You know you can check in to locations on Facebook, Foursquare and Yelp, but did you know you could check in to your favorite television show? Using apps like Zeebox, Viggle and GetGlue on your iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, or Android you can and for some, you can get rewarded for doing so. These rewards can come in the form of Zeetags, stickers, or even gift certificates. All of these apps are free and all available for your iPad, iPhone and Android. We break down some of our favorite TV apps just for you. (more...)
What a year for entertainment "check-in" service GetGlue! Not only did the company surpass the 2 million user mark before the new year, but AdaptiveBlue, Inc. (parent company of GetGlue) has its eye on evolving the platform beyond simply rewarding users for checking-in to movies, music, and television shows.
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Late Monday afternoon, the New York Red Bulls (RBNY) launched a Foursquare check in sweepstakes on their official team Facebook Page. The promotion is in an effort to highlight a season long grassroots program conducted in partnership with the NYC Parks & Rec called New York's Got Wings.
- 3 weekly entry periods from Monday, October 3 through Sunday, October 23
- Opportunity to win by simply registering for the NYGW Parks & Pubs sweeps
- Gain up to 10 additional entries per day via check ins on Foursquare
- Check in to "Park" venues in NYC, select RBNY pubs, or Red Bull Arena
- Prizes include team autographed soccer balls and a pair of tix to 10/20 season finale
We've all checked in somewhere or at least seen a friend hop on Foursquare so they can earn a badge for checking in to a restaurant, sports event, concert, or flight but have you ever wondered what demographic accounts for the majority of that activity. Well, we're here to shed some light on the question of who is powering the social media check in and who exactly is auto tagging their GPS location. Visible's research in the infographic below was taken from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.
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Calling all golf aficionados and Foursquare badgers! The PGA Tour has recently partnered with the world's check-in leader to offer an exclusive FedEx shipping discount on golf equipment, merchandise, and apparel as well as a limited edition foursquare Partner badge.
• With the conclusion of the summer comes the end of the professional golf season for players on the PGA Tour and a competition called the FedExCup, a special four event playoff series across the United States in August and September. You can read here for full details.
For those unfamiliar with the current format which was started in 2007, the trophy is decided by a points race. The top 125 on the "regular season" points list qualify for the first of the four playoff events - The Barclays. The field is cut again to 100 for leg two, the Deutsche Bank Championship, and then to 70 for the third event, the BMW Championship. This event has no cut and the qualifiers here go on to the final elite 30-man field which contest the Tour Championship in Chicago and battle it out for the FedEx Cup trophy.
Until this year, the PGA Tour has strictly prohibited spectators from bringing mobile devices onto the golf course. In an effort to modernize the game and appeal to a younger generation of golf fans, the PGA Tour is increasingly encouraging the active use of cell phones.
The PGA Tour recently partnered with foursquare by launching a brand page (see below) to provide tips to professional golf fans, drive check-ins during the 2011 FedExCup playoffs, and most important increase total followers. This is an interesting move by the PGA Tour to expand the reach of its brand online. Most intriguing is that golfers traditionally trend 35-64 year old males which is not the bulk demographic of foursquare users.
Users who follow the PGA Tour on foursquare and check in at one of the four playoff courses listed above will earn the FedExCup 2011 Badge which presumably unlocks a special discount code related to each title sponsor. See below for details on the exclusive badge. Don't miss your change to earn it!
Congrats on unlocking the FedExCup badge! It all comes down to this: PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup. PGA TOUR fans could save up to 25% with FedEx when shipping golf clubs and important items. Signup at http://at.fedex.com/4sqFEC (use your personal code).
What do you think about the PGA Tour's partnership with the PGA Tour? Do you like the design of the 2011 FedExCup badge?In the social media world, the key to financial stability is buy-in from the world's Fortune 500 companies. Facebook definitely reigns king in this department as nearly every major brand across the globe has an established presence on the Facebook platform. One of the keys to Facebook's success is the ease with which a user can quickly find a company's Facebook Page (although we will say that we applaud Twitter for attempting their "Verified" system as their are fairly sizable community run brand pages on Facebook) and the fact that the Palo Alto technology company jumped to head start in 2007 when Pages launched.
Now Foursquare and Twitter have their eyes set on a more user friendly presentation of the top brands using their respective platforms. NYC based start-up Foursquare recently created a Pages Gallery, which is essentially a gallery of all the brands on the geo-location platform. Rumors are now swirling the social media community that Twitter is looking imitate Facebook style pages for its brands. Below, we present you with a brief overview.
Pages Gallery
Before the Pages Gallery, finding brands on Foursquare was incredibly difficult unless they were considered important enough to be listed at the bottom of Foursquare's home page. Most likely Foursquare's early intent was for brands with the deepest pockets to vie for visibility on the Foursquare home page, but this strategy will only take a start-up competing for time and money with Facebook and Twitter so far.
Despite the fact companies could offer tips on their products, exclusive deals, and fun badges related to their products, lacking an easy discover method on Foursquare meant that consumers often missed the these cool marketing initiatives from their favorite brands unless they were a fanboy or fangirl. Several sites like Foursquare Brands tried to keep track of all the brands on the geo-location site, but even Foursquare Brands had difficultly keeping track as the service scaled.
Enter the Pages Gallery. Just like it sounds, Foursquare now presents its users with a full gallery of major brands on Foursquare and while this sounds simple, it's huge leap forward for the young company. By enabling users to search for their favorite brands in a user friendly manner, Foursquare is not only meeting the needs of their users but creating real estate that will entice more brands to follow suit.
The gallery feature offers a simple tool for browsing different brands by all sorts of different queries such as popularity, how recently they joined Foursquare, and whether or not a brand is trending. The gallery will also suggest pages that are similar to brands you or your friends have connected with in the past. One glaring area of need as assessed by our team is the lack of ability to view the gallery from the Foursquare mobile app where the majority of users are accessing Foursquare. Once this capability is developed, the Pages Gallery will instantly become a much more useful tool.
As more consumers begin to follow brands closely on Foursquare, it would seem as though Foursquare stands to provide a unique niche that Facebook is not filling as well with Facebook Places. Imagine in the future that you purchase a coke from a vending machine and that you are automatically checked into vending machine's location at the click of the button. Now further imagine, Coca-Cola's brand page sends you a message that you are two vending machine purchases away from not only Coca-Cola vending badge but a $0.50 discount on your next vending purchase and a chance to win free prizes.
This would certainly seem to encourage brand loyalty and sales. It's also something that is extremely unique and will continue to improve the practical and emotional connection between brand and consumer. Foursquare is definitely a tool that will only continue to grow for brands.
Since Twitter's inception, the micro-blogging platform has engaged in an intense battle with Facebook for "darling" status among Silicon Valley insiders. On many occasions over the last years, both platforms have been guilty of copy cat features and marketing initiatives. Some of you might remember how upset Twitter became last year when Facebook completely copied their Twitter Tales by rolling out Facebook Stories (heck, even Google got in the mix with Google Stories).
In what may be considered a response to what Foursquare has done, Twitter is reportedly considering an option for brands to do Facebook style pages. The so called pages would work in a similar way to Facebook pages as well, providing brands with their own space to deliver content and encourage Twitter users to follow them. Advertisers could deliver tailored messages to their followers and serving as a central hub for companies to coordinate campaigns.
Twitter CEO Dick Costelo is reportedly the one championing the project. The tech suits and investors have long sought a way to further monetize the micro blogging site beyond Promoted Tweets. Rumors indicate that Twitter is contemplating charging brands for use of the Twitter Pages. Twitter has failed in the past at other monetization features, most recently and notably, 'quick bar' on their official mobile applications.
Thus far, Twitter’s brand advertising has been limited to three products: “Promoted Tweets,” “Promoted Trends,” and “Promoted Accounts”. While everybody most likely knows the first two promotions, Promoted Accounts offers companies or agencies the ability to promote their accounts by intelligently suggesting the account to Twitter users as part of the “Who to Follow” feature.
Pages for brands would seemingly change Twitter's whole dynamic. At its core, the microblogging platform is better developed than Facebook for customer services, public relations, and dissemination of core brand messaging. Millions of users leverage Twitter on a daily basis for breaking news about their favorite products. It's also really hard to imagine how these Twitter pages would be utilized in a different manner than a brand's Facebook Page. If Twitter ends up heading down this path, its critical that there is a unique Twitter edge to it.
However, Twitter knows that over 50% of their active users access Twitter.com on a daily basis so it's difficult to shake the idea that brand pages with visible real advertising real estate is not monetarily beneficial to Twitter in the long run especially knowing their executive management is desperate to figure out a way to better monetize the platform. Perhaps Twitter Pages will provide a more effective forum for group discussion on Twitter which is lacking at the moment. Because Twitter opened up so early to third-party development, they are fighting an uphill and expensive battle to bring certain core user experiences under their control and this is one of them.
What a game last night! Wow! Our sincere condolences go out to all you Steeltown fans but then again six Lombardi trophies isn't so bad either. As we do every week here at Activ8Social, we cover the top social media stories in sports and entertainment including the controversial Groupon vs. LivingSocial Super Bowl ad wars, Foursquare's Super Bowl check-in, free Facebook on Gogo flights in February, Kia's social media campaign for the Australian Open, and former social media king MySpace's for sale announcement. And of course, don't forget to vote on whether Barbie should take Ken back!
Group Buying and the Super Bowl
Last night Groupon and LivingSocial broke historic ground by launching competing Super Bowl XLV advertising spots. This is the first time that any social media company has purchased ad space during the most watched sporting event of the year. A high stakes playground for consumer's attention, Super Bowl television ads that air during the game (not before or after) cost upwards of $3 million for a 30 second spot.
Initially, Groupon had planned to only air pre-game and post-game Super Bowl ads but as luck would have it, an in-game slot opened up at the last minute. Andrew Mason, founder and CEO of Groupon, along with their ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky (CP+B), elected to take the in-game spot. The deal-of-the-day giant aired a total of three ads (which can be viewed here) throughout the night.
CP+B and Groupon tabbed Chrisopher Guest, famous for his mockumentaries such as 'Spinal Tap,' 'Best In Show,' and 'A Mighty Wind', to direct the extremely controversial Super Bowl ads. The ads, dubbed "Save the Money", each featured a celebrity—Elizabeth Hurley, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Timothy Hutton. Each appeared to be a public service announcement in support of a well known cause such as saving the whales or saving the rainforest. In the end, the ads were however spun towards a deal that one of the celebrities purchased through Groupon that relates to the cause in some respect such as whale watching or a Brazilian wax respectively. The following ad about Tibet is the spot that angered the most people.
Prior to kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday, Groupon provided an explanation of their rationale on their company blog:
Since we grew out of a collective action and philanthropy site (ThePoint.com) and ended up selling coupons, we loved the idea of poking fun at ourselves by talking about discounts as a noble cause. So we bought the spots, hired mockumentary expert Christopher Guest to direct them, enlisted some celebrity faux-philanthropists, and plopped down three Groupon ads before, during, and after the biggest American football game in the world.The biggest problem and potential major disconnect for Groupon was the fact that many people don't know the company's history and are not aware of its roots as a philanthropically focused company. A punchline explaining that money will be donated in support of the causes mocked would have gone a really long way to ease consumer's discomfort. LivingSocial, Groupon's main group buying competitor, elected for a much more traditional and cheaper pre-Super Bowl advertisement. It's fairly clear that LivingSocial's ad was bought to directly compete with Groupon as the Washington, DC based company bought the TV slot immediately following Groupon's public announcement of their ads. LivingSocial's communicated a clear message related to the company's core service offering. It featured a consumer explaining his fight with 'deal addiction'. CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy also announced the campaign will also air during the 2011 Academy Awards. The head to head match-up on Super Bowl Sunday continues a fierce battle that began a couple of weeks ago when LivingSocial offered a $20 Amazon gift card for $10. The deal, which launched on the heels of a major investment by Amazon, shattered Groupon's previous purchasing record and pushed LivingSocial's subscriber base to over 20 million people. More than 1.3 million vouchers were purchased which translated to $13 million in gross sales and an 80% increase in traffic. Groupon has recently struck back by offering a $20 Barnes & Noble gift card for $10. With over $1.1 billion of funding (yes, that's the correct amount) in Groupon and $232 million in LivingSocial, it's safe to say that the two mega deal sites are here to stay. It will be fascinating to watch the drama unfold in the coming weeks and the entry of Google and Facebook into the market will effect the two leaders. Kia's Social Media Campaign for the Australian Open
The first professional tennis Grand Slam of the year has come and gone with Clijsters and Djokovic claiming the championship titles Down Under, but that doesn't mean that there still isn't more to talk about. Kia Motors was quite clever in their social media ad campaign for the event.
Called "Kia Smile", the contest was centered around the tournament and encouraged fans to upload stories, photos, and videos to the Kia Facebook page. Qualifying entries were required to involve their Kia vehicle, one other person, and make the reader smile. The finalists, which were picked by Kia, were posted on Kia's official Page where fans could vote. Each winner received an all expenses paid trips to the Australian Open. One winner wrote about their first Kia and the other winner wrote about meeting their best friend because of their Kia.
This is an example of a social media campaign using basic promotional mechanisms that works. It's simple, straight forward, and puts all the content in the fan's hands. Kia required fans to demonstrate creativity and built good will amongst its target demographic by giving away free cars. The prize was valuable enough to incentivize voting and helped strengthen Kia's sponsorship of the Australian Open which just celebrated its tenth anniversary.
Foursquare Experiments During Super Bowl
Over the weekend, FourSquare tested two new ideas for Super Bowl XLV: a global promoted venue and badge redemption codes. During the Super Bowl, Foursquare users saw the same promoted trending venue, "Super Bowl Sunday", at the top of the Trending Now area within the Places section on the mobile application. The promoted trending venue follows Twitter’s model of promoted tweets, users, and trending topics.
Foursquare users who shouted out which team they were rooting for, recieved either a Packers or Steelers badge with unique redemption codes that can be used for 20% off on select merchandise at NFLShop.com. A Super Bowl XLV badge was available to those who checked in at the stadium.
At first blush, it appears the experiment was successful however it was not without a few glitches. Foursquare received its most checkins to date with a total of 215,398 for "Super Bowl Sunday," but the Lost Remote reported server errors due to the influx of people trying to check-in at the same time.
Erin Gleason of Foursquare said that the NFL was a perfect partner to experiment with for the first time because “there’s such a huge sense of community around Super Bowl viewing.” The company also stated that no money was exchanged for the experimental promotion, but given the success of the promotion look out for promoted venues offered to paid advertisers in the future.
Free In-Flight Facebook on Seven Major Airlines
For the whole month of February, seven major airlines will offer Facebook free on their WI-FI networks as part of a promotion with Gogo Inflight Internet. Virgin American, United Airlines, American Airlines, Delta, AirTran, US Airways, and Alaska Airlines will offer the service on North American flights.
Customers must pay extra if they would like to use other services besides Facebook, with prices ranging from $4.95 and $12.95 depending on the length of the flight. Ford Motor Company, who sponsored the promotion, is looking towards social media for conversation and the sharing of photos and videos for the newly revealed 2011 Explorer in July, said Ford's Digital Media Manager, Alex Hultgren.
Gogo, which serves about 3,800 flights per day, says the most visited sight is Facebook while the top task is e-mail. This isn’t the first time that Gogo has promoted its service. The company teamed up with Google in December, offering free WI-FI on Virgin, Delta and AirTran flights during the holidays. According to marketing researcher In-Stat, only 7-10% of passengers on WI-FI equipped planes use the service. With the promotion, Gogo looks to peak users’ interest in hopes to hook them so that they will pay for the service later on.
Aircell, the company behind Gogo, just announced yesterday it raised $35 million in financing adding to a total of more than $500 million in total financing.
MySpace for Sale
Oh how times have changed in the social networking world. News Corp. has officially announced that it plans to sell MySpace, the former social media giant, making it available to the highest bidder. The writing was on the wall for some time now as MySpace has struggled with its identity over the past year and also fired over half of their employees.
News Corp. invested in a total redesign this year including their logo, repositioning their former internet crown jewel as a social media company rather than a social network. Many speculate the company's renegotiation of its advertising deal with Google was the straw that broke the camel's back as revenue share took a serious hit in the deal.
COO Chase Carey said “The new MySpace has been very well received by the market and we have some very encouraging metrics. But the plan to allow MySpace to reach its full potential may be best achieved under a new owner.” MySpace is a sunk cost on the balance sheet for News Corp. which clearly aimed to raise the market price by cleaning up the site's infamous clutter user profiles. Despite a rapidly declining audience, the right buyer could still make MySpace a profitable niche revenue generator if the price is right.
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