Local advertising is shaping up as the next great battle in the technology sector

A few headlines that are going into my next presentation:

Google And Facebook Battle For Local Ad Money
"Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Facebook are in a race for local business-ad dollars, the Wall Street Journal reported."

Battle over online local ads heats up
"While online search has transformed the way large businesses reach consumers looking to buy books, arrange vacations or consume media, it's had far less impact on the way people interact with the mom-and-pop shops that represent a huge slice of commerce."

The Local Advertising War Will Be a Clash of the Internet Titans
"With local advertising revenues expected to reach $144.9 billion in 2014 according to BIA/Kelsey — and more and more dollars are shifting away from traditional media toward digital media buys — the new war for local ad spend will be a battle between the Internet titans and social networks."

Google, Facebook battle on mobile for local ads
"In the battle for local ad dollars on digital and mobile platforms, traditional local media don't even seem to be part of the conversation."

Rational efficiency (traditional loyalty programs) versus having fun (social media)

The traditional loyalty program mindset is a barrier to companies that want to adapt to the social web.

The industry is built on efficiency, complex incentives and clever triggering tricks designed to take advantage of the customer's mechanical rationality (or programmed irrationality, I can't tell the difference).

Comments in response to a post on LinkedIn show a very strong focus on things like points versus cash back and other rational or mechanical drivers. Social media is in a completely different space. Social media is not rational in the sense that loyalty marketers are used to.

Even Google is struggling with this issue.

"Google products are efficient, slick and -- as the coders say -- elegant," writes AdAge. "They get you from point A to point B fast. Really fast. But are they fun?"

Social media is about having fun. Foursquare players don't do their check-ins at Starbucks for the goal of getting a free coffee. They do it to become Mayor of a particular Starbucks location. A friend of mine recently commented that his sister was Mayor of their home, and proud of it.

"Can a company built for efficiency also help people waste time?" asks AdAge.

The same can be asked of the loyalty marketing industry today.

Blog post: Benefits of Rewarding Facebook Fans at the Point of Sale

Aaron Koh just did this blog post on Taggo:

Benefits of identifying and rewarding online Facebook Fans offline at the point of sale


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iN.SG Interview: The changing face of business

iN.SG, Singapore's infocom industry newsletter, just published an interview on Taggo. Check it out here.


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Points based loyalty programs: Legacy systems on their way out?

Traditional points based programs have been around a long time. They feel like heavy, complicated, old fashioned legacy systems, requiring huge investments in CRM, databases, POS integration and lots of other stuff. The work Taggo is doing with Facebook fan recognition makes this increasingly clear to me.

After so many years of heavy lifting, I now want to do things that are light, fast, easy, highly attractive, fresh and modern.

Traditional loyalty programs are the past. Legacy. Boring. Heavy. Very heavy.

Here is the last paragraph of Bill Hanifin's excellent article Winds of Change for Loyalty Marketing: "For the past 30 years, Loyalty programs have been designed by Boomers for Boomers. The influence of a digitally connected generation is more apparent than ever, and consumer engagement will only happen if you re-tool marketing strategies to embrace the Millennials and others who want more transparency and immediacy in their brand relationships. Are you equipped to make these changes?"

My 1996 patent, "Real-time RFM", launched the real-time rewards industry and was the basis for launching my last company, Welcome Real-time. The technology in some form or another drives credit card loyalty programs in over 30 countries. The whole focus of past loyalty programs has been on segmentation and triggering methods and complex rewards calculation and delivery at the point of sale. All very Boomerish (Bill, I love your analogy).

Time for change.


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Facebook fan recognition is potentially a huge business

First the statistics (from Website Monitoring Blog):

500 million active Facebook users
3 million active pages on Facebook
1.5 million local businesses have active pages on Facebook
20 million people become fans of pages every day
Average user becomes fan of 4 pages each month
431 million Google entries for “get more Facebook fans”

So what does this all mean?

When a business wants to harness the power of social media, the first step is to set up a page on Facebook. After setting up a Facebook page, the next question is how to grow the page’s fan base.

A very common technique is to offer exclusive promotions for fans. There are 386 million Google entries for "only for Facebook fans".

This is easy to do on the web, where the user is online and probably logged into Facebook. It is much more difficult in the real world, at a physical point of sale.

That's where Taggo's fan recognition service comes in.


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New website for Taggo

We have just relaunched Taggo on www.taggo.me after refocusing the service entirely on Facebook fan recognition at the point of sale.

You can also find Taggo on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Taggo.me


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Geolocation social tools like Foursquare are beginning to show their weaknesses

Marketing platforms built on geolocation social media services are one of the hottest trends with investors and advertisers. Starbucks launched several offers using these techniques, with great fanfare. Now that the service has begun to get beyond the early excitement, several weaknesses are beginning to appear.

One major issue is that anybody can checkin to a business, without necessarily being a paying customer. According to Forrester,
"complaints are surfacing that customers checking in at Starbucks are finding their barista is the mayor, effectively blocking them from earning the discount." Forrester recently provided an analysis of the Starbucks offer on Foursquare.

The number of users is also an issue for marketers. Foursquare has 2 million users, a highly respectable number for a geolocation game, but a minuscule fraction of potential shoppers.

Give people a reason to become a fan of your Facebook Restaurant Page

Australian restaurateur Benjamin Christie gives the following advice:

"Give Facebook users a reason to become a fan of your Facebook Restaurant Page.

Why not do a monthly dinner for two giveaway, exclusively for Facebook Fans. Or all Facebook Fans get a glass of sparkling wine on arrival.

Why all this to get people to become Fans? These people will be come ambassadors for your restaurant, every person will now have a link to your Facebook Restaurant Page on their page, kind of endorsing your restaurant in many ways. This in itself have a viral effect and will, over time help bring diners to the door."

Coming soon: Facebook fan recognition at the point of sale

Become a fan of taggo.me on Facebook for details.

Lemonade stand runs into health inspectors, needs $120 license to operate

In my entrepreneurship workshop I open with a big picture of a couple kids running a lemonade stand. A perfect example of our common, innocent, universal longing to create. And then this article comes along and turns all that into Twilight Zone and 1984 material. What's the world coming to?

Go to the article: Portland lemonade stand runs into health inspectors, needs $120 license to operate