This month, though, there’s only one campaign worth mentioning and that’s that of the Cadbury UK team. As official treat provider to the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, they’ve been gearing up for the events in impressive style.

The Goo Games campaign actually launched on January 6th, will run until April according to Marketing Week and features TV ads, PR, sales promotion and digital events. It’s the latter we’re interested in, of course.

At 11am on Saturday 28th January, utilising YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, Cadbury UK launched the Cadbury Creme Egg Goo Games to promote their goo-filled chocolate eggs.

Featuring an opening ceremony, a host of events that will take place at the Olympics, some impressive video and photography and a whole slew of prizes for you to win by participating, the event was as wide ranging as it was engaging.

The #GooGames Opening Ceremony video was published on Cadbury’s “Creme Egg GooTube” channel and promoted on Twitter using the hash tag. Yes, there was a LOT of wordplay involved too. Here it is in all its glory.

Even before that, anticipation was built by having ‘celebrity’ Creme Eggs arrive for the premier of the #GooGames – like this:

Cel-egg-rities arrive for the opening ceremony

With the Opening Ceremony out of the way, the main events got going, split across the various social media platforms to try to maximise engagement. The hurdles were featured exclusively on Cadbury UK’s Facebook page (and shared across to the Creme Egg page too), while the javelin and cycling events were shared on Google+. Twitter, meanwhile, provided a running commentary and the opportunity to join in with the egg-related word play and win prizes for retweeting.

Videos of the vents were posted YouTube (or GooTube if you prefer) and shared on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ where appropriate, with ‘photographs’ of the events featuring heavily on Google+ in particular. Here’s an album of some of the best:

The #GooGames Velodrome fills up for the cycling.

The #GooGames Cycling is underway...and the pressure begins to tell...

Hurdles competitors line up for the off...

...but there's disaster at the second hurdle as several come to a sticky end!

That was bad, but it's genuine tragedy at the #GooGames javelin event!

As all-encompassing campaigns go, this was one of the most ambitious and well thought out efforts I’ve ever seen. To take in the number of social media channels it did was no doubt quite a challenge for the Cadbury social team and Social Media Manager Jerry Daykin, who was kind enough to reply to me when I praised CadburyUK for their Google+ work recently.

As with anything though, it’s about results. So how did the #GooGames campaign go over this particular weekend? It’s quite hard to tell not having access to Cadbury’s analytics but we can get a rough idea from the amount of public engagement there has been since the build up began on Friday 27th January to Monday 30th January.

The Cadbury UK Facebook page has 79,676 Likes at the time of writing. Posts relating to the #GooGames got a total of 206 acts of engagement in the form of Likes, shares and comments. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.

The Cadbury Creme Egg page has a remarkable 2,111,834 Likes. A total of 745 acts of engagement were gained on #GooGames-related posts. Not good. But if you consider each Facebook user has an average of 130 friends then the reach was potentially great.

How many people interacted with the weekend’s event on Facebook was low, but only Cadbury will know how many views it got – I suspect that was incredibly high.
On Google+, where the Cadbury UK page is in 138,074 people’s Circles, engagement was much better. In fact, just a week earlier they had only hit the 50,000 Circles mark. The #GooGames and the build up to it through the week seems to have more than doubled that figure so right there you can say it was a success.

Between Friday and Monday #GooGames related content garnered 748 interactions via +1’s (426), shares (103) and comments (219). For Cadbury on Google+, the #GooGames was a hit, no question.

On Twitter, which played very much a supporting role anyway, it’s much harder to judge the success of the campaign. A check on hashtracking.com shows 122 tweets generated 205,986 impressions, reaching an audience of 57,623 followers within the past 24 hours (report generated at 14.07, Mon 30th Jan).

Given this is very much after the event and @CadburyUK has just over 12,000 followers it’s probably safe to say those numbers were much, MUCH higher for Saturday.

Cadbury were utilising the ever popular ‘retweet to win’ tactic with this:

@CadburyUK: Retweet the #GooGames Opening Ceremony for a chance to win a box of 48 Creme Eggs – it’s Goo-d to share!

It’s still being retweeted now…so imagine how much it was retweeted on the day in question.

Conclusion

Cadbury’s Goo Games campaign is a long running bid to market their Creme Eggs as part of their overall Olympics partnership. This particular use of social media marketing does really need to be viewed as part of the overall campaign, but from a pure social media standpoint it was fantastic.

By far the most successful platforms were Google+ and Twitter in terms of engagement, but the brand awareness it must have generated across all platforms, especially their Creme Egg Facebook page with its two million plus fans, cannot be ignored.

More importantly, the whole thing was great fun and can only have left feelings of positive sentiment with those who viewed it. Sure, I’d like to take a very close look at their Facebook Insights, Twitter stats and more to get a better idea of the actual numbers but, frankly, I loved it.

KLM Meet & Seat

Dutch airline KLM will soon be introducing its Meet & Seat app on Facebook – it will allow passengers who have opted in to choose who they sit next to based on their social media profiles. I’m guessing the majority of us have had a bad experience sitting next to someone we’d rather not – my most prominent was when I sat next to a nervous flyer who shouted, ‘WE’RE GOING TO DIE, WE’RE GOING TO DIE!’ every time there was a bit of turbulence. Although the journey was ever-so-slightly disturbing, it still wouldn’t be enough to push me to use KLM’s Meet & Seat service – to me, it seems a bit too set up, and if you end up disliking the person, there’s no escape. I’ve had some brilliant conversations with interesting people on flights, but I also like the time to sit back, read and relax – the idea of being forced to talk to someone doesn’t appeal to me. The campaign has a lot of potential though, and I think the number of people in the mile-high club would increase significantly.

KLM isn’t the first airline to embrace social media, Malaysia and Delta Airlines both have Facebook apps that allow users to purchase tickets, check in, view seating plans and share their itineraries with friends. Virgin America is using Foursquare to promote brand loyalty by asking fans to check-in and post geo-located photos in return for loyalty points. People naturally post holiday photos and check-in at exotic destinations so this is a brilliant idea to build brand loyalty and also gives the user money off a future break.  The loyalty campaign is run by Topquest and also includes the Hilton and Best Western hotels.

Strada uses user-generated content to drive sales

Strada is encouraging Facebook users to share their dining experiences by posting photos or writing reviews on popular social networking sites in return for promotional vouchers. Tragus Group own Strada, Cafe Rouge and Bella Italia, and all three are using this user-generated content strategy to help drive more foot traffic into their restaurants. Bella Italia recently ran a Facebook campaign where users were able to make their own personalised pizza and share it with friends in return for a money-off voucher.

Levi’s uses Instagram to find a model for upcoming ad campaign

Instagram is a popular photo-sharing app currently only available on the iPhone but still has over 10 million users. Levi Strauss has opened worldwide casting via Instagram to find a new model for their September 2012 campaign. Users are to take a photo of themselves with the tag #iamlevis to be in with the chance of becoming the new face of Levi’s.

It’s not the first time the brand have used Instagram as a marketing tool, Levi’s Brazil set up an Instagram account ‘levisbrasil’ to keep users visually updated with their latest items. The Brazilian campaign didn’t reach a huge audience but as the number of users on Instagram keeps increasing so will its popularity. It’s interesting to see how brands are choosing to use the application for marketing, and I hope other brands follow suit in the future.

Young Jack Henderson could well be his own worst enemy.  What started out as a small and well meaning fundraising idea has escalated into an adventure which has consumed his life – as well as those of his parents, Ed & Rose - and turned it into an internet sensation which has charmed thousands.

Jack – armed with his trusty Crayolas and felt tips – set out with an idea: to raise money for the Children’s hospital that cared for his younger brother Noah by drawing whatever visitors to his website requested in return for a charitable donation.  The only restrictions he imposed were the type of rules that you would reasonably expect of a 6 year old: nothing naughty – and in Jack’s words ‘I don’t want to draw anyone dying or being died’.

Their initial target of a raising a humble £100 has been well and truly blown out of the water with the current total on their just giving page (which is still accepting donations!) standing well in excess of £27,000.  Not only this but they have also amassed over 7,000 Facebook fans and nearly 1,000 followers of the Twitter account, diligently and warmly run by his Dad.  You may have seen them in the media recently. Oh, and he now has a book available too.

After completing an amazing 536 drawings, Jack is pooped.  Regular readers of our little blog will know that I enjoy a good doodle myself and I’ve loved checking out Jack’s masterpieces – so I thought I would track down Ed Henderson who has kindly spared us a his time to answer a few probing questions…

So for all the parents out there – just how do you rein in the ego of a 6 year old who has suddenly found himself in the media spotlight?

We made sure we kept him very insulated from too much of the nonsense that can go on. While it is great that everyone wants to congratulate him, being a 6 year old is quite simple, he gets a few people bigging him up, he gets  a big big headed, he gets a few meanies, he gets sad. We had to let him enjoy some of it but made sure that whenever we felt he overstepped the mark, we made sure he knew his standing in the family and the world.

To what extent are you ‘trained’ in web design and social media? Was there a steep learning curve involved in managing a site that suddenly attracted so much attention?

I build websites for a living and have used/advised social media for myself and my clients. On this scale however, no training. When you are at the eye of this social media hurricane it was manic. A couple of times I was so overwhelmed with communication I had to close the Mac and walk away for a while. Its relenting, tough but ultimately rewarding interacting with wellwishers, fans and followers. I wouldn’t have swapped it for the world.

"Gorilla swinging in the lianas in the jungle being chased by a tribe of indigenous people"

A question for Jack this time: who would win in a dancing contest between John Barrowman and Mr Bean?

Mr Bean – because he is a really funny dancer

Did you have a conscious strategy behind your online presence or was it something that grew organically?

We didn’t even have a Facebook page till Day 6 and even then Rose (Jack’s Mum) had to convince me! Jack had a Twitter account since birth (because I am a geek and reserved it for him). After that, “suck it and see” and “make it up as you go” are two phrases that spring to mind.

"Unicorn taking his pet baby elephant for a walk"

Another for Jack – what’s more fun? Getting a Hug from your mum or jumping on your Dad?

Both of them, I like jumping on my Dad becuase its fun and I like getting a hug from Mum because shes warm!

How did the book deal come about?

Someone posted it on their Facebook wall, no idea who. Sara O’Connor spotted it, twas the Heatblast picture.  Sara is a Senior Editor for Hodder Childrens. She called me, I thought it was a windup at first. It progressed from there.

Now that Jack has finished all his drawings and you look back – is there anything that you would have done differently if you had the chance to do it all again?

Jack – Nothing, I loved it all.
Dad & Mum – Closed picture requests a bit earlier than 2 weeks, 536 pics was a lot.

With all the media furore that has surrounded Jack combined with the technical and logistical challenges that surround managing such a popular website, there’s one thing that we really need to know – what does Jack want for Christmas?

Guitar, Space Shuttle (Lego), thats all.

Huge thanks to Ed, Rose and Jack.  Do something nice today and drop them a little donation. Or a really big one if you want to.

Unfortunately, we have a couple of rule-breakers, check out rule #4:

“There is to be no joining of the handlebars to your chin.”

We’ll be dealing with this rule-breaking accordingly.

Take a look below to see how the boys are getting along and if you like our efforts, why not donate a little something to our team page? http://mobro.co/fluid

Scott

Adrian

Ben

Chris

Lee

Martin

Mike

Movember Day #2

Google Plus Pages launched with 20 brands – including Pepsi, H&M, Macy’s and Toyota – and opened up to everyone roughly 24 hours later. Despite a lack of features, certainly compared to Facebook’s own Pages, businesses are clearly seeing value in having a Google+ presence.

As ever, some brands took the time to think about their G+ Page before they acted, producing some stunning campaigns right off the bat. Others, sadly, did not. But let’s focus on the good. Here’s the pick of the Google+ Pages we’ve found so far.

Burberry

Burberry was one of the original Pages to go live at launch. The clever use of the five-photo Showcase area at the top of their Profile page is the best we’ve seen. Really gives that winter feel and shows off the product very well indeed. By the way, it’s animated, so click through to see it in action.

Cadbury

The folks over at chocolate giant Cadbury have jumped in with both feet on Google+, producing a limited edition 1kg Dairly Milk+1 bar! One of the bars has already made it to Google’s UK HQ and the rest are up for grabs in a competition the company is running on G+ – all you have to do is tell them what you actually want them to do on their Google+ Page.

Sensible approach – get set up, provide an incentive and get your customers to tell you what they want. On top of this, they’re really engaging with their followers and not just posting their products up there. Nice work, Cadbury.

Ford Motor Company

Ford were actually one of the very, very few companies that were allowed to use what was then a personal account for their brand (as you can see from their profile pic) and so have been at this Google+ thing a lot longer than most. As it stands, their profile is still a personal one, not one of the new Pages, but as they’ve obviously had input into how Pages have been developed I imagine they’ll be putting theirs live very soon.

In the meantime, what we like about their Google+ presence is how they take advantage of every available aspect. They host Hangouts (video chat), share owner stories and engage by talking about driving – not just driving a Ford. Ford is actually one of the most socially savvy companies out there, thanks in no small part to Scott Monty, their global social media lead.

Incidentally, our (very much a work in progress) G+ Page is here. Circle us, we’ll Circle you back.

What brands have you Circled on Google Plus and which have you been most impressed with?

Here’s what has been introduced in the last week – and what is expected to come out of Facebook’s annual developer conference, f8 and Google’s seemingly non-stop crusade to capture us all (and our data).

Recently Introduced – Facebook

Brace yourselves. This is a rather large list. Facebook has clearly been spooked by Google and has rushed to introduce new features to counteract those that Google+ has done better.

Subscribe – It’s now possible to subscribe to the public posts people make without becoming friends with them. The potential impact of this is big. If, like me, you’re a private person on Facebook but occasionally want to post or share something to a wider audience you can. This basically gives Facebook dual functionality. You can market yourself to your peers publicly, while retaining privacy amongst your closer, chosen circle of friends. As an example, I subscribe to MG Siegler, a TechCrunch writer I enjoy reading. He’d never friend me, we don’t know one another – but at least I can now see what he says publicly and he is safe in the knowledge that I can’t see the stuff he only wants to share with friends and family. Genius move by Facebook.

Smart Lists – One of the big advantages of Google+ was their Circles feature. The ability to create lists of people you follow and categorise them, then share certain bits of information with only those groups that would be interested. Facebook has long struggled with this concept, but they’ve learned fast and introduced Smart Lists. Now, based on your activity, they’ve divided your friends into lists such as Close Friends, your workplace and your school.

And, of course, you can create your own lists and add who you like to them, including those in other lists. So, for example, if you create a ‘Football Fans’ list you could add your best mate from your Close Friends list. Then share your football updates with ONLY that list, saving your other friends from the hassle of reading your inane ramblings!

Notifications – Facebook used to email you incessantly with Notifications. Now you can choose to receive only important updates and a Notifications summary email. For those who are very active on the network this is a Godsend. Ironically, Facebook emailed everyone to tell them they’d be getting less emails. Got to love the irony.

Updated News Feed – Facebook have also updated their News Feed, though not everyone is seeing it yet. This is usually the thing that causes uproar amongst its users but they plow ahead anyway, knowing full well people don’t like change but they accept it anyway. Gone is the choice between Top Stories and Recent Updates. They’ve been combined and Facebook now determines what to show you based on how frequently you log in.

If you log in 10 times a day, you’ll likely see the most recent updates. If it’s your first time in a few days, Facebook will try to show you the top stories from your friends in that time period, as well as more recent updates. How well this will work (and how well it will be received – or not) is yet to be seen.

In addition, some users are already seeing Facebook’s new Ticker – a constant, live stream in the right hand column of your friends updates as they happen. You’ll be able to hover over an update in the Ticker and a pop out will show relevant information, such as Bing map of the location of the person updating. You’ll also be able to see how many likes your content has gained as a Notification. It’s a really important change that will make a big difference.

Photos – Finally, Facebook have increased the size of photo thumbnails in the News Feed, making them better to look at and more inviting to click on. This is a feature I love, personally, simply because thumbnails are generally rubbish. The bigger the better.

Recently Introduced – Google+

On to Google+ then. There has been a lot of talk lately that G+ has been running out of steam. It’s nonsense, but just as Facebook have been introducing feature after feature in the war, Google has begun to roll things out in a bid to catch up or stay ahead, depending on your point of view.

Out of Trial, Into Beta – Google+ has been live for nearly three months in trial mode, but now they’ve opened it up to everyone in beta. Log into Google, go to Google+ and get started. Invites are no longer necessary. This should boost the membership base by millions. How many will remain active on the network will be determined by the features.

Search – It has bemused people why the search giant didn’t give the ability to search within its social network when it went live. Well, now they’ve rolled it out. You can search for people or topics using the new search bar – that means you can find content that may well have been posted a while ago. Something Facebook and Twitter struggle with hugely. And you can filter by ‘Best Of’ or ‘Most Recent’ too. This puts G+ ahead on that score, at least.

Hangouts – HUGE changes on the group video messaging front. Firstly, you can now go ‘on air’, which is essentially a public Hangout that allows people to watch a Hangout without joining in, or join if there’s room. Imagine the uses of this, especially from a business point of view. You can hold presentations, for example, hosted by your experts and watched by your clients. Wow.

There’s more. Let’s break it down.

• Screensharing: Allows you to share what’s on your screen – photos for example, with those you’re video messaging.
• Sketchpad: Allows you to doodle, sketch or draw in realtime together. Fun?
• Google Docs: This is interesting. You can share your documents with others as you chat, allowing real time collaborative work. The potential here for business is massive. When Google finally allows Google Apps users into Google+, this will be a feature that should be adopted widely in the business world.
• Named Hangouts: Create a public Hangout, title it Fashion, and garner an audience of clothing obsessed people as you discuss the latest styles from Paris, New York and London. Brilliant!
• Google+ API: Developers were given access to a very basic API for Streams recently, and now one has been introduced for Hangouts. Stay tuned for the no doubt incredible innovations in video messaging this will spawn.

So that’s what the two factions have introduced recently. What can we expect from Facebook out of f8 and from Google in the near future then?

Coming Up – Facebook (f8)

It’s (educated) guesswork at the moment, but rumours are flying about that include:

Facebook Music – The idea has been doing the round for years, but it seems that tomorrow will see the first official announcement of Facebook’s social music platform, which has been developed with the likes of Spotify, Turntable.fm and likely more. How it will work / look / be implemented we’ll have to wait and see.

Read / Watched / Listened Buttons – It seems that Facebook wants to add granularity to its sharing options. While now you have the Like button on millions of websites, it is rumoured strongly that these will be either accompanied by or replaced by more specific buttons, depending on the content. So if you’re watching a video you will no longer ‘Like’ it, you’ll tell people you ‘Watched’ it – [name] watched [video title] will being appearing in your news feed, instead of [name] liked [title]. Useful for Facebook’s data miners, no doubt, and I like the idea in principal but we’ll see how it goes. One other thing – there’s a less strong rumour that there will be a ‘Want’ button too – this will be big for online retailers. People browsing ecommerce sites will basically be able to tell friends and family what they want, and deeper integration could allow people to create birthday or Christmas present lists. Impressive.

Redesign – Various screenshots of a completely redesigned interface have been doing the rounds and it’s hard to give any of them any weight, so I won’t share them. Google (ironic) Facebook redesigns and you’ll see them for yourself. The fact that there’s a lot of smoke about this suggests there may well be a fire to go with it. Expect the usual uproar from users when it hits!

Coming Up – Google+

This section would perhaps be better titled “What’s Missing – Google+” but I’ll be kind and assume they’ll arrive eventually.

Google+ Brand Pages – Companies are clamouring for the ability to create brand pages on G+ and rightly so, as the features it offers suit businesses perfectly. Yet we’re still waiting for them and there’s no sign they#ll appear any time soon. Facebook has had them for years, even though they are relatively poorly implemented, even now. Google+ can really get one over in this area but so far, nothing. Come on, Google, this is exactly what businesses and agencies like Fluid Creativity need to open up more markets!

Google+ API – Yes, we have a basic one, yes, we now have a Hangouts one. What developers want is a more robust one that gives more possibilities. I can see Google’s problem though – they need their API to be as right as possible from the start. Facebook’s, after all, is pretty poor still.

Conclusion

Facebook had, I believe, become complacent such was their dominance in the social networking arena. Yes, they made tweaks here and there, trying to improve at all times. But the launch and fast evolution of Google+ has put a bee in their bonnet. I can’t remember a time when Zuckerberg and Co rolled out so many new features in such a short period of time.

And Google, burned by the failure of Buzz, Wave, even Orkut, went away, learned and returned with something that was, at first, better than Facebook. Now, as they battle one another for supremacy, they are innovating at a breakneck speed and we, the users (and online marketers), are reaping the rewards.

There’ll never be an eventual winner. Facebook is too strong and too well loved (despite what you may read) to be killed off or fade away like MySpace. Google+ is too well integrated into every other Google product and thus almost everything we do online for Facebook to see it off. They will learn to coexist.

Which one has the most users in 10 to 20 years time will be the one that listens to its user base better. There’s no clear sign on who is doing that right now.

One thing I think we can all agree on is that it is a wonderful show to watch.

A lot has been said about how good social media is for increasing brand awareness, online revenue, connecting with customers and even for SEO now that social signals improve your search engine rankings. And, of course, all that is true but very little has been said on how it can help businesses with physical locations increase foot traffic in their stores.

For this location-based social media services are perfect and there is none better than Foursquare.

Foursquare describes itself as “a location-based mobile platform that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. By “checking in” via a smartphone app or SMS, users share their location with friends while collecting points and virtual badges”.

More importantly for businesses, Foursquare goes on to say: “merchants and brands leverage the foursquare platform by utilizing a wide set of tools to obtain, engage, and retain customers and audiences”.

That’s a nice bit of blurb but it doesn’t tell you how you can make the most of it for your business. Here’s a little guide on how to do just that.

Foursquare Specials

This is the real value for businesses with stores. Foursquare offers the ability to create ’specials’ – basically offers that you can give to people checking in to your venue, as Foursquare refers to places. But before you can go about that, there are some steps you have to take.

Firstly, your store or business needs to be on Foursquare. This is relatively simple to do. Once you’ve signed up, do a search for your business. If it’s there, you’re oon your way. If it’s not, you can create it by checking in to it yourself. You’ll be given the option of adding the place as you do. That’s it, your venue is now there.

Secondly you need to claim your venue. This is not as easy as it might sound. There’s a verification process that, at least in my experience, is not too reliable. In the States you can simply request a phone call to verify your claim to the venue. In the UK you have to rely on being sent a verification code though the post.

When trying to claim a venue on behalf of one of my clients I requested this code be sent no less than eight times in two months and it never showed up. In the end, I had to submit a ticket to Foursquare’s helpdesk explaining the problem and to be fair to them, I had my claim verified within 24 hours that way. Worth doing if you find you’re waiting too long.

Once claimed though, Foursquare is a joy to use. Log in to the website, search for your venue and you’ll immediately see an ‘Edit Venue’ link, from which you can tweak various details and the like. Make sure you include as much information as you can and you’re all set.

At the top of the screen you’ll see a ‘Manager Tools’ link. It’s from here you can see your venue’s stats, who has checked in and, importantly, set up your ’specials’. Click the green ‘Start a Campaign’ button near the top right and choose the venue for yours special. You’ll be presented with this screen:

You have several options for your specials:

• Swarm Special – create an offer for when a lot of people checking in at the same time
• Friends Special – create an offer for when a small group checks in
• Flash Special – create an offer for the first X number of people checking in at a certain time
• Newbie Special – create an offer for people checking in at your venue for the first time
• Check In Special – create an offer for anyone checking in

These are geared towards gaining new customers via check ins. To retain existing customers and reward loyalty you have these options:

• Loyalty Special – create an offer for people who check in a certain number of times
• Mayor Special – create an offer for the person who is Mayor of your venue (the Mayor is basically the person who has checked in the most times over a certain period of time – you can see who that is from your venue page)

Once you’ve chosen your special you can then decide when it gets unlocked and how many times per day it can be claimed. For example, if you choose the Swarm Special, you can state how many people need to be checked in for the offer to become valid and, of course, how many claims can be made.

The next step is to create a description of the offer. Let’s say you run a restaurant and decided the special unlocked after 20 people checked in. Your description might read “Get any side order free with your order when 20 or more people check in!”. You’re limited on characters here, so be succinct!

Finally, you can add optional details such as the fine print and a more detailed description should they be required. As you create your special there’sa handy little graphic on the right that shows you how your special will look on a smartphone.

Now click create special and that’s it! People can see your special on their smartphones through the Foursquare app whenever they are near your venue. If they like the look of your offer they’ll call in and you’ve gained customers you would never have had otherwise!

The next step is to make even more people aware of your offer and this is where Facebook, Twitter and your own website come in to play. You can promote your special via the various social media channels you have available to you in addition to Foursquare itself.

Foursquare Brand Pages

In addition to claiming your venue and offering specials, Foursquare now offers you the ability to create a brand page for your business. This is very simple to do and you can verify your page by tying your Twitter account to it. No need to wait for a code through the post.

Fill out all your details, website links, branded banner and description and you’re ready to get started. With a branded page you can encourage people to ‘follow’ you on Foursquare as they would on Facebook. Search for venues near your business on Foursquare – for example, if you’re in Manchester then Old Trafford and the Etihad Stadium are obvious choices – and leave ‘tips’ there.

A tip at Old Trafford could read: “Watch Manchester United take on the rest of the Premier League at this magnificent stadium. And you’re not too far from [your business], check in with us and claim [your offer]!”

Foursquare users following your business and checking in near to Old Trafford will then see your tip ‘pop up’, increasing brand awareness and reminding them of your offer. They can then add the tip to their ‘To Do’ Lists too, creating a reminder of your business in their own profiles and increasing the likelihood they will pay a visit to your venue.

So there you have it. A relatively easy way you can use social media and Foursquare to drive foot traffic to your store, restaurant or other business venue.

It is, without doubt, a company on the up and up. Just recently, however, something went terribly wrong when the property of one of its customers was completely wrecked by the people renting it. “EJ”, as she is known, described the state her home was left in on her blog:

“They smashed a hole through a locked closet door, and found the passport, cash, credit card and grandmother’s jewelry I had hidden inside. They took my camera, my iPod, an old laptop, and my external backup drive filled with photos, journals… my entire life. They found my birth certificate and social security card, which I believe they photocopied – using the printer/copier I kindly left out for my guests’ use. They rifled through all my drawers, wore my shoes and clothes, and left my clothing crumpled up in a pile of wet, mildewing towels on the closet floor. They found my coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond and used the discount, along with my Mastercard, to shop online. Despite the heat wave, they used my fireplace and multiple Duraflame logs to reduce mounds of stuff (my stuff??) to ash – including, I believe, the missing set of guest sheets I left carefully folded for their comfort. Yet they were stupid and careless enough to leave the flue closed; dirty gray ash now covered every surface inside.”

You can read the full horror EJ was left with at TechCrunch.

AirBnB were admittedly slow to react and EJ wasn’t happy. This, they claim, was the first time this had ever happened in their three years in business, so perhaps they can be forgiven for their lack of action. Once Chesky and his team realised the enormity of the situation, however, they did and continue to do a pretty good job of managing the crisis.

In addition to assisting the authorities in bringing the culprit(s) to justice, they have now agreed to assist EJ financially (something they originally claimed they wouldn’t do according to TechCrunch), find her somewhere to live and “anything else she can think of to make her life easier”.

That takes care of EJ, but it does little to reassure existing and future customers of AirBnB to the value of using the service. That’s why the company has stepped up their game even more. In the face of huge criticism from competitors and outrage from customers, they have, via their blog and social media, launched a raft of new services, including a new safety section on their website, a 24 hour customer hotline, doubled their customer service team to over 80 and created a dedicated Trust & Safety department to investigate anything suspicious. Chesky has even published his email address in case people want to contact him directly with concerns.

All this in the space of a month. Slow to react they may have been, but they’ve moved fast and well since. Perhaps the biggest and most reassuring step they’ve taken is to introduce a $50,000 buildings and contents insurance policy covering damage or loss for hosts booking through AirBnB. This comes into effect on August 15th but will apply retrospectively to anyone who had property stolen or damaged before 1st August 2011.

AirBnB faced disaster and (eventually) moved fast to avoid it. What can you take from this? Don’t run and hide from your mistakes. Be big enough to stand up, accept responsibility and put it right. And do it fast.

There’s no doubt AirBnB’s reputation has taken a pounding but it looks like they will emerge from it a stronger, better company with, perhaps, an improved reputation after all.

Once you have registered your Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn account(s) with Klout, you’ll be given your score and a charming little label. I’m a ‘specialist’ and apparently my opinion, in my specialist area, is second to none. Well, you know.

Your score is based on a large number of factors, some of the obvious include the amount of retweets and @mentions you receive and also the amount of comments, likes and shares on Facebook. Other less obvious factors taken into account are your @mention count, your list count, your unique likes and unique retweets. To get your head around Klout’s scoring system take a look at their beginner’s guide.

Your score is analysed by three factors:

• Network Influence:  How well you influence the people you are already engaged with.
• Amplification Probability: The ability to create compelling content that spreads across not only your own network but across others too.
• True Reach: Size of your audience that is actively engaged with you (for example, my reach is 348 but I have 700 odd followers, quite handy to know how many of your followers actually engage with your content). Not entirely sure how this applies to Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare.

Klout recently introduced Perks in the US – a clever way for the company to create revenue by integrating brands. For example, Virgin America gave away free flights between Toronto and San Francisco or Los Angeles to top Twitter ‘influencers’. Those who won the Perk were not asked to blog or tweet about their experience but it’s likely they would have. Klout describe this as a more targeted form of receiving a free sample in a supermarket. Mashable has covered the Virgin America Perk in far more detail here and in case you were wondering, the winner of the free flight had a Klout score of 42. My score is slightly higher than this so when Perks are introduced in the UK, I’ll be expecting a freebie… a round trip to Croatia or something would be alright. And I could blog about it on here, are you reading this Klout Perk people?!

Yesterday, Spotify launched in America and they partnered with Klout to give away free accounts to top influencers in the entertainment industry. The Perk was so popular, Klout collapsed. This shows Klout has the potential to be a very powerful promotional tool.

Last month Klout partnered with Involver, a Facebook page management company, to allow companies to target their fans based on their Klout. The idea is for brands to award consumers based on their social influence, different users will view different Facebook content based on their score. The Klout app is built in Involver’s Social Markup Language (SML) and this is the language that allows brands to choose what they show to users based on their online influence. Klout use the term ‘fan-gating’ which is similar to ‘like-gating’ – you have to ‘Like’ a page to view its content. The same goes for fan-gating but it is related to your Klout score, which will determine the type of content you see and the perks you receive.

I’m not so keen on this idea. Brands can only target consumers based on their Klout – what about the die-hard fans who don’t have a good Klout score? They won’t receive any freebies or perks because they aren’t popular enough? Maybe I’m missing the point but I don’t like this idea.

There are aspects of Klout that are clever and original, there’s no other social analytics tool that measures a person’s online influence in as much detail. At the moment, Klout seems to me like a popularity contest and (easily led) people are starting to believe a Klout score actually means something. Look at your score as an interesting way to measure your social reach, but don’t get sucked in, it’s really not worth it.

Firstly, you need to click the ‘circles’ tab at the top of your feed and create a new circle, I called mine ‘invites’ (not very original, I know).

Click on your new circle and add the people you want to invite to Google+ by clicking ‘add a new person’. Once you’ve entered their email address(es), click ‘view stream for this circle’. You’ll then need to post something on to your ‘wall’ (for want of a better word) to share with the people you’ve invited in order for them to join.

As you can see, I’ve written, ‘Hope this works!’ to share with the people I’ve invited. They will then receive an email to view my post and join Google+. Make sure you keep the ‘email people not using Google+’ box checked. Job done!