First off: No unicorns.
The analogy of a unicorn is one I’ve been using for awhile. Even though my company specializes in social media, one of the very first things we try to impress on anyone we work with is to stop treating it like it’s so special. So unique. So weirdly fantastic. Because the more we romanticize it, the more unattainable and un
usual it feels. The more we trick ourselves into essentially not understanding it. It becomes this amazing unicorn, and while we stare at it up on the hill, we barely notice all of the unicorns standing at the bottom of the hill around us.
So many professionals have spent so much time fearing or idolizing social media that they’ve failed to notice how ubiquitous and “baked in” it has become. With all of the navel-gazing, they failed to realize that everyone else had incorporated social media into their daily lives, into every interaction. Perhaps it was never that separate for the average consumer to begin with. Suddenly surveys are splitting hairs about whether people “use” social media to make X or Y decisions without noticing that everyone’s using a form of social media for every decision—they just aren’t bothering to CALL it “social media.” Anymore than I say, “I am about to write my friend an electronic mail which I will thrust through the internets in order to communicate thoughts from afar!” The idea of social media is NOT new. Anymore than AOL messageboards or phone party lines are new.
Which brings us to place.
Currently there’s quite a lot of buzz over “check-in” applications such as Foursquare, PlacePop, SCVNGR, Gowalla and Hot Potato. People stumble a bit in sometimes claiming that this wave of geolocation is somehow the start of the trend, but it’s myopic to claim geolocation is in its infancy. It’s certainly not when you consider how long Google Maps, Google Reviews, Brightkite and Mapquest has been around. We have to be careful to not ignore the emphasis that GPS and place has had on search in the last ten years and only focus on the Foursquare vs Gowalla.
By treating geolocation as so special we bundle its effects into something to lift up or be scared of. We watch as institutions wonder aloud whether they should partake in it… as though the only way to partake was to dive completely in. I think there’s some low-hanging fruit that worth pointing out to both the managers struggling with what Foursquare is and the C-suite who may be unusually enamored or scared of it. It’s simply worth just taking the time to ensure that your college buildings, hospital, wellness centers, retail locations, etc. are just listed in these apps. With Foursquare in particular, someone has to add a location- they aren’t automatically there like in SCVNGR (which is pre-populated with Google Places data) or MyTown (which uses CityPages). Nevermind if you have the money or inclination to engage, do sponsored badges, etc. – but are you even listed so that someone could check in? Or perhaps listed incorrectly? Are you there and people are already talking about you? A good analogy is really the old use of the phone book. There’s buying into a Yellow Pages ad program, but there’s also just making sure you appear in it and appear correctly.
But if we treat geolocation as a unicorn, we miss the opportunity to simply be found. And when did we treat our address as so special?
The apps themselves are often more in tune with the shortcomings of locations than the locations themselves are. In our recent research on event tourism with the a music festival we found some interesting benefits and problems with Bonnaroo’s official use of Foursquare (we’ll be elaborating a bit on the blog and in a full-throated report soon, free to our clients) while other check-in apps didn’t even have a single central location to check-in at.
PlacePop worked diligently to try and add one when we spoke to them, and kudos for them for taking the effort and responding to Feedback’s open worry, but what would have simply helped was for the institution of a massive music festival that becomes Tennessee’s fourth-largest city in a weekend to have taken the initiative to simply have their address in the phone-book that is the top 5-10 apps.
There’s much more, from ensuring our photos and videos are properly associated with place and more… The concept of place is so much bigger than just check-ins. It’s someone needing something and asking a search engine of any sort, be it the augmented reality view of a camera phone held aloft to simply a Google Maps search from an iPhone. We’ve recently seen maternity wards being reviewed on apps like Yelp, traditionally the app of restaurants, for goodness sakes! How long before we realize the consumer isn’t waiting for the institution to get on board or not?
The overall issue of place is as old as the phone book. It’s as old as maps. It’s as old as grave markers of any sort. The check-in-app of old was simply the letter sent back home to tell family that we made it to the new land. Now I let select friends know I’ve landed with a click, or I can flip through the virtual catalog of places, opinions, ideas and opportunities, without having to write or interact myself, just to find a great place to eat, or raise a family, or hear some music.
So. Beware of unicorns. :)
17
They’re Back!
by FeedbackThe Feedback Mobile Lab has returned (finally!) from Bonnaroo. Here at HQ, we continued to monitor Twitter feeds for ‘Roo, but those in the field have returned with video treats and observations about social media use at the festival.
Notes from the Home Front
When you think of Bonnaroo what pops into your head? Certainly not Brazil! Believe it or not, the Manchester festival seems to be quite popular in this South American country as demonstrated by the surprising number of tweets in Portuguese.
On Friday the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) posted an article entitled, “PR’s Role in Building Bonnaroo,” highlighting PR’s role in the evolution of the festival. In essence, the PRSA attempts to take credit for Bonnaroo’s success, and seems to discredit the festivals original crowd and perceived purpose. We found it comical that the article was tweeted almost a week after its posting, used poor grammar, and came out when Bonnaroo attendance was low in comparison with recent years.
Saturday afternoon’s World Cup match between the United States and England was expected to be a popular topic among festival tweeters. However, surprisingly few tweets circulated around the world’s most popular sporting event over the weekend. Much to our dismay, Bonnaroo was a little late starting the game’s live video stream, causing ‘Roo-goers to miss the opening ceremony.
The most common themes of the weekend centered around the heat and the bands. Extreme temperatures caused tweeters to vocalize their discontent, but who could blame them? On Friday, Nashville was reported to have a heat index of 100! ‘Roo goers, likewise, expressed their satisfaction/dissatisfaction with band performances on Twitter. Reviews posted by Spin! and Rolling Stone magazines were frequently linked; however, it is indescernable if this was by those at ‘Roo or those at home living vicariously through the opinion of others. Our hearts were captured by The New York Times’ “4 Word Review” – short, sweet, and simple.
Another favorite of ‘Roo fans was Aziz Ansari’s photo with Beyonce and JayZ (http://bit.ly/d5005G) is staggering with 100 retweets.
Notes from the Field
In a previous post (Feedback’s Off To Bonnaroo 2010), we mentioned some of the apps the Feedback team was would be testing in the field. Well test they did! Here are some of their findings.
The biggest issue at the festival, by unanimous vote, was cell and wi-fi service. According to Dean (@dbrowell), Bonnaroo’s problem is that it has an end customer that is savvier than they are. They need the technology to accommodate them. In spite of this, though, our field agents were able to get a pretty good idea of how some of these apps worked.
The team agreed that the official Bonnaroo app, while an improvement from last year, still has a few kinks to work out. The schedule feature worked well, but Road Trip was virtually useless. Bonnaroo radio’s purchase feature, while a good idea, was ineffective. This function could greatly benefit bands, provided Bonnaroo and Apple can get it operating next year.
In the eyes of soccer fan Jeff (@ideaman), the FIFA app worked very well. A banner for MobiTV ran across the top, and for $9.00 he was able to sign up for the service and watch live matches streamed to his iPhone.
Hot Potato, while a cool app, did not achieve the level of adoption we had hoped for. It seems we were a bit ahead of the curve on that one though, because today an updated and much more efficient version of the app is available. Another new app, FriendMapper, was interesting, but likewise had glitches. Friends have to be logged in for it to work properly because it doesn’t automatically find and geotag you. The team believes that partnering with events or vendors would likely help remedy this issue and make the app more user friendly.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for observations from the field. Feedbackers at Bonnaroo have seen some things no man should see. Stay tuned for future updates and detailed reports on the utilization and success of social media at Bonnaroo.
Before we part, we at Feedback would like to send our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Matt Sloan. His untimely death was a shock and tragedy. May his memory rock on.
— Feedback Intern Brittney Trimmer (@bntrim). Video montage edited by Feedback Intern Brad Carr (@bcarr).