There seems to be a plethora of apps sprouting up, with SXSW this year I am sure there were a few more.  We found 16 apps that are location based apps where you can check-in, shout out, find stuff, rate things and let the world know where you are.  We spent hours locked inside the lab ranking our favorite apps.  Some of the more popular ones got some high seeds and the newbies were thrown in the mix.  The way to win is simple…just vote for your favorite app through our Facebook page and each week the winners will advance until we have a sole surviving app.  Yes we know it is a popularity contest, but hey, I guess they need to tell everyone!

So here are the apps we found and short description of each.  Which one is your favorite? Come over to our Facebook page and vote!

Foursquare – Earned a number one seed and I can see why. They have been in the forefront of this category for a couple of years. Foursquare is a location-based mobile platform that makes cities easier to use and more interesting to explore. By “checking in” via a smartphone app or SMS, users share their location with friends while collecting points and virtual badges. Foursquare guides real-world experiences by allowing users to bookmark information about venues that they want to visit and surfacing relevant suggestions about nearby venues. Merchants and brands leverage the foursquare platform by utilizing a wide set of tools to obtain, engage, and retain customers and audiences.

Gowalla – Our other number one seed. With foursquare integration, they are going to be a new favorite, especially here in Texas! Gowalla does more than check in. You can take photos, comment on places friends go, and share highlights from your life. You may also find virtual items left around the world like digital souvenirs. Many items are redeemable for real-world rewards such as apparel, movie tickets, gadgets and more. We make discovering the world around you both fun and memorable. Enjoy trips created by National Geographic, USA TODAY, CNNMoney and others that guide you to restaurants, through parks and gardens, or on historic walking tours. Of course, you can create and share your own trips with your friends as well.

FaceBook Places – They earned our number two seed only because they are facebook. Tough match first round against some Beer dudes! Easily share where you are, what you’re doing and the friends you’re with right from your mobile. Never miss another chance to connect when you happen to be at the same place at the same time. Check in to get individual discounts, share savings with friends, earn rewards for repeat visits or secure donations for good causes.

Loopt – Our other number two seed. Loopt offers a location-first view of the world, shining a bright spotlight on the world around you when you’re out and about. When you open Loopt, you see the world in a more relevant way — you see who’s around, where people are gathering and where people like to go. And because Loopt pulls in data from world’s most popular social graph — Facebook — everyone already has friends on Loopt. Loopt alerts you when a friend is nearby, creating wonderful moments of serendipity that, without Loopt, might never happen.

Locaii – Our other Texas based app! Earning a number three seeds from us, well because they are Dallas based, cool guys and I am having a blast with the app! More than just checking in, they get the conversations started! You can start conversations with your friends and the people around you. Upset about that last call?  Wondering if you’re the only one who saw that bear on a unicycle?  Post up something interesting and you’re sure to get a conversation started. (We love the polling features!)

Whrrl - Our other number three seed is a location-based, social application for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry designed to help people discover highly relevant new experiences in the real world.  Whrrlers join Societies, groups of like-minded people with the same real-world interests, passions and brand affinities to exchange recommendations (new places to go and things to do) and experiences (via photos and notes). Whrrl’s groundbreaking Society Rewards program enables businesses to participate in the discovery experience by offering prizes at places that Whrrlers win by checking in.  This drives first-time visits, but Society Rewards goes further in that the most influential people have the best odds of winning the prizes.  As such, it is the first real-world social loyalty program.

Mytown - Our number four seed, played by over 3.3 million people, MyTown is the most popular mobile location-based social game that turns the real-world into a game of Monopoly. It’s about buying and owning your favorite stores and hangouts. Level up, unlock rewards, and earn cash to buy your real life locations. (They also offer pay to play options to get rewards.)

Scvngr – Our other number four seed, who doesn’t like a good scavenger hunt? Play SCVNGR everywhere! At your favorite cafe, gym, theater, park, restaurant. Check-in. Try a challenge. Share where you are & what you’re up to with your friends. You deserve ‘em! Do challenges to earn points and unlock badges & real-world rewards.

FoodSpotting - One of our number five seeds. This one is all about food! We love food! A visual guide to good food and where to find it.  Foodspotting is the easiest way to find and share the foods you love: Instead of reviewing restaurants, you can recommend your favorite dishes and see what others have recommended wherever you go.

Tunerfish – I know! say that fast three times and everyone will think Tuna! Our second number five seed, this one is all about what you watch! We believe that people are passionate about what they watch – and eager to share that passion with others. We believe that channeling that willingness to share in an easy, fun, and rewarding service is the best way to help you discover great content you might otherwise have missed. We also believe that the line between TV and the Internet is blurring and will eventually be erased – adding dramatically the range of possible answers to the question, “What should I watch right now?”

Gbanga - A late entry entry, but they still managed to get a number 6 seed. Based in Switzerland, they are just starting to catch on here in the states. Gbanga is a mobile platform for hosting an unlimited number of mixed-reality quests that are highly immersive and exciting to play with players around the world. Gbanga blurs reality with fiction, augmenting your daily life with fun gaming experiences. The platform helps you connect with players through quests, challenges and compelling interactive stories on-the-go. In Gbanga, you change the course of the game simply by walking and relocating in the real world.

Brightkite – Our other number six seed, a different twist on the social media angle. Brightkite is the next generation of text messaging. We have created a product that lets you chat with up to 25 people at once, for free. You can also share photos and locations. Brightkite works online and well as on a variety of phones using apps, text messaging and the mobile web.

Beerby – Now this one is one we can get into! Partially because we love beer here in the lab! Beerby is the only beer app you’ll need for your iPhone or Android. Track and take notes about what beers you drink, find good beer near your current location, discover bars that carry your favorite beers, compete with your friends and more! We have a database of over 40,000 beers with ratings for you to discover, track and enjoy. Beerby uses the Levlr game mechanics platform to allow you to compete for Badgers, and create achievements for your friends. Levl up as you discover the world of beer!

Shopkick – This is our other number seven seed.  for all of you shop-o-holics out there. Love shopping? Don’t love shopping? Okay, then we have something for both of you. We believe that shopping in the offline world can be done much better than it’s been done for so many years. Why does no one reward you for visiting their stores, only for buying something? Why does nobody make shopping more individual? Where are the offers that really matter to you, especially if you don’t read the Sunday paper? And why is there no fun social sharing and other entertainment when you go to your favorite stores?

GetGlue - I know the name sounds funny, but this is another one for Books, TV, Music and Movies. You earn stickers in this game among other things! GetGlue is a leading social network for entertainment, with more than 900,000 users and 12M new unique ratings and check-ins for TV shows, movies, music and books every month. Fans use GetGlue apps to check-in while consuming entertainment to share with friends and to earn exclusive rewards from our partners.

Toodalu – No need to vote for these rocks stars from last years SXSW.  Upon trying to login, the app appears to not be working and even the website is down.  All it says is coming soon.  Funny I thought you launched last year at SXSW? I guess the market wasn’t big enough for them to make it. Too bad, easy win for Gowalla.

So there you have it, all sixteen entries for our location based march madness app off.  Make sure you vote for your favorite app and get them into the next round.  We will be asking each one to play also, so maybe they can influence some votes! Good Luck everyone! Don’t Forget, the way to vote is to comment on each picture who is your favorite. Go here to vote!

Do not adjust your computer, iPhone, Ipad or Tablet? screens…this is seriously what they released to the world! But alas, the many Gap enthusiasts, my wife included, quickly made a mockery of the company’s feeble and epic failed attempt to “refresh” their now iconic mark.

If you know me then you know I am going to squeeze the conspiracy out of this story, if for nothing other than making us all think.

Many of us are more than likely going to be inclined to cough this up as a foolish corporate mistake. But is it really? Gap has been a company known to be in financial turmoil. Dwindling stocks stemming from less than impressive year-end financial reports were the perfect contributing ingredients to an impending disaster. Just last year alone the company lost an estimate 2.3% when comparing their previous years revenue, which was also down from the previous year.  If you ask me, this massive sales deficit was not only a side effect of the fledgling economy, but spoke to the fact of the company’s diminshing brand presence. It was a matter of time until a “More Panic” meeting was called.

People always say to themselves, “I wish I was a fly on the wall in that meeting”. Well folks, I spoke to a fly, who spoke to a fly, who heard it on the grapevine, who claims she heard it from Cathy, about what went on…and here is how he thinks it went down”…

“Hear ye, hear ye”… well maybe not, but I have always wanted to start a meeting off like that.

“So what do we do?”…asks the guy sitting at the end of the table, donned in his red and blue neck-tie, white Armani dress-shirt (the irony kills me), Armani reading glasses and $1500 boots (we assume the rest of his outfit is pretty standard…except for his watch which can buy both you and I a brand new house…or feed a hundred starving families, whichever one makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside).

“We shake things up!”…says the marketing director.

“We change our prices and our line”

“Tried that before!”…says Armani suite…

“Well…hmmmm…ok how about we change our brand?”

“I don’t think that is a good idea, people are comfortable with our brand…it will cost us too much money and frankly I am going on vacation at the end of the month and don’t need the headache. Any other ideas?”..says Armani suit

The intern raises her hand, me..me…me

“Anybody else?”

“me…me..me!”

“Fine, Lindsay what do you think?”

“Why don’t we just pretend to change our brand. I will create a logo with my mediocre at best Photoshop skills, and then we can release it at midnight tonight. That way we can generate some press and hope to not lose our shirts…get it?”

“I don’t know”… say the now overpaid marketing director…”that is a silly idea!”

“What do we have to lose? Sales and credibility?… we have already lost those by releasing those stupid looking skinny jeans”…says Armani suit

“Lindsay, you are a genius. Do it!”

We flash forward through panic, disgust, laughter, ridicule and back-tracking, only to find Gap at the fore-front of every news media, trying to explain away what happened with their “failed attempt to release their new logo”.

While we all point and laugh at what a gigantic failure that it was, I must sit back and ask myself…

WAS IT?…WAS IT REALLY?

True or False: I need to be on every platform.

Ok look, if you’re going to use social media marketing you should probably invest your time in a Twitter account and a Facebook account.  A majority of your customers and clients probably have an account as well, and you need to be where they are. Do you really need to have a Foursquare account, Digg account and an RSS feed? No! Don’t waste your time and energy on social media marketing accounts that are going to hardly be viewed or utilized. Keep it simple.

True or False: Social media is a fad.

Considering that Facebook users are multiplying like rabid rabbits, I would say this is false. Even Twitter seems to be hanging in there. Having said that, joining the social media world really isn’t bandwagon jumping or fad-following. It seems that social media accounts are becoming a necessary accessory for businesses.

True or False: You can brand without being online.

Sure, you can brand without having an online presence, but why would you want to? It’s like trying to bake a cake without all of the ingredients! It’s just not right! The internet is your friend, and if you use it properly it can be one of your best allies when it comes to branding yourself. Think back to the Old Spice commercials you saw on TV. Now I want you to go to Youtube and search for that same Old Spice Guy. Seriously, go do it…NOW! You probably discovered his question and answer segment where he actually answers questions from his Youtube viewers. The Old Spice Guy is an extension of the Old Spice brand because he is a persona, and he has expanded his persona to the online world. What’s the end result? Your brand is remembered and thought of in the real world.

True or False: I need a huge marketing campaign to create a brand.

False. Branding yourself can be as simple as creating a catchy slogan and/or pairing it with a great graphic. It doesn’t take television advertisements and print to get your brand out there. Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth marketing these days. Especially now that Twitter exists. Think about it, a customer has a positive experience with your business and they tweet about it. That tweet is seen by their friends. People tend to gravitate towards products that have personal testimonials attached to them because they trust their friends and family. You see where this is going don’t you? Before long, you could gain twenty customers because of one tweet.

Also, a brand doesn’t have to be a logo or a slogan. It can be a lifestyle or a piece of culture. Take Apple for example. Apple has created a culture around its company. Apple followers line up again and again for the latest and greatest product from them because they want to buy into their brand so they can be a part of the Apple culture. Think back to the I-pod commercials. They were hardly ground breaking; most of them featured shadowed people dancing around a colorful room. I wouldn’t exactly refer to that as a call to action.

Apple is successful because it markets an extension of itself.

True or False: If I make it, they will buy it.

You might have the perfect product, but if you don’t have the proper buzz around it your product could just sit on the shelf and collect dust. The same goes for services. You need to generate an interest in your product. Give out samples, show demos, promote on social media sites or even try more traditional marketing methods. You have to get the word out.

True or False: Spending more money on advertising means more results.

If you don’t build your brand, then no amount of advertising can help you. Advertising is trying to provoke a person to make a purchase. It’s persuasive material, and it’s biased. Sure, advertising is useful, but only after your product has proved itself credible. Why do you think businesses are eager to get their products featured on Oprah? She offers credibility because she tests her products before giving them her personal endorsement. Also, Oprah isn’t an infomercial or an advertisement.

True or False: You need a logo to brand yourself.

Zipbloc, Marlboro and Puffs are just a few examples of companies that don’t have notable logos. They’re recognized by their label and font only. Don’t believe the hype. A logo is not the end all, be all of branding. You can have a successful marketing campaign and brand yourself without a flashy image. This is great news for the budget conscious business person.

True or False: I don’t need to revisit branding after I’ve executed it.

The world changes, your customers interests change, and wants and needs shift over time. Why wouldn’t you revisit branding? It’s your job to connect with customers, and your brand is the best way to do so. However, if your brand is old and dated, customers won’t be able to connect and relate to you. You have to keep refreshing your persona and image.

True or False: My company is huge, so our branding strategy has worked.

Large companies are not immune to branding failures. In fact, if a branding campaign does not go over well, a larger company has more to lose. If you are a part of a small business, your clientele list is significantly shorter than a multi-million dollar corporation. What does this mean? If you experiment with branding, and it isn’t a successful campaign, you have less to lose because your brand only reaches a limited audience. A large company with national recognition could ruin its reputation and credibility in the eyes of millions of customers if their branding campaign goes belly-up.

Now it’s 2010, and social media is embedded in the daily functions of our lives. Businesses check their media feeds while they have their first cup of coffee. News stories are now being broken on Twitter before a reporter can reach the scene. People are meeting in person through social media connections (Tweetups and Facebook events). Let’s not forget that people are also constantly connected to the internet through their cellphones, computer or laptop.
If social media is still just a silly trend in your mind, you’re probably behind the curve. My marketing professor told me, “In the business world, only the fastest survive.” He’s absolutely right. If you can’t stay current, then you’ll become obsolete.

Swim Fast or Die

If these people were blogs, you'd want to be THAT guy.

Blogging. This phenomenon is for sure here to stay and we have advanced past the time of calling blogs just a trend. They are now essential tools in building brand awareness. Blogs provide opportunities to speak directly to audiences engaged in the brand already. Speaking to audiences in their own terms is one of the best ways to explain what your brand is all about.

So what’s the point of blogging?

Visiting a website can tell you lots about a brand. But not everything. And not a lot of the things you really want to know. If you want to KNOW the brand, the voices behind it and the issues that are important to it, a blog is where it’s at. You might find the beginning threads of what you want to know on an official website but digging deeper into a brand requires reading more.

Do us a favor: Just Keep it Simple

If you are blogging for your brand, you don’t want people to have to dig TOO deep. (Or else they probably won’t do any digging at all and move on to the next brand, next blog and not remember yours). It is important to also find ways to keep your old blogs memorable too. Remember that unbelievably awesome blog you wrote a month ago? Well there are a lot of ways to keep that work relevant and entice readers to check it out again. It also has to be easy to read. Establishing your blog and engaging people in what you have to say isn’t always easy though. If it was easy, then brand awareness would be simple and we would all know EVERYTHNG about ALL the brands we use and want.

Write TO your audience, not AT them…

In order for people to follow your blog, they have to have that basic interest in what you’re talking about. You have to know your audience too. Who is actually reading this stuff? Well, you have to know in order to write to them. Some of the best bloggers out there will tell you that branding is all about how you speak to your readers. Having a conversation with your reader is the best way to keep them engaged but also to keep YOU memorable. There are a lot of great articles out there, to help us figure out how to talk to potential clients.

Blogging allows you to literally write your own definition of what your brand represents. By showing people what you are interested in and what’s important to you, you build a personal relationship with them. Successful branding is not easy. This we know. But what we also know is how to create that brand dialogue and it starts with building a relationship.

Where are you?… what are you doing?… twitter made it popular, and if that didn’t make our current online sociali-sphere (made that up) a stalker’s heaven, location-based social networking just up the ante.

Almost every smart phone out today has some sort of Geo location capability. Whether it’s through an integrated GPS (real GPS) or estimating your location based on your nearest cell tower (Fake GPS), “They” know where you are at all times. Clever business guys took advantage of this fact, threw in a map and created the phenomenon of location-based social networking. It is estimated that by 2013, three of the major location-based social networking players will account for over 3.3 billion dollars in revenue! That’s a lot of cheddar. The fascinating thing is that analysts are speculating that this is just the beginning.

Imagine a world where businesses are fully tuned in to the where-a-bouts and geographic buying patterns of its consumers. Where brands can track and influence people in places where it was only possible to assume they would be. Have you seen “Minority Report”? No? good time to go watch it… Yes, that’s where I think it’s going. Companies will take the cookie cutter messages they threw up (I don’t mean vomit even though it’s close), on a billboard and make it feel more personal to you. I have been seeing more and more digital billboards on my daily commutes. Just imagine… you’re going down the street, you look up, and the billboard in front of you says, “Hey [insert name here], wanna party like it’s 1999?…Prince tickets on sale now”. Click, buy, done… I just bought Prince tickets. Join me.

Location-based social networking means more than just informing stalkers of your where-a-bouts, or a new tool that wives and girlfriends can add to their “check up” repertoire. For businesses it will create a whole new dimension of selling, less wasted money on making an ass out of you and…well, themselves.

Want to check out a good list of location-based social networks? Click Here. corner6Labs doesn’t actually officially endorse any of them…although Travis, our VP of Sales, seems to be a 4-Square junkie. Word of advice…don’t try to steal his “Mayor-ship” he is very possessive of them and rather competitive.

Happy Stalking!

BTW, are you going to the June 18th “Nothing But Net” event put on by the Magnus Media Group? We are! Send us a quick note on twitter to let us know you will be there. We will even say hi and buy you a big Junkie drink!

1. Find a large enough group of people to talk to. Marketers are always looking for new segments to penetrate with their products and blogs are a great channel to communicate with them.  For example, if you sell executive suites to small businesses, you will probably want to target prospects based on geography and perhaps service firms. That will give you a large group of people to talk to but this group will probably be composed of several smaller groups with similar interest, so don’t stop there.
2. Learn what is unique about each smaller group. Within that larger segment you should create a variety of content that speaks to what is unique to each one do those smaller groups. Following the example above, it could be interesting to create content that talks about the importance of first impressions, the role of branding in finding new clients, the most successful stock investments strategies or the latest high-end entertainment events in the area.
3. Share with them and build trust. We all know that people like free samples, gifts, give away, free content, free research, extras or free trials. Use those to start building your brand and relationship with them.  Once you have built that trust and created that first impression, it is really hard to lose it – unless you really screw it. When blogging for sales you must honestly want to share knowledge and tips without expecting something back immediately, you must have patience.
4. Be patient and keep sharing. This is key as the game has changed for marketers and sales people, if you go aggressively for the sale without really knowing where the prospect is in the purchasing process, you will create a lot of enemies that could have been clients down the road. More than 95% of your blog’s visitors will not be ready to buy so you must be softer and broader with your message to appeal to a larger group that is most likely looking to simply educate themselves. However, make sure to make it easy for those that are shopping to contact you or purchase online.
5. Embrace your visitors and their networks. As people comment on your posts, bookmark them, share them on social networks and subscribe to your blog, make a task for you to develop each one of those relationships and ideally try to take them offline if appropriate. Don’t try to sell them until they are ready and ask more about your product or services. Developing those relationships will also help you reach a much larger audience than you can reach yourself.
6. Keep improving your sources. The content that you put in your blog is the fuel that will get your lead generation machine going, so make sure to create an editorial calendar and follow it religiously. If you have trouble coming up with your own thoughts or ideas, you can comment on research reports, studies, do book reviews, interview other experts, etc. Don’t ever run out of gas.

Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito

Search Engine Optimization has been a cat & mouse game since its inception, marketer and web masters spent their time figuring out how to game search engine algorithms to only find out that these sites kept evolving and coming up with new criteria. The beauty of this game has been that it has evolved in the direction of making results more and more like what you would find on an offline search for a product or service. The difference though is that looking for an accountant offline could take you days or weeks to find a good one. You would probably look for one on the yellow pages, then ask your friends if they knew one, then interview several, than ask for references, to end up probably working with one that worked with someone you trust.  However, online you can do this in a matter of minutes or seconds. Product or service searches on Google (using their filters, social search features and Google buzz) or searches on Facebook (which can also be filtered for friends) will, if not already, complete the entire search and selection process.

So, the questions are: How do you optimize your web presence? How do you embrace word of mouth and user generated content around your brand? How do you grow a network built on trust and reputation? In a few words, and you can watch the presentation below to get more details, the answer is three-fold.

First, you want to establish an editorial calendar because it will help you increase content quantity, quality and your will get more subscribers. Do simple math, more content + better quality = better search engine ranking. Add a little of smart marketing and you will get more readership and that will drive more subscribers (or potential customers)

Second, become a publishing warehouse as it will help you get your target audience in the format and timing that they prefer the most. Take the topic for the day, week, month, whatever your reality is and put in your “content development process” to create blog posts, articles, presentations, tweets, white papers, questions, videos, podcasts, etc. or whatever your target audience respond best.

Third, leverage personal branding to distribute content to networks built on trust and reputation. As stated on a previous blog employees can become a great channel to distribute your content.

By Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito

Employees and their families are online and using social media related sites more than ever before (I assume I don’t need to give a stat on this to make the point) and they like to share personal and professional content with their networks. The beauty is that these networks are built on trust, reputation, friendship and real business relationships. Therefore, they listen to what each other has to say making it a great word of mouth channel for a brand. However, many companies are still concerned that access to social media sites while at work could be a source of loss in productivity…well, let me say that the next outlook version integrates with Facebook and other social media tools and most of them have mobile devices. So, I would say that corporate mind-set will have to change much like it did 15 years ago when email came up. Next are six simple ways to start embracing employee social media activities to boost your marketing target reach while retaining employees.

1. Set expectations and boundaries: Define how social media can help align employees with your business and marketing goals and what the objectives are for social media. Then be specific on what the expectations, implications and limitations are for employees. Clearly and frequently communicate this to them to make sure they are aware and accountable for their actions, but don’t force them into social media and make sure that they don’t feel that they have to do it.
2. Educate them: Create a program to coach them on the benefits and limitations of each tool for social and professional purposes.  Show them examples of what to do and what not to do. Do it frequently and embrace knowledge sharing amongst themselves. Encourage employees to try it and find their own social media style.
3. Invite them to participate: Share with them all your news, campaigns, events, promotions, offers, etc. and ask them to share them with their networks. But don’t stop there, make them part of it by asking them to provide content and help in the creation of these initiatives
4. Use incentives: Contest are great, I recommend setting up daily, weekly or monthly contest to rewards those that participate the most or help reach the goals of the initiative at hand.
5. Give them feedback: This is key, no one knows how they are doing and how they can improve if they don’t get any feedback. Give them metrics, comments, ideas and feedback in general on how they are helping the company. They need to know the consequences and implications (positive and negative) of their actions to improve them, correct them or embrace them.
6. Embrace their ideas: Social media is all about user-generated content and participation, so companies must incorporate employees ideas into their programs. Employees are the ones closer to the customers and prospects and understand better than anyone else what make prospects and customer click or engage. Create the appropriate mechanisms to incorporate their social media ideas.

By Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito