations with real time intelligence flowing across the organization for action and competitive advantage.

Let the Firehose begin.

by Ben González and Chris Boudreaux

A lot of folks are still confused about whether they should replace existing TweetMeme buttons with Twitter’s new Tweet button (more info on the Twitter blog), and we recommend the following:

• For content created prior to July 2010, maintain your TweetMeme button.
• For content created during or after July 2010, you can use the Twitter button.
• For blog content, we’re stuck. Blog posts created prior to July need to maintain the Tweetmeme button, but posts created since July 2010 can use the Twitter button. However, the TweetMeme and Twitter plugins do not let you apply the button by post, or based on publish date. You must apply it to all posts or no posts. NOTE: While Twitter has not published a WordPress plugin, a few community members have, for example: here and here.

As of today, the Tweet button from Twitter shows lower tweet counts than existing buttons from TweetMeme. If you replace your TweetMeme buttons, your visitors will see lower tweet counts that on the Twitter button, versus the TweetMeme button.

For example, See this screen shot of Chris Boudreaux’s social media research database on SocialMediaGovernance.com for a quick glance at what the two buttons look like together:

You can see in the image that Chris added the new, light blue Twitter button to the right of his existing green TweetMeme button, and the two display dramatically different counts (210 for TweetMeme and 76 for Twitter).

While TweetMeme has been working with Twitter for months, Twitter began counting “… a couple of weeks before the launch of the Tweet Button. This means links which have been shared on Twitter before July 2010 will not contribute towards the count”, according to Twitter FAQ.

Therefore, if you trade the TweetMeme button for the Twitter button on content that existed prior to July 2010, your visitors will not see the true count of tweets you have earned.

If you use both buttons, you should review the FAQ on Twitter.com to avoid duplicating content. (See: “I want to use multiple Tweet Buttons on my page. Is there anything I should know?”)

For some, the quibbles of style that pop up by cluttering your articles with two Twitter share buttons are irrelevant when the count is king. Others will default to Twitter’s crisp aesthetic.

You should also consider Twitter’s new ability to auto-suggest up to two relevant accounts after a user retweets, as one potential reason for deploying the new Twitter button.

In any case, we are very interested in hearing your experiences and insights which can help to inform decisions regarding which buttons to deploy.

A feature of the recent iMedia Brand Summit we attended in sunny Coronado Bay was a series of ‘One Minute Meet Ups’ between brand marketers and agency folk.

iMedia throw an excellent event, and this section gave me access to influential marketers from brands like Honda, QANTAS, Target, Disney, AT&T, General Mills, Accuquote and more.

Rather than taking a sales approach (you want to know Converseon in 60 seconds? Google us!) I took the time to poll each brand marketer on their personal use of social media and their opinion of how it would impact their business with two simple questions.

Here are the responses from 33 high ranking marketers from a mix of Fortune 500 and other household name brands:

1. Which of the following social networks do you use personally:

• Twitter = 19
• Facebook = 32
• LinkedIn = 33

Facebook and LinkedIn are nearly universal tools for savvy marketers these day, with Facebook just getting its neck in front of LinkedIn and both being used by over 90% of those polled. Twitter was a different story… while only 19 out of 33 used Twitter, this number was also watered down with a number of people saying ‘I have an account, but don’t use it’ and responses were marked by the reticence of many towards the current social media darling.

2. On a scale of 1-5 (1 = not at all important, 5= incredibly important) how important would you say social media is for business?

• 1 (not important) = 2 brands
• 2 (not very important) = 3 brands
• 3 (somewhat important) = 7 brands
• 4 (important) = 14 brands
• 5 (very important) = 7 brands

Given that I’m in the employ of a social media agency, I was very happy to see big brand after big brand acknowledging the importance of social media. ‘Very Important’ was the most likely response, and two thirds of the marketers rated social media either a ’4′ or a ’5′ – the highest end of the importance scale. Only 5 brands put social media towards the low end of the importance scale – and these brands were either agriculture focused or blocked by regulation.

For some more great coverage frome the iMedia Summit check out this great article from Sean Cheyney of Accuquote recapping our CEO Rob Key’s presentation.

Converseon worked in partnership with Lion Brand Yarn on the ideation, development and implementation of an enterprise social media strategy. This case study is a submission for the 2009 Forrester Groundswell Awards.

The Challenge

Establish an authentic and relevant online voice for a beloved 130 year old crafting company and institute best practices that help build relationships with passionate consumers of online knitting communities.

The Approach

Lion Brand Yarn was not sure if its customer demographic would be likely to engage in social media but was willing to experiment with the new technology in an attempt to engage and connect with its passionate consumer base. They engaged Converseon to help them listen to the online conversation about knitting and crocheting, better understand their customers social media behavior, identify opportunities for engagement and develop a coherent and measurable social media strategy.

The brand’s approach to social media hinged on an open approach to conversation and a employee driven content and relationships. The brand focused on ‘talking’ to its customers and prospects and expanded its efforts in social media as the rigorous measurement framework indicated success. Lion Brand Yarn has taken a long term approach to community building and it is now, 18 months after the initial launch of the Yarncraft podcast, that the brand is seeing the most success and measurable return on investment.

Implementation

Lion Brand teamed with Converseon, utilizing our Conversation Mining technology to map the knitting/crocheting online community, identify influential online voices and identify opportunities for engagement in social media. This listening uncovered a deep, interconnected and highly engaged community of passionate users spread across blogs, podcasts and even dedicated knitting/crocheting social networks.

With Converseon’s strategic guidance, the ‘Yarncraft‘ podcast was launched. Hosted by a pair of LBY employees, the podcast was produced bi-weekly and focused on knitting and crocheting topics. The podcast was posted to a dedicated blog, distributed via iTunes and also given away as a CD in store for less tech-savvy consumers. The podcast was designed to be a conversation with customers and knitting community figures moreso than ‘internet radio’ in the broadcast model.

In April 2008, the ‘Lion Brand Notebook‘ blog was launched, providing content and links to other knitting sources. The blog was also powered by Lion Brand employees with content ranging from customer polls for product development through to ‘knit alongs’ that combine online/offline access allowing customers to knit the same project together. The ‘knit alongs’ alone have proven to be a measurable driver of ROI for the brand as each virtual event drives a direct link to increased sales of the yarn featured.

Results

• Lion Brand is one of the 2009 Internet Retailer’s ‘Hot 100′ Retail Websites, their site receives over 2 million visits a month
• The podcast regularly has 15-20,000 downloads while the blog attracts tens of thousands of readers each month
• A Lion Brand survey of 30,000 of their customers found that those customers who have interacted with the brand through social media are 83% more likely to identify as ‘very brand loyal’ than non-social media users and are several times more likely to recommend the brand to others
• Traffic analysis shows that traffic from social media routinely converts at a much higher rate than most sources, outperforming email marketing and banner ads
• From June 16 – July 16, 2009 traffic coming from the brand blog to the brand e-commerce website converted at 41.21% higher than the brand’s average traffic.
• From June 16 –July 16, 2009, the average per visit value of the blog traffic was 39.44% higher than the site average

Conclusion

Lion Brand Yarn initially set out to build relationships with the online knitting community by talking with their customers via a corporate blog and podcast. As a result of an investment in people rather than products, they found themselves with a passionate and brand loyal group of knitters, who not only engage with the brand but impact the bottom line by buying and using products as a result of social media engagement.

Further Resources

PR Week Case Study: Lion Brand Yarn finds success in measured approach to social media,

Slideshare presentation from 2009 Internet Retailer Conference:

In addition, the presentation above is a series of customer endorsements quoted verbatim from a survey of the LBY blog and podcast audience asking them to share their thoughts and feelings about the two venues.

To connect with Lion Brand Yarn online subscribe to the Lion Brand Notebook blog, listen to the YarnCraft podcast, follow them on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

This Thursday the Twitter world is coming together under a single banner: Social Media for Social Good.

The cause? charity:water, a non profit that brings the simple essential of clean fresh water to places and people who don’t have access to it.

The social media? Twestival is collection of events created by twitter users from all over the world. Taken from the idea of tweetups, a gathering of twitter users who meet in real life, Twestival will see over 175 cities around the globe hold these events on February 12 with 100% of money raised going to charity:water.

We at Converseon applaud the mission of Twestival and are active supporters of the NYC event. Our social media strategist Paull Young is a part of the planning committee and wrote this guest post on Mashable that gives some background on the vision of charity:water and New York Twestival’s 20/20/20 vision for the event: Donate $20, Raise $20, and tell 20 friends.

A large contingent of Converseon’s New York office will be attending Thursday’s NYC Twestival, and in support of their 20/20/20 Vision Converseon will be matching all donations from our employees making their donations go twice as far.

How can you Help?

If you’re in NYC you can still buy tickets (currently $40, soon to be $60 and VIP tickets for $100) to attend the fabulous party at M:2 with live music from Eclectic Method – 100% of ticket sales goes directly to charity:water.

In another city? Check the official list to see if yours is one of the 175+ participating cities

To addicted to Twitter to leave your computer? You can donate via TipJoy, it even provides a tweet for you to share with your followers.

Please join us in using social media for social good by supporting Twestival’s astounding global efforts!

PY – This weekend Constantin Basturea and I are attending the superb UGA Connect conference for the second consecutive year. To mark the occasion, I asked our Fall intern Lindsey Loughman, a UGA Graduate and Connect attendee last year, to write a guest blog post about the conference.

Connect 2008 is a conference that is near and dear to my heart. Connect is an annual event at the University of Georgia, that brings together professionals and educators under the banner of social media education.

A little background, Connect 2007 was a student campaign lead by Dr. Karen Russell. Dr. Russell and others at Grady College, UGA’s journalism school, realized that social media was changing PR and there was a growing gap between PR education and practice. Connect was one way that they could try to close that gap.

It provides an opportunity for industry to exchange notes. Educators bring with them emerging studies on the effects of social media and results of best practices, while practitioners bring the experience of case studies and social media techniques. But, at its core Connect, is about building relationships in the real world, boosting the plethora of online venues where students, practitioners and educators are connecting like PROpenmic.

Connect is also a big part of my story and how I came to Converseon. Last year I worked in a class under Dr. Kaye Sweetser to provide live coverage of Connect. There, I feel in love with social media and met Paull and Constantin for the first time. It was a perfect match; all at once I had found an incredible new field of PR and some of the most talented (and very cool) people who practiced it everyday.

My Connect story has played out, but I can’t wait to see what new stories and relationships that will be formed this year. And you can too if you follow their blog, Twitter, and Flickr accounts.

Converseon worked in partnership with Graco Children’s Products (a Newell Rubbermaid brand) on a full scale social media strategy. The success of the community building, relationship driven approach has led to us submitting the following case study for the Forrester Groundswell awards on Graco’s behalf.

The Challenge
Connecting a 66 year old brand in a tightly-regulated environment with a highly-interconnected online community of influentials with a proven skepticism towards brands.

Graco needed to assess a complex and fragmented online conversation that occurred across multiple websites and environments including message boards/forums, hundreds of parenting blogs, numerous parenting social networks, Twitter, YouTube and many other social media venues.

The Concept

Graco first “listened” to the conversation to develop a clear understanding of the conversation landscape in the parenting category. This informed a strategy to:

- Make Graco an accepted and welcomed participant in the online parenting conversation.
- Humanize the Graco brand and build lasting relationships with the community by demonstrating that behind the brand are a group of concerned and engaged parents.

Implementation
Listening (“i.e. Conversation Mining”) activity found that there was a robust, active parenting conversation that was largely resistant to commercial efforts to engage them in conversation.

A core thrust of the strategy: Don’t force the brand into the conversations, but instead environments to facilitate relationships between influentials and be invited to the conversation.

A core component: A series of Graco blogger “Get-Together” events across the country t to allow Graco to engage in an acceptable manner. This laid the groundwork for the subsequent launch of a corporate Graco parenting blog authored by a multi-disciplinary team of Graco employees. The blog was carefully crafted to focus on “parent first” issues, stories, advice.

The blogging effort was supported with the complimentary use of other social media tools, including Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and more.

Successes

• Conversation Mining results showed the volume of the online conversation for the Graco Brand nearly doubled, while the polarity of online mentions rose from 68% positive in 2007 to 83% positive in 2008
• Amongst this shift, 100% of posts sparked by proactive outreach have been positive
• A significant increase in positive recommendations/reviews – this desirable topic became the most common discussion of the Graco brand
• Graco featured on the Today Show, Business Week and as a case study at BlogHer Business conference
• In just 6 months is ranked as the 59th top parenting blog in the hundreds strong Parent Power Index
• Thousands of monthly unique visitors to the Graco Blog, increased traffic and conversions at main Graco site
• Graco Blog ranks on the front page of Google for many relevant search terms
• Technorati Authority of 88 resulting from 224 blog reactions in 6 months (higher than many Fortune 500 blogs)
• 155 posts at the Graco blog garnering 530 comments

Hear What Others Have To Say

• Company Blog Check Up: Graco – Mack Collier (5th Best Score so far in Mack’s extensive series of corporate blog reviews)
• Graco Blog is Fantastic and Graco Continues to Rock Their Corporate Blogging Efforts – Jake Mckee (The Community Guy)
• Social Networking is Personal – Kelby Carr
• So You Want To Talk to Mommy Bloggers? – Erin Vest (Queen Of Spain)
• Rubbermaid Unit Gets Parents Talking Online – Atlanta Journal Constitution

To connect with Graco online subscribe to their corporate blog, see parenting blogger videos at the Ready For The Road Ahead car seat site, follow them on Twitter and see pictures from their blogger events on Flickr.

There’s been a lot of talk about Twitter wasting time and money (it doesn’t). I don’t hide the fact I love the thing, but I was dubious about its potential direct benefit for clients. That was until last week when my client Graco‘s PR manager Lindsay Lebresco joined Twitter, and over a few days since I’ve witnessed a bunch of positive results.

These are not designed as a case study on why Twitter = ROI. However, they do point to the type of benefits you can find by investing in the community (a common theme in the social media world).

Twitter For Pitching Conversing

Shortly before our recent Graco Get-Together in DC I made sure I was following all the bloggers I’d be meeting at the event. The conversation below (and that’s what it was, a conversation – not a pitch), led to the first blog post pointing to the new Graco blog.

paullyoung Hi Devra! I work with Graco & I’ll be attending the DC Moms blog Get-Together on Mon. Found you via @mammaloves – nice to meet you! 06:29 PM January 05, 2008

Devra Hi Paull, Oooh Graco! You would have had me at “Pack N Play” LOVED that when my kids were little! Mamma Loves is tops tho! 09:48 AM January 06, 2008

paullyoung That’s great to hear! Did you know the Pack N Play just turned 20? 1 of our first posts on the new Graco blog: http://tinyurl.com/348tym 03:35 PM January 06, 2008

Devra What a riot! Aviva and I both used Pack N Plays extensively. We had them traveling all over the world! We should write up a birthday post! 06:31 PM January 06, 2008

paullyoung That would be great to see, we’d link back too. You could be the first blog linking to us as well (though I imagine a few will after Mon) 06:58 PM January 06, 2008

Devra Okay, then we’ll put up a post tonight! That would be great. I’ll see if we can dig up some pics of our kids in the pack n plays. Fun! 07:04 PM January 06, 2008

paullyoung Cool! John (the author) & the rest of the Graco blog team will be super happy to see it! They’re very attached to the Pack N Play 07:06 PM January 06, 2008

Devra As are Aviva and me. I guess you could call us “Pack N Playmates” Seriously, we’d love to put our hat in the ring to be spokespersons! 07:08 PM January 06, 2008

Twitter to Build a Knowledge Network

Lindsay was live tweeting from the celeb packed ‘Boom Boom Room‘ over the weekend. Here, she was able to rely on her Twitter network to get her ahead when the uber Urbanmama sent her through a detailed ‘cheat sheet’ on how to get the most out of the celeb derby (I think this is in Urbanmama’s nature though – she’s also promised me a list of Brooklyn’s top date spots )

urbanmama Hey Lindsay, what is your email? Do you have a PDA where you can access links? I sent info on many of the people who had confirmed to visit. 11:48 AM January 11, 2008

urbanmama Lindsay, I forwarded you my little stars primer, but only for those who had confirmed before the sisters left. There are tons more now! 12:30 PM January 11, 2008

Twitter as a Beta Tester

This tweet from Kristen meant that we fixed an important broken link (in minutes) outside of office hours:

Mommy4Cocktails @lindsaylebresco: trying to link to the Graco Baby Blog from the graco baby homepage. Dead link… 05:42 PM January 15, 2008 from web in reply to LindsayLebresco

There endeth the most visible Graco bonuses – but these little examples are secondary to the friendship and relationships developed. Here’s a couple more work examples I’ve had in the same time period:

Twitter to Recruit

The tweet below was for a freelance project and led to a bunch of informed recommendations in minutes. Much easier than finding an unknown through the standard channels.

paullyoung I’m looking for a WordPress Ninja for some freelance work – do you know someone who fits the bill? I owe you big time if you can assist 06:04 PM January 10, 2008 from web

Twitter as a Crisis Warning System

On the same day we saw the above results, we also got a first warning – way ahead of time – about a potential issue involving a 5 star brand we work with. Follow the right people and you’ll be in the know ahead of time.

I know none of this is particularly groundbreaking, but the fact it all occurred in such a short time frame really brought home to me just how much Twitter is enhancing my work. Can you share a Twitter example? No matter how big or small, I’d like to hear it below.

[cross posted on Paull's personal blog Young PR]