Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I had every intention of blogging today to start my week off perfectly. But I can’t really concentrate on marketing technology (beyond my already scheduled work today) because my dad is in the hospital up north. He came down (pretty suddenly) with pneumonia, and has to hang out in the hospital for a couple of days.

I went up yesterday afternoon to see him, and to take my mom over to hang out with him, and it was really touching how much they still absolutely adore each other. I just can’t imagine one lasting long without the other. (He’s 86 and she’s 87… she’s pretty much blind, and he battles dementia; and I often joke that together, they make a pretty well functioning pair.) They’re inspirational to me in many ways. Seeing them in that hospital room together added another one to it.

(Updated - proof is in the photo!)

I’m extremely grateful that my brother and sister-in-law both work at the hospital where dad is spending some time; so I know they’ll be able to check in on him. Meanwhile, I’m concentrating on light flowing from Portland to Longview… knowing that’s pretty much all I can do today to help make him better.

So there’s my blog. Sometimes they just don’t turn out the way you think they might. Huh.

Kinda like life.

Janus, according to wikipedia, is the Roman god of beginnings and “transitions.”

“thence also of gates, doors, doorways, endings and time. Most often he is depicted as having two heads, facing opposite directions: one head looks eastward and the other westward. Symbolically they look simultaneously into the future and the past, back at the last year and forward at the new.”

I thought of Janus when I reviewed this infographic from onlineeducation.net about the effects of social media on students.

“>

The “inconclusive” nature of this beast is frustrating to me. However gloriously depicted. And I have always enjoyed seeing both sides of an argument… Hence, my affinity to Janus in this case.

The door is certainly open. The journey is up to the person.

There are now 8 million people who use Foursquare, up from 1 million a year ago. Location-based social content is proliferating, and early adopters tend to be affluent, highly educated, and eager to explore new things; according to recent reports.

Most people who check in to restaurants, movies, games, and stores do so to get discounts, according to a recent study by Beyond. So what’ the big deal, and what does it mean to check in? Here’s what it means to me.

First, Some Rules of the Road

1. You’re letting people who follow you know where you are. And sometimes friends of friends… whom you may not know well. So be mindful of that. Many people check out - when leaving a public place - which is a good option, especially when you’re traveling, or alone.
2. You’re using your mobile phone at a restaurant, or at a movie, or in places where mobile phone use might be deemed rude. So be discreet. Please.
3. Never, ever, ever set your home up on a location-based service. Please. Just don’t do it.

Okay. So we’ve gotten the basics out of the way.

Check Out What You Find Before You Check In

I use Foursquare, because I’m one of the 21% of location-based application users who feel rewarded by the gaming element of the experience, earning points, badges, etc. (I admit, I’m slightly coin-operated, but in a different (non-discount) way.)

But I’ve stuck with it because of the information I find within the application.

In this example, I was near a restaurant, Pei Wei, across from my client’s office in Herndon, VA.  I was in the mood for something new, but as is the case of many travelers, I didn’t have a clue what the restaurant was like.

I used Foursquare to review the tips other Foursquare users have already posted about the place… to see whether there’s anything outstanding about the restaurant, or to avoid going there at all. It’s saved me from some bad experiences in the past.

In this case, the tips are pretty innocuous. I could go there.

And you can bet that I leave tips, both positive and negative, about my dining and shopping experiences. Pictures too! It’s all a big circle of good content, to be mined by all.

Loyalty Programs Business Owners Can Leverage

The concept of a Mayor in every venue is to reward loyalty, or frequent check ins. You get a point for every check in, and every calendar day you check in will count towards a Mayorship.  Sometimes, a business owner will jump in the game and offer Foursquare Mayors and other users specials. (Remember the discounts, above?)

Savvy business owners might offer Mayors a free appetizer for every fourth check in. Why? Because those of us who are competitive, (hello pot!) often fight for Mayorships of our favorite venues.

For example, if I were to go to Ken’s Artisan Pizza three days in a week, I might be able to take the Mayorship from Courtney S., whom I’ve never met, but I like her because she’s an ardent Ken’s fan! If I were ever at Ken’s when she was, Foursquare would let me know she was there. So it’s likely we’ll meet someday, and I look forward to that.

I’m usually stunned to find that business owners who run local establishments have no idea entire conversations (not all of them as pleasant as the tips I reviewed at Pei Wei) go on without them knowing.

As the check in growth continues, the danger of not knowing what your reputation feels like is pretty dire.

Know any small business owners? Show them what their Foursquare (or Facebook Places / Gowalla / etc.) reputation is today.

Do them a favor and help them to check out their check ins.

One of my clients has an iPhone app, FastFigures Financial Calculator for iPhone. Elia has been developing mobile applications for more than 12 years. He produced his first iPhone application this year, and has published a blog post detailing lessons learned after a month in Apple’s iPhone AppStore.

It’s the first real disclosure of marketing tips and considerations I’ve seen, in a crowded field of developers talking about developing iPhone applications.

A few insights from Elia:

Getting found in search is key to success - he actually renamed the product to ensure FastFigures would come up in searches on “finance” “financial” “calculator.”  With more than 30,000 products in the AppStore, search is critical!

Reviews are essential - Elia recommends that if you don’t have twenty people lined up to review your product at launch, don’t bother…

You’ll find what I think is a compelling story about iPhone AppStore success over on the EliaInsider blog. (BTW, he has a ton of other stuff to say about the mobile arena as well.)

According to Nielsen NetView, US traffic to Twitter grew 1382% between February 2008 and February 2009 — from 475,000 unique visitors to 7 million, and it’s not slowing down. (By comparison, Facebook grew “only” 228%.)

The age 25-49 demos comprise over 60 percent of visitors, and almost a quarter are 55-plus (although I have an issue with their scale - the 50-54 year olds seem to be missing…)

Average visit time low

I found this interesting, and a low consumption use as far as those I know who Tweet:

“In January, 735,000 unique visitors accessed the Twitter Web site through their mobile phones. The average unique visitor went to Twitter.com 14 times during the month and spent an average of seven minutes on the site.”