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In case you haven’t heard the big thing this year in the Social Media and Web 2.0 land is mobile and location based services.
Many mobiles now offer both web wifi as well as GPS functionality. This mean that you can interact with the social cloud and they can know where you are. This is great for finding out where the nearest coffee shop is and how to get there. You can also find where is popular to eat and what your on-line buddies think of a place.
A few I have been trying out are Foursquare – Gowalla and Vouchercloud.
Vouchercloud is essencially a voucher book that knows where you are and points you to all the special offers in your area. If for example you are in Reading doing some shopping and fancy lunch it will come up with 3 or 4 Restaurants that have a special offer on. Show the waiter your phone and he will take the discount off your bill. This of course relies heavily on the owners of such outlets taking up the service from Vouchercloud. This is a service that can only get better.
Foursquare and Gowalla. My testing of Foursquare and Gowalla is in it’s very early days and I will continue to add stuff as I find things out. Both seem to be a cross between a social network and a game. The Idea is as you travel around you “check in” to places you’ve been. The more time you visit places the more points you earn. Foursquare seems the more polished out of the two and I had to turn Gowalla off as my iPhone was getting alerts to what every single user within 10 miles of me was doing. You get to leave tips on the places you visit. Like “try the fish it’s lovely” or “don’t drink the water” that kind of thing. For this it could be useful but the whole game aspect detracts from that.
Then there is google buzz hot on the trail of these. Linking in with google maps and google earth. Full version is yet to be released and I have only managed a limited time on the iPhone app. Does look impressive. A bit like a cross between facebook, twitter and google maps. This could be a game changer.
One thing is for certain location based mobile apps are the future. There are many benefits and uses for this technology we haven’t even considered yet. Exciting times ahead.

Today it became official that Googles GMail will include social media features such as status and autofollow.

I guess the question is will this add to or replace existing platforms such as Facebook,Twitter and Linkedin or will it just not catch on at all.

So far Google Wave seems to have drowned. While I have not heard anything bad about it the hype seems to have almost died off.

One thing is for sure you can never tell which way the masses will go with regard to social media. Most social media “experts” said Twitter was as waste of time and would not last.

Time will tell. Watch this space.

The new Apple iPad
Yesterday saw the announcement of the all new Apple iPad. In case you missed all the hype (unlikely) it’s a 10” tablet like device a bit like an oversized iPhone. You can surf the internet, send e-mails, watch movies, listen to music, look at your pictures, play games and most importantly read books and magazines on it.
This is a really cool gadget and yes I want one. I also think it’s a very important turning point in the way we will read media in the future.
Newspapers and Magazines have been on the decline for a decade now with the growth of the internet and the content being freely available to all. But until now nothing has really replaced that feel of thumbing through a paper over breakfast or a good book on the train. Sure there has been the kindle and the Sony eReader but they have been very much one trick ponies and no one really got it. The iPad I think is going to be a real turning point.
I think this could be as if not more significant to the world of media than the iPod was to music a few years back. The main reason for this is advertising. Many of the publications we have enjoyed have relied on advertising revenues. Now the reader has a device that can read the bits they want without having to thumb through pages and pages of advertising.
2 things will have to change. 1st the way the media moguls make their money and operate their businesses. More importantly the way companies advertise and promote their products. Consumers now get to choose what they read and don’t want to be interrupted with an “advert”. If you want to get the consumer’s attention now it needs to be relevant and engaging.
Just as Apple rocked the music world with the iPod and iTunes in the last decade. I really think that the iPad could change the way we all read in this decade. And just as we refer to a Sony MP3 player as an iPod I think the same will happen to the iPad’s competitors. Call me a fan boy if you like but I really think Apple have done it again.

What is Social Media anyway?

A question I get asked a lot is “What is Social Media?” Well there are literally hundreds of answers out there. Google it and have a look or stick it in YouTube there plenty of videos on the subject all with their own version of the Answer. Of course in getting the answer this way you will be using social media itself.
Well for what it’s worth this is my answer to the question everyone is asking.
Before I try to define what social media is let’s look at traditional media and the methods they used. “Media” or Information has for years been written or produced by the media providers themselves. You have Television, News Papers, Radio and so on producing information and spewing it at us in a transmit only fashion. You then have the advertisers that hijack slots in between these bursts of information again spewing in a transmit only way. For years “The Media” had to literally grab our attention to be heard or seen. They had to be more interesting, more shocking, funnier, louder than the last person in order to get our attention.
Social Media in it’s simplest form is “media” or information (called content in social media circles) that is written produced and published by ANYONE with a keyboard, camera or microphone. This means that news storeys are now written and reported by real people that are living in the heart of it. Entertainment is provided not by Hollywood directors with $million budgets but by teenagers and £50 camera-phones. Advertisements are now done by the people that are using the products the consumers.
Of course the transport and home for Social Media is the Internet. There are many tools and websites on the internet to help people find and to broadcast information that interests them.
We see examples of how social media is taking the place of traditional media all the time. When the Airliner landed on the Hudson River in New York the first pictures to go round the world were not from a savvy reporter that was on the ground but from and member of public and his camera phone. When people buy consumer products from amazon.com they read the reviews that people who already own the product are writing. And if I want to book a holiday I can chat to people that have literally just come home from that very hotel.
Well there it is. My short answer. What this means and the implications on how businesses must market themselves is one for another blog. A blog of course is social media at its best.

Last Thursday Capacity Marketing sat in the audience at Jan Jack’s Laughter House Comedy Club. It was a fantastic night with 4 comedians including Jan Jack herself. Jan Jack’s mix of one liners and verse had us all rolling around in stitches laughing. A bit like Pam Ayres only more up to date. The Headline act Lee Nelson took the roof off.
Laughter house has a real intimate atmosphere where you can get close and enjoy some banter with the comedians without feeling victimised or picked on. At least 40% of the audience were regulars and everyone left with tears of laughter rolling down their faces.
Working with Jan has been a delight. A laugh a minute but what else should I have expected from the owner of a comedy club?
If you want to know more about Jan Jack’s Laughter House or book comedy for your venue follow www.twitter.com/laughterhse or www.laughter-house.co.uk

Are you Listening?
When I talk to people about Social Media I am often met with fear. Fear of saying the wrong thing, fear of having their public lives broadcast, fear of not knowing what to say. Many of these people have decided that social media is “not for me”.
There is another group of people that seem to put everything they do on twitter and facebook from what they have for breakfast to what they dreamt last night.
What a lot of people I talk to seem to miss out on is the incredible search facilities of social media. Are you listening to what people are saying about you, about your town and about your industry? If your customers use social media (and statistically they probably are) then they will be talking about things you need to know about.
You may not want to jump on the social media bandwagon but being able to react to trends within your market place is vital and social media gives you that edge. Don’t get left behind make sure you are reading the news as it happens via the social network.

Could you be pricing yourself out the market with your give away prices?
Getting pricing right is always a tricky one whatever your business but never more tricky than in the entertainment industry. How you price determines the what people will perceive about the quality of your venue and the class of the patrons inside.
This goes back to knowing exactly what it is you and your venue stand for. Knowing what your customer base is and what it is they are looking for. You cannot be the classiest joint in town and simotainiosly be the cheapest. It just does not work.
There is nothing wrong with being the cheapest or offering outstanding deals on drinks food memberships etc as long as it is in line with your overall message and the brand. Conflicting messages is where so many venues get it wrong.
It’s also possible to increase your customer base through putting your prices up. I’ve seen it happen. Over a few weeks the crowds that were only in there for the cheap drinks move on as does the reputation and word gets out it’s where the classier people go. People even show off that they have been there.
For years I have driven past a carvery because I thought the “Roast Dinner for £3.50” must be rancid in a rancid environment. Until I tried it one day as the alternative was closed and it was not only good but I would have paid 4 times that. Happily. I said this to the manager and he said it would drive the regulars away. Well from what I saw they could well do without them, the place was barely a quarter full.
Price does of course need to reflect value. You want your higher prices to say “Quality” and “Class” not “Rip Off”.
Ask yourself what do your prices say about you and your business?

Good and Evil.
Facebook is getting blamed again for paedophiles following the case of the nursery assistant Vanessa George and her “ring”.
Now I am not going to go into my views on the morality and the fitting punishment here. It’s clearly wrong and she and others like her need to be removed from society.
What I do want to talk about is how people are pointing the finger again at social media and Facebook even blaming the site for these atrocities. Social media is a fantastic way for like minds to come together not matter what you are into. Football, cars, 14th century Portuguese history, cats, dogs. Whatever your interest you can now thanks to social media you can share you whim with other like minded people all across the world. That’s the good but what if your whim is less than honourable? Well again if you want to seek like minded racists, dog fighters, car thiefs, or paedophiles social media will connect you also.
These two sides of good and evil can been seen across most scientific advancements . Genetic engineering for example. We need to not loose sight of the good that social media can bring us and stop panicking that facebook will sporn many more people like Vanessa George.
One more thing to remember is that Social Media is a valuable tool in tracking and catching these people.

Joint Marketing
Does your brand have synergy with another brand? If so then joint marketing could be the way forward.
I was thinking about this while waiting at the bar earlier and seeing RedBull cans stacked between Smirnoff Vodka bottles on the shelf. Now both these companies spend large fortunes on marketing separately but if they were to put a joint campaign together they could double their budget.
Although Joint Marketing or Co-Maketing is nothing new it’s not limited to the giants like RedBull. Even if you have a relatively small brand or business by joining up with another company you can potentially double your reach. Think of the restaurant opposite the wine bar on a Friday Night or the butchers next to the off licence on a BBQ summer Sunday.
Two heads are better than one as they say. Two budgets can also be better.