Activ8Social

We’ve all checked in somewhere or at least seen a friend check in to a restaurant, sporting event or concert, but have you ever wondered what demographic is powering the social media check in and auto tagging their location? Well, we’re here to shed some light. Visible’s research in the infographic below was taken from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.

We’re one more sultry summer weekend closer to the revitalized NFL season, college football, and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows! On that note, today’s #SoMash includes MasterCard’s promo of the Yankees, live streaming of U2′s 360 Tour, Nielsen’s new Facebook ratings, and the PGA Championship’s social media push.

It’s an all sports week here on the Social Mashup! We cover some innovative uses of social media in the sports world from the NBA’s new social media game, the Devils digital command center, the Warriors case study use of Facebook Deals, and the PGA Tour’s embracing of cell phones.

People have found managing virtual farms and virtual cities to be absolutely fascinating.  So why not apply the same gaming logic to virtual basketball players?  The NBA has created a Facebook game called NBA Legend that will allow people to do just that.  Facebook users can create an avatar, join an NBA basketball team, and follow a simulated career.  You start off as a rookie trying to get your foot in the door with an NBA team and the goal is to develop into an NBA Legend.

In honor of the new year, our final Social Mashup of 2010 takes a brief look back at five of the most important social media trends of the last 12 months. Here at Activ8Social, we believe that you should pay special attention to hyper-localization, social retail, deals, check-ins, and mobile … you are going to be hearing a lot more about innovation in these spaces from both fresh startups to establish players like Facebook and Google. Happy New Year everybody!

Grocery retailer Safeway and PepsiCo have teamed with popular geo-location service  Foursquare to offer location based rewards and check-ins.  The idea behind this strategic partnership is basically that Safeway Club (VonsClub) members link their Foursquare accounts with their VonsClub account to receive Pepsi deals.  The deals are based on where shoppers have previously checked in and purchases they have previously made.  The coupons are shown at the check out and applied.  The deal really works for both sides as it closely ties in customer loyalty for VonsClub members and for Foursquare users.