McDonald’s Foursquare Success: $1,000 Pays Off Big

September 17, 2010 by

Mashable posted a fascinating article today about how McDonald’s spent a modest $1,000 on a pilot Foursquare campaign resulting in 33 percent more foot traffic in one day, more than 50 news articles, and 600,000 people opting to follow and fan the brand on social media sites.

McDonald’s Foursquare Day on April 16 used 100 randomly awarded $5 and $10 gift cards to lure Foursquare users into McDonald’s restaurants to check in.

Foursquare is a mobile application that helps you find out where your friends are hanging out and offers tips from other users on what to do once you get there. You use your phone to “check in” at different places you visit, and Foursquare rewards you for checking in with badges, points, and mayorships.

Rick Wion, McDonald’s head of social media, shared his company’s Foursquare success story at Wednesday’s Mobile Social Communications conference.

“I was able to go to some of our marketing people—some of whom had never heard of Foursquare—and say, ‘Guess what. With this one little effort, we were able to get a 33 percent increase in foot traffic to the stores,'” he said.

Earlier this year, Mashable reported Domino’s UK also ran a hugely successful pilot Foursquare compaign rewarding Foursquare mayors with free pizza once a week. The UK pizza retailer attributed its Foursquare pilot program as a primary factor in helping the company increase profits by 29 percent, which equates to roughly $26 million.

How do you think Foursquare will change the future of advertising? Share your ideas in the comments section below.

Filed Under: Communications, Miscellaneous Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Video Clip of the Month: Conan’s YouTube Choice

September 2, 2010 by

My September 2010 video clip of the month features Conan O’Brien revealing the name of his new TBS series using a Sharpie and some white paper in a YouTube video.

I picked the video because it shows how social media is changing the way major announcements are made. For most of the last century, major public statements were made through press releases and press conferences for the media. Today, press releases aren’t just for journalists anymore, and they are coming in more flavors (many press conference free):

Indeed, the world of public relations is in a flux as practitioners experiment with these new distribution channels to find out which ones serve best the audiences they want to reach.

The jury is still out on whether Conan’s choice of a YouTube announcement (preceded by a hint on Twitter that one was coming) will help him make “Conan” a hit. Yes, “Conan” is the name of his new show not “Conaw” as you might think from watching the amateur-style video!

What do you see in the future for press releases? Share your predictions in the comment section below.

Filed Under: Communications Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

How Crowdsourcing Helped Iranians Beat the Censor

August 16, 2010 by

I read a fascinating article in Newsweek today about a 25-year-old computer programmer who created crowdsourcing software that broke the grip of Iran’s censors after the disputed 2009 election.

The programmer, Austin Heap of San Francisco, developed the software, called Haystack, to open up social networking sites the Iranian government was blocking, such as Twitter and Facebook, to allow people on the ground in Iran to organize inside the country and communicate with the world.

People in Iran can run Haystack on their computers. It directs the requests from the computers in Iran through servers elsewhere in the world, hiding them in a stream of innocent-looking traffic and protecting the identities of Haystack’s users.

Patrick Meier, director of crisis mapping for Ushahidi, a group of digital activists doing cutting-edge work in crowdsourcing and open-source interactive mapping, was quoted in the article about how the software unlocks the advantage a swarm of people have over a repressive government: speed.

“The technology variable doesn’t matter the most. It is the organizational structure that will matter the most. Rigid structures are unable to adapt as quickly to a rapidly changing environment as a decentralized system. Ultimately, it is a battle of organizational theory,” he said.

Meier’s organization began as a volunteer-produced website created in the aftermath of Kenya’s disputed 2007 presidential election. As a tool, Ushahidi—which means “testimony” in Swahili—collects eyewitness reports sent in by e-mail and text message and places them on a Google map to create a temporal and geospatial archive of events.  Since its development for Kenya, the open-source technology has also been to:

  • Shape the disaster response to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, saving thousands of lives
  • Map violence in eastern Congo
  • Expose election tampering or voter intimidation in places like Burma and Sudan
  • Track pharmacy stockouts in several East African countries
  • Record xenophobic violence in South Africa
  • Monitor elections in Mexico and India

So far Haystack is only serving Iran, but Heap said in the article that he hopes Haystack will unleash citizen swarms on other repressive regimes.

“We will systematically take on each repressive country that censors its people. We have a list. Don’t piss off hackers who will have their way with you,” he said. “A mischievous kid will show you how the Internet works.”

What do you envision crowdsourcing and citizen swarms being used for in the future? Please share your ideas below.

Filed Under: Relief & Development Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Newspapers & News Sites ‘Like’ New Tweet Button

August 14, 2010 by

Newspapers and news sites played an important role in Tuesday’s launch of Twitter’s new new “Tweet” button.

More than 30 large websites secretly changed their designs overnight to begin using the new button on its launch day. Among those sporting the “Tweet” button Tuesday morning were:

  • Arizona Republic/azcentral.com
  • CBS Interactive
  • CNN.com
  • Detroit Free Press
  • HuffingtonPost.com
  • SFGate.com
  • Sky News
  • The Cincinnati Enquirer
  • The Des Moines Register
  • The Indianapolis Star
  • The Tennessean
  • TIME.com
  • USA TODAY
  • WUSA 9

According to the Twitter blog, “when you click on the Tweet Button, a Tweet box will appear—pre-populated with a shortened link that points to the item that you’re sharing.”

Previously, online readers who wanted to share an article via Twitter had to copy the link, paste it into a URL shortener, and copy it back into a tweet. The new feature is more user friendly and doesn’t take readers off the site. It also allows publishers to suggest other people to follow and Twitter tracks how many times a story is tweeted.

The new “Tweet” button will likely make Twitter an even more powerful tool for attracting online traffic. As it is, Twitter reports nearly a quarter of its tweets contain web links.

Check out Twitter’s YouTube video below for more.

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , , ,

30 Tweet Gems from Emergency Social Data Summit

August 13, 2010 by

You might remember one of the good news stories to come out of January’s Haiti earthquake. A Canadian woman trapped in rubble sent a text message to Canadian foreign ministry officials thousands of kilometers away. The message was relayed back to Canadian authorities in Haiti who were able to find and rescue her.

With people increasingly using text messages, Facebook, Twitter, and other new media tools to seek help in a disaster, the American Red Cross sponsored an Emergency Social Data Summit in Washington, D.C., yesterday on ways emergency managers, government agencies, aid groups, and concerned citizens can harness social media “to reply to these digital cries for help more effectively.”

As I noted in my Exciting or Scary? Rise of Social Media Swarms, we’re in the middle of communications renaissance. For the first time in history, each person has a voice that can be heard worldwide and then amplified exponentially if his/her conversation creates a buzz that turns into a swarm. In a disaster situation, these swarms could help rescue and comfort disaster victims … or could attack and amplify the shortcomings of relief agencies and their people.

I found out through Twitter last week that the Red Cross was inviting the public to participate in the summit remotely via U-Stream and Twitter. I immediately signed up and decided to tweet the event live (using the event’s official #crisisdata hashtag). I am so glad I did. I found the summit speakers and Twitter conversation fascinating.  Below are the 30 tweets I found most compelling about disaster relief in a Web 2.0 and mobile world (i.e., my picks are not relief operations oriented).

Public Outreach
  • @sophiabliu Emergency mgt always focus on managing / controlling public and info, the convo should shift to coordinating and collaborating #crisisdata
  • @GlobalGiving RT @JustinHerman: “If a tool is not used properly it becomes a weapon.”#CrisisData “A weapon against you, your org and your personnel.”
  • @CyberlandGal: #Socialmedia can show to world than your #PR message is spin and/or wrong/out of date #crisisdata
  • @PPRedCross “Managing expectations and managing your reputations within those expectations” #crisisdata loaded statement
  • @MelyMello @jack_holt of DOD: People who r given the opportunity to help in a crisis are able to heal faster than those not given that opp #crisisdata
  • @Jack_Holt: #crisisdata Crisis comm is a matter of making information easy to share thereby making it easy to care.
Social Media
  • @SECPRGuy: Nice answer RT @ikepigott: “Social media empowers the public to be part of the response team, instead of victims” – @CraigatFEMA #crisisdata
  • @cspenn: Really good point: phones have a busy signal to tell you you’re on your own. Social media doesn’t
  • @gislio: @ikepigott I read somewhere that research showed over 90% of disaster-crowd data was correct…is media that right? #crisisdata
  • @dariasteigman @ikepigott Eveyone can fact check. As more eyes on-the-ground, the better the data should be. #crisisdata
  • @CrisisSocMedia Crowd sourcing: connecting those with needs with those with resources ~ @PatrickMeier #crisisdata #Russia
  • @CrisisSocMedia “Crowd feeding” – the crowd will always be there: connecting the crowd with each other ~ @PatrickMeier #crisisdata
  • @krobertory Same information from a trusted source (community of friends) has more impact then public official. #CrisisData
Twitter
  • @CyberlandGal: Hashtags need to be established before an event or VERY early so people can track & find info #crisisdata
  • @gwynnek Tweak the tweet is an awesome-simple-idea. People structure their crisis tweets via hashtags. #syntax #crisisdata
  • @CrisisSocMedia @EmergCommNetwrk Folks in emergency management puzzle over how to get more followers, yet rarely follow back: be social.
  • @EmergCommNetwrk “You can’t lead if nobody is following.” @krobertory // Q: How are agencies growing list of followers on Twitter? #CrisisData
  • @CyberlandGal: Twitter would likely go down in a major crisis. After all, it couldn’t survive the World Cup #crisisdata
  • @140Care wow. that is so big. RT @CyberlandGal: 28% of people would send responders message on Twitter during an emergency #crisisdata
  • @jordanv What would 9-11 and Katrina have been like with Twitter? Scary but exciting to think what we could have done – #crisisdata reflection
Facebook
  • @CyberlandGal In disasters people turn to #Facebook to check on family & friends #crisisdata
  • @akmcquade 75% of people expect a response within an hour of posting about an emergency because these are their friends. #crisisdata
  • @akmcquade social media during an emergency isn’t a response *alternative*, it’s a smart way of reaching many people who care w/ 1 click #crisisdata
Mobile
  • @MarieNCGH – All you need is one working cellphone in a shelter to report data for hundreds. #PIO #crisisdata
  • @geoffliving We keep talking social media, and we should be talking mobile #crisisdata
Equity
  • @cherylble: #crisisdata using socmed tools can be good, but remember our mission is 2 help both the haves and havenots. Tech has the ability to divide
  • @CyberlandGal Quest: How 2 deal w/equity & #pr issues in 3rd world crisis. Can’t just focus on elites w/ #SM access but if don’t, word spreads #crisisdata
  • @ArkRedCross Social media’s beneficial unless you live in an area underserved with internet or widespread access to computers and smartphones #crisisdata
Technology
  • @digitalsista: “technology is easier to fix that human behavior” as said by Red Cross CEO that’s my hashtag #NoTechFix4HumanBehavior #crisisdata
  • @kc5fm Remember that technology is also limited by the user. If they don’t have chargers or power, that CELL PHONE will soon die. #crisisdata

Which key tweets did I miss? Help forward the conversation and share your favorites in the comments section below.

Filed Under: Relief & Development Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,