Social Media Marketing

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CREATE N
EW S
OCIAL O
BJECTS
Geolocation and Community Development
As mobile technology rapidly forces a shift in the access point for social interaction
from the desktop or laptop to truly mobile devices like a netbook or smartphone,
an additional class of social objects emerges: locations and location-based activities.
Simply put, if my phone knows where I am, and a business application can be imagined
to enhance both my personal and social presence at that location, then a social object
built around that location probably exists.
As an example, consider Las Vegas. Clearly the idea of “Going to Vegas” is talk-
worthy. It’s almost impossible to walk up to someone—anyone—and say, “I’m going to
Vegas—any tips?” and not get a response. (The quality or accuracy of that response is,
of course, another matter.) So, it makes sense that an organization like Wynn’s—a pop-
ular destination resort and casino in Las Vegas—would build a community presence
through simple-to-implement social tools like Twitter that naturally incorporate con-
versations about visiting Las Vegas. Through it participation on Twitter—used in part
for social CRM, the topic of the prior chapter—Wynn’s has created a social presence
that makes it easy for its guests to share information and talk about their experiences
with eath other and the hotel and casino. Creating the opportunity for conversation is
nothing new for Wynn’s. When Wynn’s opened they invited every cab driver in town to
enjoy the hotel for a night on the house. Their experiences are conveyed to visitors in
countless cab rides, right along with the tweets and other social chatter. Las Vegas and
Wynn’s—as locations—are social objects.
Consider Whole Foods Market, where the store itself—the physical location—is
the social object. Whole Foods Market—in its early days in Austin, Texas—had liter-
ally been “rescued” by the community around its original store. Following a flood that
nearly spelled the end for the fledgling grocer, customers came together to protect it,
clean it up, and put it back together. That gave Jon Lebkowsky, a colleague of mine at
Social Web Strategies, an idea: Build Whole Foods Market’s online presence around
the physical community that supports each store. Whole Foods Market has built on
this core idea, through both its online presence and its continued community actions
such as its quarterly “5 percent days,” during which it donates 5 percent of net sales to
a local nonprofit.
Smaller, regional brands fit into the category as well. How many times have you
visited an out-of-town friend, and heard “Hey, there’s this place I’ve got to take you.
They have the best __.” where your friend then fills in the blank with a place for
music, shopping, food, people-watching...you get the idea. For these types of busi-
nesses and organizations, there is a ready-made social object that sits at the intersection
of what they offer and the community in which they offer it. Here are some examples
of food-related, location-based social objects: