The Social Path

Eight case studies: How retail is using social media.

A few weeks back, I was honored to share the stage with my friend Dan Shust in front of about 4,000 people at the Internet Retailer Conference and Expo. Our topic was "Two Thumbs Up — Or Down — On Social Media Efforts."

Essentially, we walked through several case studies of how retailers are leveraging social media, then gave our take on whether we liked it or not. (See below for some coverage of our talk.)

The presentation seemed to spark a lot of discussion, and as you'll see in the slideshow below, we got the audience in on the action by having them text their own "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" in real time.

Here's the presentation, with embedded links to some of the related content:

Two thumbs up—or down—on social media efforts

View more presentations from Resource Interactive.

Links to coverage of our presentation:

eMarketing & Commerce: 8 Social Media Hits ... and Misses

Internet Retailer: Two Pros Agree: Social Media is Ready to Shine

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Should your business ban Foursquare?

For years, companies have been debating whether to ban their employees from using social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, for reasons I've always found incredibly weak. (My take: If someone's slacking off on Facebook, you should fire them for slacking off, not for using Facebook.)

But now there's a social tool you really should consider restricting in-house, and yet almost no one's talking about it.

Foursquare, a location-based application that awards you points for checking in at different sites around town, is one of the hottest social media tools since Twitter began to trickle into the mainstream in 2008.

The service is fun, engaging and addictive — but that's not why you should keep your employees from using it.

The problem — if you work in retail, food service, or any business with walk-in customers — is that Foursquare is just emerging from the "early adopter" phase and becoming an increasingly popular activity. Which means more and more of your customers are going to start checking in at your business, hoping to become the Mayor (ie, the person who has checked in there the most).

But when your customers go to check in at your locations, guess who they're going to find entrenched as the Mayor? Your most tech-savvy employees, who have probably been checking in there daily for months.

Sure, it's pretty harmless for now, and your employees deserve credit for being ahead of the curve. But more and more businesses, including Starbucks, are offering rewards for their Foursquare Mayors.

What happens if you decide to offer your own loyalty incentive, only to realize that your employees have an unshakable lock on the Mayorship of each location?

The good news is that Foursquare is gradually working to fix this problem. The developers have created a "Staff" section for businesses, so that employees can check in daily without disrupting customers' chances at geeky glory.

But the Staff setting is just starting to roll out, and very few businesses beyond Starbucks have been given the access needed to get it set up. Even at Starbucks locations, you rarely see employees listed in the Staff area — yet. So for now, you can assume that most employees are still checking in with abandon and likely not even seeing the harm.

Again, I'm not saying your Foursquare-using employees have done anything wrong. In fact, they're the first ones you should turn to for advice on how you might be able to leverage Foursquare as an easy addition to your social media marketing.

But it's clear that Foursquare is here to stay, so even if you're not ready to make the most of it, you can at least draft a quick e-mail asking your employees to respect term limits and give the customers a crack at being Mayor.

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Today's art is from PVPOnline.com's dead-on introduction to Foursquare....er, Hopscotch.

New iPhone debut is heavy on media, light on social.

If you haven't seen it yet, here's the hypnotic launch video for the new iPhone 4, which adds a bucket of features and hardware improvements:

What's interesting is how, while most new devices talk up their integration with social media tools, Apple instead positions the iPhone as a social device unto itself.

I'm not necessarily complaining. Honestly, I've gotten a bit tired of how many phones seem to take credit for how they "keep you connected," when all they've really done is incorporate work done by Facebook, Twitter and third-party application developers.

Apple's been just as guilty by featuring apps as a signature selling point of the iPhone.

But the new iteration of the iPhone definitely puts hardware in the front seat, with a two-way camera system that enables video chat anywhere you can find a wi-fi signal. The physical improvements to the phone's outer shell are also pretty impressive, especially for those of us who've heard the horrifying crack of an iPhone on concrete.

Critics say that Apple missed an opportunity to keep pace with Google, which has beefed up the Android platform's streaming and syncing abilities. But I think Apple was mostly burned by how many of its new features were leaked prior to launch, making it a lot harder to get people excited about structural improvements that come on the hills of the far more buzzworthy iPad launch.

So what do you think? Any of the new features make you want to rush out and upgrade or switch over from worthy foes like the HTC EVO 4G and Droid?

Vote in our poll below, or share your thought in the comments.

QuestionsView Results

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Disclosure: AT&T, the wireless service provider for the iPhone, is a client of Luckie & Company.

20 cool uses of Foursquare.

One of the smartest guys I know, Luckie VP of Brand Planning David Stutts, has started a new series called "20 Interesting Things." He'll be profiling 20 case studies of how new technologies or trends are being used in the real world.

David has kicked off the series with "20 Interesting Things: Foursquare," which walks through some examples that range from the well-known to the downright obscure. Check out the presentation below. You might want to view it full-screen (under the Menu button) for maximum readability.

20 Interesting Things: Foursquare

View more presentations from David Stutts.

For lots more great information from David Stutts, be sure to check out the Luckie ReThink Tank blog for his free monthly reports, Trend Trackers and Generational News & Views.

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Social media, augmented reality and the future of retail.

One of the most exciting fields in digital marketing right now is retail, which is why I'm really looking forward to speaking to 4,000 or so attendees at the Internet Retailer Conference and Expo in Chicago next Wednesday.

I'll be discussing recent case studies in how retailers — online and brick-and-mortar — are using social media to increase their reach and customer loyalty.

The format of this presentation will be pretty fun, because I'll be on stage with one of my favorite digital luminaries, Dan Shust from Resource Interactive in Columbus, Ohio. Our discussion is called "Two Thumbs Up (or Down) On Social Media Efforts."

I don't want to spoil any surprises by talking about the case studies here, so I figured I'd share a few that we actually ended up cutting from the presentation due to time constraints.

Specifically, the following three tidbits are examples of insanely innovative ideas on how the in-person shopping experience is evolving almost to science-fiction levels. Check it out:

The Diesel Cam

While it might sound a bit pervy at first to imagine a Web cam in your fitting room, the Diesel Cam is actually a really fun idea floated by an agency in Spain for the Diesel fashion line. After trying on an outfit, you can have your picture taken and uploaded to your Facebook page, where friends can help you judge the look.

Here's a video demonstration:

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Intel's Holographic Window Display

Intel admits this is "three to five years out from what we'll see in the retail space," but it's still a compelling example of how new technology is changing the nature of shopping, even in-store.

Check out the video (after a brief pre-roll ad):

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N Building: The first QR Code facade

Most examples of QR Codes — those square bar codes that you've probably noticed popping up in magazine ads — simply direct your mobile device to a promotional Web site. That's fine, but it doesn't get at the tremendous social media potential housed in those black-and-white icons.

So I was excited to see the N Building, a Japanese project that covered an entire low-rise facade with QR Codes that share information about the businesses inside — and even Twitter posts by the people inside. A little creepy, a little trippy, but undeniably interesting.

How it works:

If you're going to be at the Internet Retailer Conference, I hope we get a chance to connect. If you can't make it, Dan and I plan to post our presentation as soon as we can after the event.

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

'Quit Facebook' protest draws away a mere .008% of users.

If privacy advocates were hoping to send a message with yesterday's "Quit Facebook Day," the message seems to be, "You win, Facebook."

About 34,000 people reportedly pledged to delete their user accounts on the social network Monday. With more than 400 million unique visitors to the site worldwide, that means Facebook suffered a microscopic loss of .008% of its user base. (That's assuming they all actually quit.)

By the time you woke up this morning, Facebook had probably made up the difference already. In America alone, Facebook is growing by more than 148,000 users a day (4.6 million a month).

So what does this failed exodus mean for Facebook and its privacy critics?

One possibility is that Facebook's quick overhaul of its privacy interface actually worked in terms of reversing public opinion. While I applaud the new "sliding scale" of privacy options, I have a hard time believing that this shift was enough to bring people back from the brink.

No, I think the answer is that people simply can't live without Facebook. With no clear alternative for an online social hub — plus a growing, zen-like fatalism about online privacy — it's going to take a lot more than a one-day protest to sever our planetary addiction to status updates and personality quizzes.

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Photo credit: Sister L'Via L'Viaquez on Flickr