Grown Up Thinking

As the Mr Youth mayor on Foursquare, it is my duty and honor to write this blog post. My first experience with Foursquare was on July 29^th and within this short summer time span, I have become a full-fledged addict. Building off the concept of a location-based social networking application but adding a competitive angle by challenging users to compete against friends to earn points and badges, Foursquare just may be the new Twitter.

The service was created in March 2009 by Dennis Crowley, Harry Heymann and Naveen Selvadurai from its predecessor site, Dodgeball. The premise is simple. You check in at various venues around your major metropolitan city and get awarded points for your activity. Users are awarded badges for various completed tasks. For example, you can earn the School Night Badge (checking in after 3am on a week night) or the ever-coveted and elusive Douchebag badge (I’m not quite sure what you need to do to earn this one, but perhaps Jerpdavis can provide insight). The site takes it’s functionality a step farther than a Google Latitude or Loopt site by adding user-generated To Do and Tips lists, giving users insider information about a particular venue or location.

And just as with all the other social networking sites that I’ve felt strongly about from the very beginning (i.e.: Facebook & Twitter), I am finding myself in heated battles with friends and family defending the value of the site. While I don’t believe Foursquare will gain mainstream popularity like Twitter (my gauge for mass appeal being my mom, who’s on Facebook and at least has a Twitter account, but will never be on Foursquare), I do see the amazing opportunity the site provides.

Beyond it thrilling the social networking dork in me, businesses are now encouraging users to check-in to their venues and are awarding the people with free things (mostly drinks), which is smart. Since the site has the option of pinging both Facebook and Twitter with each check in, every time I go somewhere I am providing free advertising to almost 3,000 of my closest online friends.

Some more background on Foursquare in a great Mashable article by Jennifer Van Grove can be found here.

Glance at this year’s box office Top 5 and there is hardly a well known name, let alone a true movie star. Gone are the days where you shelled out $20MM dollars for a top star and they led you to box office glory. In fact, take a peek at this year’s Top 30 movies and see how many true stars you can name outside of Tom Hanks and perhaps Hugh Jackman. It’s not surprising that star salaries are dropping fast.

So what’s changed? Well, Twitter’s assent to mainstream for one. A movie can be chock filled with superstars but if Twitter is ablaze Friday with negative tweets about the film, a blockbuster can go up in flames in just days. Will Ferrell and Sasha Baron Cohen have seen this first hand this summer.  Likewise, films like The Hangover and District 9, which delight audiences, can quickly swell at the box office despite no notable stars. What does this mean for Hollywood? Make good films and audiences will come. Find ways to engage core fans and spread their enthusiasm through social media and that effect can be multiplied quickly.

Hollywood of course is not the only industry effected by a world that now demands instant feedback and so easily enables people to bypass mass media to disseminate and consume information. Brands face the same challenges. No longer can a big budget commercial and widespread brand awareness convert at the register. The product or service must deliver and conversing with communities most vocal and passionate must be a large piece if not the focal point of any marketing campaign.

As we’ve seen throughout history, mass adoption of new technology changes the rules. The rules are  now changing fast and no star or brand is immune.

Twitter is a very ADD-friendly service, but in your haste to tweet (or re-tweet) it’s important to follow some general rules to ensure you’re making the most of the site’s social functionality:

1. Always contextualize your links – If you’re tweeting a link, make sure to call out why someone should view it. Don’t just tweet a URL. Your tweet should prepare your followers as to what they’re going to view, so if it’s questionable content, how about a little NSFW or CAUTION?

2. NEVER tweet broken links – Always make sure the link you’re including in your tweet goes where you want it to go. There’s nothing worse than a non sequitur or bad link. Remember, when re-tweeting sometimes the character limit cuts off the URL if it’s at the end. Try front-loading your tweets with the link and having the contextualizing CTA copy afterward. Or,  shorten the tweet to accommodate the link.

3. Add value in an RT – Let your followers know why you’re re-tweeting something. Give an “I agree” or “so true!”…even a “LOL” if you’re so inclined. There’s no written rule on how to add your two cents when re-tweeting–I like to use [ ] brackets to indicate my own thoughts on the referenced tweet.

4. Give propers – Once in a while, show a valued tweeter some love by re-tweeting them or tweeting a follow recommendation. Additionally, you should always cite your sources–so if you see an interesting link come through,  make sure you give the originator credit if you tweet it.

5. Have fun – Twitter has numerous business related advantages, but ultimately it’s a way to broadcast your voice out into the world. Your tweets should give your followers a little dose of personality and delight from time to time. Don’t take it so seriously–it’s only Twitter after all!

Today, the New York Times reported on what must be the dream internship for most tech-savvy college students. Pizza Hut is hiring a “Summer Twintern” to join the company in its Texas offices as the official tweeter for the brand. Intern responsibilities include attending special events & photo shoots, participating in company brainstorms, and monitoring social media in general for the brand.  The position is currently featured prominently on Pizza Hut’s home page, and is popping up all over the media.

This is an extremely smart move, and an example of how a simple idea can have a huge impact in the world of social media.  Seemingly inspired by Mentos’ 2007 Trevor the Intern campaign, Pizza Hut is turning to the millennial audience and essentially holding a casting call for the social media voice of its brand.  Instead of paying some established blogger or PR expert, Pizza Hut is wisely embracing its core consumer base and allowing them to speak for the brand on a very public level.

“They’ll be our social media journalist,” said Pizza Hut marketing VP Bob Kraut, “chronicling in 140 characters or less what’s going on at Pizza Hut.”

At Mr Youth, we constantly encourage brands to empower the consumer and let them be the authentic  voice of the brand.  It doesn’t really get much better than this.  The only downside is I’m not eligable.

Just when I think I’m tuned in and on top of this Twitter phenomenon, I hear news of the birth of Tinker. Sound familiar? It looks familiar, too. Tinker.com was launched last week by Glam Media, Inc. as yet another micro-blogging platform for users to share real-time opinions/thoughts/rants/conversations. To be honest, I didn’t know we needed another one. The difference is that Tinker breaks their network down into categories and topics ranging from the über-cool Coachella Music Fest to the seriously dorky (okay, and secretly über-cool) Comic-Con. I’ll leave you to decide for yourself if this is necessary. Personally, it’s more than I need, though I can see if you had plans to attend one of these events, or were really hyped over the last episode of American Idol, it could be a fun way to share your thoughts and get into friendly debates with like-minded ‘Tinkerers’. This leaves me to ponder what’s next in the world of social networks and micro-blogging. When will one finally be enough? I’ve already begun drafting up a streamlined fantasy social network, complete with instant messaging, micro-blogging, status updates, file sharing, private messages, profile updates, fan pages, groups, games, gift-giving, music players, applications, Skype, event invites, and of course, the Poke. And obviously, this would all be accessible through your mobile device. Amazing how something so complex has the potential to be the most straight-forward way to communicate through the World Wide Web. Think I’m on to something?

When @jimmyfallon tweeted last Wednesday to check out his Twitter Page at 6 pm because he was “trying an experiment”, I considered setting an outlook reminder. Ever since Jimmy Fallon took over NBC’s Late Night for Connan O’Brian on March 2nd, he has integrated social media into his show, taking it to new and unmarked territory.  Therefore, as a loyal @jimmyfallon Twitter follower for nearly 2 weeks, I was eager to see what 6 pm would bring.  

It started with Jimmy Fallon “twitterviewing” Cameron Diaz via three of his followers interview questions earlier this month.  While the questions weren’t necessarily life changing interview questions, it did result in an entertaining interview and more importantly, he was able to make all of his twitter followers feel like they were part of the interview and thus more connected to the show. While it could have just been a cheap trick to get a couple thousand more viewers, I truly believe Fallon is onto something in the way he is engaging in social media on his show.  

So, when I finally remembered to check back @jimmyfallon’s twitter feed, he simply had a tweet which requested you to follow @bryanbrinkman, dubbing it the “Bryan Brinkman Experiment”. Clearly, as I am not one to ignore a request by a celebrity tweet, I started following @bryanbrinkman, me and 10,000 of his closest friends. It was more than 3 hours before the show even aired, before he even announced what the experiment actally was, and @bryanbrinkman already had more followers than some major twitter users.  Fallon finally reveled the experiment on air, a simple ‘how many folowers can I get @bryanbrinkman’ (who started with 7 followers earlier that day pre-Fallon), paired with an entertaining segment featuring the founders of Digg.com and Russell Brand, all of whom tweeted on their MacBook’s throughout the show.  Today, it is almost a week later and @bryanbrinkman is at nearly 33,300 followers. 

This experiment brings up so many questions for me.  Will interviewers never have to come up with their own questions again, always turning to the public to find out what they really want to know? Will @bryanbrinkman’s tweets become more interesting before everyone unfollows him?  Either way, I truly believe we can count on Fallon to continue to use Twiter and other social networking sites to entertain, grab attention and solidify the power of this media during his tenure on NBC’s Late Night. 

Recent years have shown web 2.0 to be a largely benevolent force–bringing hopeful Americans together around the inauguration of our President and providing distressed cable customers with direct assistance from their providers.  Today, however, the instant connectivity and communication of web 2.0 has reached a new low– McSorley’s TV.

McSorley’s TV is basically a branded mashup of Twitter, Flickr and Brightkite updates that relate to St. Patrick’s day happenings at McSorley’s–one of the oldest bars in NYC and a legendary St. Paddy’s day hangout.  The site shows loyal revelers waiting in line at 7 am to score a coveted table at this 155 year-old bar that serves nothing but its own brew of light and dark beer. The site will be up all St. Patrick’s day showing a live feed of text and photo content of all things McSorley’s.

Truth be told, this is an ingenious application of web 2.0 technologies–and it’s hard to hate on one of the coolest bars in the world. But I can’t help but think it’s an act of cruelty to subject those of us tethered to our dreary desks on the best holiday of the year to live updates of the spririted atmosphere of McSorely’s. At the end of the day this is all just sour grapes–cheers to McSorley’s for getting it right! Slainte!

Few things in the 2.0 era have received so much buzz so quickly as Skittle’s recent social media effort. I logged on to Twitter yesterday to a literal hashstorm of all things Skittles. I realize people get excited about candy, but this was ridiculous. What was going on? Obviously I did what any responsible digital marketing  professional would do–I went to Skittles.com.

Something wasn’t right–why did Skittles.com take me to Twitter’s search page with a little branded overlay on the top left?  Where’s the flashed out, high res animated page loader? Where’s the ambiguously organized homepage with different content engagement opportunities?  All I could see were different users’ tweets about Skittles. I clicked around the overlay, and was taken to….Facebook? This was something entirely new.

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Social networking site, Twitter, seemed to steal the show during this year’s Super Bowl Sunday. The two major Twitter Super Bowl chat groups received hundreds of Tweets every minute throughout the night. While last year’s Super Bowl ads were blogged about shortly after they aired, this year’s had millions of people instantly display their feedback in 140 characters or less (as is Twitter’s maximum character count) thus providing an accurate and live pulse of the nation (check out this very cool interactive map that displays the most popular words Tweeted during the evening and from where they were sent).

And what better way for a brand to capitalize on this massive audience than having its Super Bowl ad stars Tweet to the masses. Pepsi’s PepSuber, E-Trade’s babies, and H&R Block’s Murray were among the characters who were Tweeting on game day. This type of social networking is proving invaluable for brands because of its impact and because it’s FREE! Because Twitter is an open dialogue it has the ability to connect with consumers more personally than TV spots and having grown over 600% in the last year, it can no longer be ignored by marketers.