For this installment, we brought together four small biz insiders to talk about how their small businesses are using location-based services, such as Foursquare, SCVNGR and Facebook Places. Our knowledgeable round table attendees included:
Village Pourhouse Social Media Coordinator, Emily Welby
Gansevoort Hotel Group Social Media Manager, Josh Pelz
Luke’s Lobster Social Media Manager, Lauren Drell
Mark Chef and General Manager, Erik Rubin
We spoke about the upsides, downsides, ins and outs of using location-based platforms from a small business point of view, including why they jumped on the location bandwagon, what their strategies are on each platform, and the pros and cons of maintaining a presence. Read on to see what they had to say.
1. What made your small business get involved with location-based services?
Emily Welby: "I came on board in January, and we had Facebook and Twitter, but we hadn't done much. I was bringing everything up to speed for all of the locations, and someone said, 'You have to look at this now.' The fact that in my office of people who don't know what I do for a living, that half of the office signed up for Foursquare -- that's when I said we really need to look at this and see how we can use it and get everyone involved, from the office, to the staff, to the customers."
Erik Rubin: "Just looking at my own Facebook news feed and seeing all of my friends checking in at all of these places that, really there's no reason you would be proud to check into, but obviously there's some reason they're checking into 'Madison Square Park Automated Bathroom' and telling everyone. I thought, 'There's gotta be something going on with this.'"
Lauren Drell: "I was in grad school in Chicago at the time, and no one had really heard about Foursquare -- I think there were maybe a dozen places that were offering discounts. But I had been in New York; I had a friend that was an early adopter of all of these technologies telling me about it; and I read about it on Mashable. I e-mailed my team and said, 'I think we should jump on this,' and then found out that the Foursquare guys were right around the corner and love Luke's Lobster. So, once we signed up, we put signs in the store, tweeted about it, put it on Facebook, and people were so excited that we had embraced it, and we were excited that they could vie for a mayor discount."
2. What are the pros of using location-based services?
Josh Pelz: "You get brand advocates telling their friends. If you're following someone on Twitter, you care what they have to say, presumably. If they're consistently telling you that they're at our hotel, then that could influence you.
"And the analytics that Foursquare gives you are awesome. I think they'll probably charge for them at some point, but right now, they're giving them away. With them, I can find out who's checking in, the total checkins, the number that sent it to Twitter, the number that sent it to Facebook, the average times they're coming. So, we can then use the data to find out our slow times and drive more business. We will use this information to improve the hotel for guests -- no question."
Lauren Drell: "For us, it's great to see who's coming in the store. Obviously, what you get is that you remember faces, but for our mayor in the East Village, Christopher-Ian, for example, we know what he gets every single time, and he's friends with Luke [the owner]. You just establish a relationship -- it's a nice way to learn who your customers are.
"And it provides their Twitter handles. Not everyone has it sent to Twitter -- for us, it's about 25% of people broadcast their Foursquare checkins. We can see who's checking in, find them on Twitter and follow them, even if they don't publicly broadcast that they're at Luke's Lobster. And when people check in and tweet 'Best lobster roll ever @LukesLobster,' I would rather retweet that than tweet 'Come to Luke's -- we have the best lobster roll ever.' It means so much more coming from a customer. It's more like a Zagat-type review than a shameless self-promotion."
3. You seem to all love the Twitter tie-in. What's the value?
Emily Welby: "I actually do Twitter searches on the Foursquare links and can tell if someone's talking about the wings, the beer, if the sound is not loud enough, and I can tell who they are. Even if they don't push it to Twitter, I can see what their handle is. So, even if a customer doesn't broadcast that she is at The Pourhouse, I can ask her later [on Twitter] if she liked the wing special we had today or if she did this or that."
Erik Rubin: "It allows us to reach out to people and tell them what's going on. Every time there's something new on the menu or there's an event going on, it just works really well, and we get a lot of positive feedback from it."
Josh Pelz: "It allows you to keep the engagement. It's not just a one-way conversation: 'I'm at Hotel Gansevoort.' or 'I'm at Luke's Lobster.' You can say, 'How'd you like it? Did you have a good time? How was your service?' And then we can follow up. It's one more thing we can do to increase customer service."
Erik Rubin: "It leads to more customer interaction and brings better memories for the customer. They're more likely to come back. Anytime they say something about you and you respond back, it's just instantly ingrained in their minds."
Josh Pelz: "As a customer, you don't see the wizard behind the cloth. It is the Wizard of Oz. It is 'Oh my gosh. The Hotel Gansevoort just personally invited me to come to the hotel tonight. There's no question where I'm going."
Erik Rubin: "And then you feel like you have insider information."
Lauren Drell: "Exactly. I got a DM from Virgin America the other day, because I tweeted about booking a flight. I was like, 'Now I'm definitely going to fly and be a frequent customer!'"
Emily Welby: "And have you ever seen someone check in and tweet a happy birthday wish? People are really surprised when you start singing, and they don't know how you know, but it definitely makes their birthday."
4. What are the downsides of using location-based services?
Lauren Drell: "Our concept is so simple. Our menu's so simple. We don't want to have as many location-based services as we have menu items. It just doesn't jive with our whole concept. So, we've chosen Foursquare. Well, Foursquare kind of chose us. We're just very brand loyal to them."
Emily Welby: "We once had a couple of people who lived above the bar, and we had a really great mayor special, which we did across all locations. People were getting angry, because they knew the "mayor" wasn't actually coming to Pourhouse. The mayor lived above Pourhouse and would come once something free would come up."
Josh Pelz: "We don't do mayor specials because of that. I have users, and I know who they are, who are gaming the system. I don't care if they're doing it -- if you want to check into our place a hundred times a day and broadcast that, great. But it prevents me from doing a mayor special. If you'd rather check in and tell people that you're at our hotel when you're really across the street at McDonald's, great. I'll take that. I don't care. But I'm not going to reward someone with a mayor special."
5. How do you promote your presence on geolocation platforms?
Josh Pelz: "I promote them all through social channels. On our Facebook page, I have [an app for] the Foursquare checkins. We're going to have a SCVNGR app once we launch with SCVNGR on October 27. We promote them through social channels. So, I'll promote our Foursquare specials when they go live. Before we do them, we take feedback: 'What do you guys want? What should the next special be? It's not what we want, it's what you want.' But we don't have any printed promotion. We don't do any e-mail blast promotion. We don't want to force this onto you -- if you're doing it, we're into it. If you're not, cool. You will be soon."
Lauren Drell: "We have a decal on our window with a little [mayorship] crown, saying 'check in here.' Then, inside there's a sign that explains what the mayor special is. And in the near future, we're installing this program called ScreenScape, which has a Foursquare widget that says how many people have checked in total, who's here right now. You can actually see the names. So, it sort of brings the Foursquare element from your phone to real life, which is really the point of Foursquare, to bring people together."
Josh Pelz: "It definitely encourages people to check in. I went to an ice cream shop that had [ScreenScape], and I wanted to be on the board. You check in, you do a shout-out, and then you see your name on the board, and you're like, 'alright, that's pretty cool.' "
Lauren Drell: "Yeah, one of the things we're also doing to encourage this competition is a 'Meet the Mayor' slide [on ScreenScape], so you can see who the mayor is, what they get when they come in. It makes Foursquare a little more appealing and engaging. I think it will pique some interest and broaden awareness -- there are still people who ask 'What's Foursquare?' "
Erik Rubin: "We promote our location-based services back and forth through the different social networks. SCVNGR's coming out soon, so we made sure to blast out on Facebook and Twitter to say, 'SCVNGR's coming on October 27. Go to SCVNGR.com, download your app and get ready for it. We're going to have some great specials. '"
Emily Welby: "We have all social media information on our menus, on our business cards, on the websites, everywhere. We don't want to get too intrusive; we don't have the widgets [on our website], because they take up a lot of space. We don't have Foursquare on the menus, but we do have the checkin stickers on our windows."
6. What advice would you give other small businesses getting started?
Emily Welby: "Try it yourself. Find out what it's going to look like and troubleshoot before you launch it."
Josh Pelz: "Get your hands dirty... It's like being on the web 10 years ago -- some people were putting up webpages, some people were saying 'It's not for me.' But it's necessary. Be involved. It costs you nothing. Take the time. If it's something that you think is too difficult, there are so many people in this space who are willing to talk and help you."
Lauren Drell: "I don't see anything bad that could come out of it. It's free advertising. You're encouraging people to say that they've been to your restaurant, and then that gets broadcast to thousands of people, and then you can retweet it on your own site."
Josh Pelz: "If you're a business and you're ever thinking of running an advertising campaign, you want to know who your customers are, you want to know who to advertise to -- you're going to get that data. The data that you pull in, even if you don't do specials, just to have it, to manage your venues, so you're pulling in this data, is very valuable."
Erik Rubin: "It's something that's free. It's out there. You might as well do it. Otherwise, you're just throwing away all of this information that's available to you no matter what."
Series supported by the British Airways Face-to-Face Program
The Small Business Round Table Series is supported by the British Airways Face-to-Face Program. British Airways believes face-to-face interaction with global stakeholders is a critical tool to help entrepreneurs and small businesses build relationships abroad. Therefore, it is awarding 250 U.S. small business owners who have a clear business need for international exposure free British Airways flights anywhere in the world, as well as free business consulting and education from renowned small business experts. Visit www.ba.com/contest for more information.
See the video below for a Face-to-Face success story.
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