Rural Office Space Uses Mobile Marketing

It has been a year since The Midas Center has moved to the prominent location in a rural downtown main street of Plymouth, Indiana. There are many benefits a rural downtown location can bring to a professional service provider that is able to rely on technology to work virtually or remotely for larger client projects. 

The Midas Center is no stranger to downtown locations. Owner Andrea Cook started the creative communications consultancy in 1999 in Chicago and appreciates the hustle bustle the 9 to 5 daily grind brings to the center of a city. Whether your office location is in the Loop or a rural downtown, the traffic made by foot and car makes for a prime advertising opportunity to attract and promote business.

Aside from creative window displays and designs, businesses can optimize their outreach by using social and mobile media.

Here are some of the campaigns that The Midas Center is currently running through Foursquare and Facebook. Perhaps you too can implement them for your office location and capture that downtown buzz and foot traffic.  

1. Foursquare Tips, Campaigns and Specials

In addition to consulting services, The Midas Center provides shared cowork space for professionals. To reach more local professionals, some simple campaigns and specials have been created through Foursquare. If you have not created a venue for your business on Foursquare, you are missing an opportunity to engage.

Want to get some more free real estate on Foursquare? Add a simple tip about your business. Include basic information as a tip, such as:   

“The first cowork space to offer professionals a meeting place. Great coffee and golden synergy, just two of the many benefits. Daily and monthly passes are available.”

The next recommendations require you to add a little more skin into the game. And by skin, I simply mean some swag  to give away. Then, once you’ve decided what swag or giveaways you are comfortable with investing, there are a variety of campaigns and specials that can be created in simple steps using Foursquare.  

Consider two levels of giveaways for each level of participation. A user checking in to your venue for the first time, may get a lighter valued giveaway, versus a loyal user to checks into your venue frequently. Fortunately, Foursquare has built a system based on this principle that is simple to set up. For example, when someone checks-in to The Midas Center Cowork Space for the first time, the user “unlocks” the Newbie level and then gets one free daily pass to use at the cowork space. One free daily pass is valued at $20. A day pass would not be a worthy giveaway for a mayor however. At The Midas Center, when a user becomes our mayor, then this message shows:

 

How can someone become the mayor? A Foursquare mayor is the user who has checked-in the most in the past 60 days. That is the playful and addicting side of this social game. You’d be surprised the number of adults who earn bragging rights by becoming mayor at leading venues. Some places will offer free cheese burgers, drinks, etc.

There are a lot of venues who want users to check-in to their venues on Foursquare but try tempting them with lame specials. This is not recommended. If businesses are investing the time to give social and mobile marketing tactics a try, then they need to make sure that their reward is attractive enough. The perfect mix will depend on each venue’s budget, audience -type and -interests. 

Newbies get a free daily pass for checking in the first time at The Midas Center. Mayors get an entire monthly pass for free, valued at $200! 

We also are running a special called a Loyalty level. Once users check-in on their third time, they unlock the Loyalty level and this appears:

Free passes and coffee mugs are the giveaways for our Foursquare campaigns. We’re able to track progress as well as manage the schedule with a start and end date. Foursquare also provides some handy dandy guides you can print to encourage people to check in. They look like this: 

To promote this campaign, we’ve placed these print-outs in our window. We also are highlighting this campaign through a variety of local social media communities. It’s too early to share information about the success. We can tell you that setting up these campaigns with Foursquare took less than 2 hours so right our the gate, our starting investment is low. If we get one person who checks in, we will be satisfied. How’s that for low expectations? 

The other area of new media marketing that we are implementing to our outreach is through the advertising offerings provided by Facebook. 

2. Facebook Ads, Recommendations and Deals

With over 800 million users on Facebook, we now have more friends to socialize online with than ever before. The average numer of friends each user has is 130. Over half of the total number of users log in to Facebook a day and 56% of Facebook users update their status on a weekly basis.  

The only people who are discounting Facebook’s value are people who don’t understand or are trying to compete with it. As a small business with chump-change pockets, we LOVE Facebook. Since the local newspaper won’t run any of our press releases without a commitment of big dollar advertising support, we rely on Facebook for our go-to channel to share information and reach our audience. Here are some of the ways we are putting our Facebook page to work for us. 

Ads.    The Midas Center routinely will recommend Facebook ad campaigns for clients. No other media allows you to reach and measure a targeted audience so effectively. It’s cost-effective too. One client of ours received a 4000% ROI on a 30 day run of a Facebook ad. We have some Facebook ads in place to encourage both impressions and clicks. One of the ads we are running offers users a free eBook on 65 Reasons to Cowork. Right now, the landing page for the eBook is embedded on our Facebook page, however, we plan to use our web site for this in the future. We run a lot of testing to see what type of image and message gets the most activity. With daily budgets as low as $2, we can play around and experiment a bit.

Recommendations.     Facebook also has an area along the right side of their site for recommendations. You may be surprised the brands your friends have recommended. Why not encourage users to recommend your business page? This is what the recommendations look like: 

When people add a recommendation on Facebook, it is displayed to all of their friends. This is great exposure and a solid dose of credibility for the business page! 

Printed Referral Program.      To encourage people to add recommendations, we are currently running a referral program that outlines the steps necessary to recommend The Midas Center on Facebook. When users refer The Midas Center Cowork Space to their Facebook friends, they receive $20 and their friend who signs up gets a significant discount off their first monthly pass. We recently sent a letter campaign that details this campaign. We also are sharing the referral program through online outreach like this blog post. Do you want to participate? Click here for details >>

Deals.      Lastly, we also are participating in Facebook’s Deals. This feature allows Facebook users to “check-in” with their mobile devices like smart phones or iPads. Although there are rumors that Facebook discontinued this feature shortly after they rolled it out last year, the Deal is still available for businesses near The Midas Center location in northern Indiana. The Deal appears on the right side bar of the page and looks like this:

Facebook recommends posting this offer to your own page no more than once per day. These Deals can be scheduled and once the deal is approved, you cannot alter the schedule or message. It is unclear at this time how effective Facebook deals are. So far, the campaign has been active for a couple of weeks and no one has checked-in. I tried to but can never seem to navigate the process successfully. 

Our Overarching Campaign: Check-in, Get Free Stuff

The Midas Center is just trying to encourage pedestrians and road warriors passing by the window space to “check in, get free stuff” via Facebook, Yelp, Foursquare. If the imprint is made on their minds that we are offering “free stuff,” then perhaps we can get some mindshare and added exposure when they do check-in via their mobile devices.  

Sometimes reaching beyond the specific message and -medium is the actual message of the medium. 

The Midas Center sees social and mobile marketing as a must. As a forward-thinking creative communications consultancy, The Midas Center is claiming the social and mobile media space as an expert. How can we recommend marketing solutions to clients if we aren’t practicing what we preach? 

Want to get free stuff? Come on over and “check-in.” If you travel more than 30 miles, I’ll even buy you lunch! Although, I’m not sure that level-type is on Foursquare so you’ll have to prompt me with a verbal, “Let’s do lunch” like they did in the old days when people met in person and talked. ;)

Next Era of Brands Examined: Social Brandology PART: TWO #Brandsconf

Brands and the people who are managing them online through social media get real at #BrandsConf 2011 in NYC.

The advent of the web is allowing people to connect. It is redefining our communities and the marketplace and giving us abilities to connect through dimensions of time and space that proves that humanity as we know it is indeed evolving. 

Another element evolving? Brands. Once limited to printed logos, advertising campaigns and publicity appearances, the image of a company known as its “brand” has sprouted into a living entity, living among us, interacting as one of us. Brands are emerging in this new tech world and are becoming one with humanity.

The new life form of the brand is redefining an era. An era that Jeff Pulver finds fascinating and has invited us in a journey of exploration for this year’s second annual Brands Conference. Founder of Vonage and the #140Conf movement, Pulver has titled this year’s #BrandsConf, “The Humanization of Brands.”

As with all of the #140 events that have taken place all over the world for the past two years, presenters and panelists represent a wide variety of backgrounds. The one-day event is chocked full of 10-minute segments rich with passionate testimonies that inform and inspire viewers while engaging them IRL (in real life) and online via social channels like UStream and Twitter.

#140 Conference volunteers register hundreds of guests to watch over 50 presenters at the #Brands Conference 2011 in NYC. The conference, held at the 92nd Street Y venue opened its doors at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, November 9th while the participants from all walks of life opened their hearts and minds to share and learn, and evolve along with over 50 brands that were represented.

Lessons learned stretched beyond the basic 100-level principles of “brandology” and social media as the storytellers took center stage to share about the development of leading brands, individual blogger brands and start-ups.

Some brands represented like Sears, Estee Lauder, IBM, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Sesame Street have penetrated the market successfully through traditional media. These Goliath brands now search for solutions using new, experimental techniques along with everyone one else as they venture out in the new world of social and mobile technology and test the market and create the undiscovered best practices. Exciting for some, terrifying for others.

As we collectively explore the genesis of the socially engaging brands that are being developing before our eyes and social networks, we see how they embed themselves in our communities, networks, tribes and culture, at times defining and leading the way. It asks the question: Who is in charge of the brand: the creator, the company or the community?

A behind-the-scenes perspective from the making and managing of social brands to the influence and impact brands are making on the human race, this #140Conf examined the new life form of social brandology.

Social brandology is both an art and science, measured by love and metrics respectively.  The complexity of this concept is multifaceted and can be better understood by hearing from the brand creators themselves.

The brands responsible to giving life and voice to companies, startups, nonprofits and celebrity-level bloggers are represented in the spectrum of speakers. You may watch the videos from the #Brands Conference Humanization of Brands here >>

More on some of the trending takeaways from the event will follow like:

- The Evolution of the Community Manager

- Movements VS Marketing 

- Doubletree Goes Offline with More Cookies

- Human Side of Customer Support

- Big Bird. Big Voice. Big Heart.

- Do We Really Want Rock Stars to Be Real?

and more… 

If you have an interest on one of the trending topics, please feel free to request your preference by adding a comment below or by sending us an @message via Twitter and we will prioritize accordingly.

This content was originally contributed and published on the #140Conf site as part two of a two part series, preview and review of the Brands Conference 2011. 

Contributed by Andrea Cook, #140conf Live Event Correspondent. Andrea Cook has brands and buzz on the brain. Since 1999, her Chicago-born consultancy, The Midas Center has provided award-winning marketing and media solutions to law firms, education facilities, non-profits, artists and hyper-local communities and she strives to support the noble game changers and life savers through social media marketing. She is a pioneer, coach, editor, cowork owner and consultant for hire. Services vary, Live Event Correspondent services preferred. more >> 

The New World of Communication from Print to Online

Today's explosion of technology services have allowed businesses of all sizes, industries and budgets to have more options to grow their mindshare and sales. By increasing brand awareness or lead generation, social media tools offer new opportunity and a blank slate of strategies for businesses seeking to grow their share of the market. These online opportunities can seem overwhelming to professionals who have relied on the traditional formats of media and publicity and are challenged to stay abreast of the latest technologies available and suitable for business development. 

Are there manageable means to bring the two worlds of new media and the traditional printed world of marketing together? In searching for tips on how to merge these two worlds, I found a helpful resource from Facebook LIVE that I'd like to share.  

Facebook LIVE is one of Facebook's latest resources to offer business support with video broadcasts. A recent Marketing Talks video titled, "Connecting Your Online Community to Your Offline World" offers three tips during an interview with two social  marketing savvy representatives from hospitality and retail industries. To view the video, click here >

This webinar included advice by Director of Social Media & Digital Content for Applebee's, Scott Gulbransen and Cathy Choi, Director of Social Media for Sephora who shared examples that they use with their million plus user communities on Facebook. The topic and content was intriguing however the information was tailored to an exclusive group of marketers with corporate pedigree advantages like
1. big budgets  

2. well known big brands and 

3. industries (like hospitality and retail) that are already highly social in nature.

Most businesses and marketers aren't lucky enough to play in a market of that magnitude and genre. Yet, despite the clear advantages these marketers had, there are still some key best practices that can be applied to the real world of B2B and professional service sectors. Here are the top level takeaways gained from this video accompanied by specific recommendations, from my viewpoint taken from my baggage of experience in the small to medium sized business sector. I hope you will find this list to be comprehensive and be encouraged to apply these best practices to your own real world:

1.  Keep message consistent from real world to online presence. 

Remember your brand and long term goals with each point of interaction.

Don't over-promote. Use the 80/20 rule. 80% of your interaction should be light and social, 20% of your messages can be promotional.

Don't get lost in the medium that you forget the message. 

Stay steady with your communication plan and only take on what you can manage, either in-house or with the support of a social marketing professional.

2. Create social experiences for engagement.

Tell the face-to-face stories, share photos from the real moments on-line. And vice-versa. Personally invite people, verbally and with printed signage and cards to the online community. 

Host and sponsor events and invite the public directly through your social media tools. 

Create profiles and check-in rewards with localization mobile media applications. 

3. Engage and mobilize.

Be available. Don't hide behind a web site. 

Communicate well when and where you are. Some examples: respond to comments online, answer your telephone, return your phone calls, say thank you, give eye contact and firm handshakes. 

Offer a variety of communication channels that meet the comfort zone of the individuals in your market.

Encourage feedback and honesty from your audience. 

Turn the feedback into action. Don't be afraid of negative messages. This can be an example to show strong customer service. 

Use the feedback as research and helpful data for future product development or campaign offers. 

Finally, when in doubt, do what works. If your marketing practice is becoming outdated and you are called to update your approach, don't get lost in a world in between. Have a plan, get support and remember that there is no silver bullet to success, no matter what planet you are from.

In Review Blog World NYC Live Blog Day 2

While attending the Blog World Expo last week at the Javits Convention Center in New York, we were able to capture industry-notable quotes on emerging technologies impacting business and leading the trends in technology, marketing, journalism and publishing as we know it. 

If you are interested in learning more about any of these topics, please visit the actual live blog report from Social Fresh by clicking here >  

Live blog sessions coverage on topics such as: 

Gamification Creating Obsession and Addiction for Marketing Success

FourSquare, Angry Birds, Triva Games and More

Why ToyotaFailed, Behind the Scenes 

In-House or Outsource PR? 

How to Build Lead and Sales 

How to Use Humor and More! 

This post  provides industry shaping quotes leaked directly from live presentations from dynamic leaders making impact in the social media realm such as:

Jason Keath (Social Fresh)

Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot)

Shelly Kramer (V3 Marketing)

Lucretia Pruitt (Geek Mommy)

Mike Schneider (Location Based Marketing for Dummies) 

Chris Pirillo (Lockergnomie)

Jordan Cooper (Notaproblog)

If you or your business would be interested in live blogging services, contact Andrea Cook to learn more about how you can provide your readers with hot updates, live from your next event. 

The Midas Center is an innovative communication service that transforms touchpoints to gold. Go for the gold >

How to Schedule a Presentation on Social Media for You

Andrea Cook presents on Social Media.

We are pleased to present on Social Media this weekend at the Century Center and the South Bend Museum of Art during the Artist Sampler Workshop, sponsored by the St. Joseph Watercolor Society.

Andrea Cook, owner of The Midas Center will be presenting at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 30 during this event. The material that will be presented is designed to help artists boost their careers through social media. The presentation, titled "The Social Media Renaissance" will cover three areas:

- Encouragement and Inspiration
- Strategy and Tools
- Tips and Resources

This presentation is designed for artists seeking to grow online. All levels of technology and social media usage are welcome.

If you would be interested in a presentation to your organization or business on the topic of social media, contact Andrea Cook at The Midas Center (574) 936-7058 to discuss your specific goals and needs.

Presentations, workshops, training and coaching sessions can be customized to meet your objectives. In addition to educational resources, The Midas Center also provides social media marketing, with the design and development of strategy and overall management of messages to the public.