Super Bowl Advertising: Style vs. Substance

Here's the scene: a swamp in the woods at night. In the distance sits a dimly lit bar.

The characters: three frogs, each sitting on a lily pad.

Action!

Frog 1 says: "Bud"

Frog 2: "Weisss"

Frog 3: "Errr"

The popular Super Bowl XXIX commercial was created for Budwesier by DMB&B/St. Louis.

The Frogs are now dead. Electrocuted by a falling neon Budweiser sign. Ironic, I know.

But what do those frogs have to do with beer?

“If there is a truth in it, it's not a truth about the product and it's not a truth even about your relationship to the product when you buy it...I think what you’re really saying is ‘I’m part of the people that get this humor.’ They want to be part of that community and the beer becomes the badge of that community. I think that’s why it works.” – Jeff Goodby of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in "Art & Copy."

It works with Beer, the frogs that is, because Beer is a Style purchase.  

Style Purchases: What we wear, drink or eat. Style purchases are usually products, like clothing or beverages.

Style purchases include: Clothing, Accessories, All beverages, Restaurants, Electronics, Jewelry, Office supplies, Sporting Goods, Cosmetics, Department Stores...etc

Would the Frogs work for automobiles? Probably not. That's because Automobiles fall more in the Substance category than style. Or somewhere in between.

Can you imagine yourself saying something like "I need a new car, think I'll go with the BMW. Those frogs are hilarious."

Automobile ads should be of more substance. We choose an automobile based on a number of factors that are important to us. Safety, Longevity, Durability, Reliability, Brand Reputation. Style definitely plays a part, but purely style ads don't work in this category.

As you can see, not all products fit neatly into one category, style or substance. Many fall somewhere in between. But it's absolutely necessary to determine which one fits closer to your business category.

Who's doing style right? Old Spice with The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. 

Created by Wieden+Kennedy in 2010, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like is 100% style and suited perfectly for both TV and the web. The videos have built a cult-like following online. The above spot had more than 44 million views on YouTube at the time of this post. 

Dos Equis and The Most Interesting Man in the World also has style spot-on. These ads really set themselves apart from the competition. The commercials also have a large online following.

Substance Purchases: Who we trust with our life, family, repairs, construction, finances, education, consultation. Substance purchases are usually services, like insurance.
Other substance purchases include: Medical centers, Hospitals, Financial institutions, Insurance Agencies,  Automobiles, Travel, Construction, Counseling, Tax services, Education, Engineering, Security, Attorneys, Auto Repair, Child Care, Chiropractors, Financial Planners...etc

Who's doing substance right? Allstate. Even the taglines tell the substance story: "You're in good hands."

This ad was perfectly executed, conversational in tone and with a solid message of substance. Way to go, Allstate.

Do you own a business? If so, is your business category one of mostly style or substance? Figuring that out could save your advertising. And your advertising ROI.

When the world gathers to watch Super Bowl XLVII, put some thought into what you’re watching. Are the ads of style or of substance?

Because we are the final judge -- not the ad polls, not the ad agencies or experts -- the viewers. We decide which commercials work and which fall flat. We decide by becoming customers.

“It takes a big idea to attract the attention of consumers and get them to buy your product. Unless your advertising contains a big idea, it will pass like a ship in the night.” – David Ogilvy

Editor's Note: This post was first published on Feb. 6, 2011 on Eric's Ad Blog, the old home of Zimedia.org.

Guest Post: Google Latitude Review

BY DAVE SHAFFER 

Editor's Note: Dave Shaffer, Assistant Director for Special Programs at The Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State University, is a community volunteer and lifelong reporter on technology and media. Dave is a 1977 Penn State Journalism graduate. 

I remember Google Latitude being promoted several months ago as the program that would become the “next” Foursquare. The idea was that you could not only check in with your location and see where others had checked in, but you could actually see in real time where they were … even if they hadn't checked in. The software would look at the phone numbers and locate them on a Google Map based on GPS, cell tower, or WiFi data. That is a step beyond Foursquare’s service.

Clearly, it did not catch on or become the next Foursquare. In fact, I haven’t recently seen anything about it at all, and you have to search a bit to find that it does still exist. I thought the shared location feature was likely too much information for a large list of friends and acquaintances. Do you really want everyone to be able to see your location 24/7? I don’t.

However, I wondered if perhaps it might work as a no-cost family locator service. So in the past week I enlisted the help of three friends, one in State College, Pa, one in Maryland, and one in Texas. They all activated Latitude on their phones and became friends with me on that system. That is different than and separate from being friends in other programs, even Google programs. You have to run Latitude on your phone and agree to share your location data with your Latitude friends. 

Let me first say that Latitude is a free download and, while it may increase data usage over time, there is no cost from your carrier (at least not Verizon) to run the program. So basically, it is free.

Second … you can actually see your friend’s location, in almost real time, and depending on the source of data on each phone, with surprising accuracy. In one case, I was able to see that a friend was in the food court at a mall in Maryland. I sent him a text and asked, “You aren't having dinner at the McDonald’s there, are you?” “No,” he replied. “But I’m at the bar-b-q place next door.” That’s pretty good. At other times, location data tended to drift off just a bit. And there was often a delay of a few minutes in receiving updates. So it isn't exactly like what you see on TV. But generally, it was surprisingly accurate.

We've since closed the Latitude connections. But here’s my conclusion:

If you want to be able to “see” the whereabouts of family members or close friends, with surprising accuracy and in an (almost) real-time environment, try Google Latitude. I would suggest you be sure to limit the availability of your location data only to Latitude friends and careful to limit who you add as friends.

A typical Latitude location screen. Not *exactly* right, but awfully darn close.

CONTRIBUTOR PROFILE 

Contributor:

Dave Shaffer
Dave is a community volunteer and lifelong reporter on technology and media. Dave is a 1977 Penn State Journalism graduate and Assistant Director for Special Programs at Penn State's Center for The Performing Arts. He's worked as news director for WCED in DuBois, Pa, and as a freelance reporter for The Brockway Record and Reynoldsville Star. 

Website:

Facebook

Employer:
Penn State Center for the Performing Arts

5 Tech Predictions for 2013

Zimedia's 5 Tech Predictions for 2013

5. Second Screen takes off – The second screen takes on the big screen.

The second screen is taking over. Users are splitting their time between the main screen and a second screen – companion devices and apps. For live shows, users turn to Twitter. For movies and streaming content, users stick to GetGlue to check-in and provide live commentary. (If you're into streaming video like Netflix and Hulu Plus, you'll want to check out GetGlue.) In November, GetGlue was acquired by TV-loyalty service Viggle for $25 million in cash and 48 million shares.

AirPlay-like devices also allow users to stream media from a tablet or smartphone wirelessly to a television set. It opens up content from apps or the web and makes it playable on a user's TV. Apple AirPlay on Apple TV is one of the first and best. More are on the way in 2013.

4. Facebook loses market share– due in large part to audience fragmentation.

Facebook has an enormous lead when it comes to audience share among social networks because it's always one step ahead of the competition. The same changes that infuriate some users are the ones that keep others wanting more. MySpace lost users because it was stagnant. Facebook doesn't want to suffer the same fate.

But users will begin to explore other options in 2013, including LinkedIn, Google+, Foursquare, Path and others, all of which have adopted the "Newsfeed" layout. Users will spend more time on these sites, which means less time spent on Facebook. Foursquare, for example, has de-emphasized its leaderboard and put more focus on the newsfeed and its "Explore" feature. 

3. Mobile Payments become mainstream –  Square launched in 7,000 Starbucks coffee houses in November of 2012. Today, Square is processing $10 billion in annual mobile payments. In 2013 mobile payments will become mainstream.

Joining Square in the mobile payment race are competitors Google Wallet, PayPal, Intuit, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, VeriFone, among others.

2. Free city-wide Internet – Public Wi-Fi gets closer to the streets in 2013. Already available at many restaurants and stores, more hotspots are on the way. 

But more than just hotspots: Google has been working on a city-wide Wi-Fi network for some time, with the first attempt around 2007. It's Google Fiber project seems to have taken the spotlight, as the company rolled out the high-speed broadband network in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2012. 

We feel like now is the time to break some ground on city-wide Wi-Fi. 

The Tel Aviv municipality announced in December of 2012 that it would be deploying a city-wide Wi-Fi network in Israel, headed by Motorola Solutions, that includes 80 relay stations for free wireless access. Watch for a similar service to hit the United States in 2013.

1. Big Netflix Competitor– We predicted it for 2012. Redbox Instant by Verizon launched in Beta in December of 2012. Could it be the Next Netflix? Others are rumored to be teaming up for a service. Amazon Instant Video is gaining steam, though is part of a much larger plan for Amazon. It will take a lot of financial backing which is why we’ll likely see businesses teaming up on this one. Hulu is handcuffed by its owners (Comcast's NBCUniversal, Disney and News Corp.).

Whether it’s Redbox and Verizon, Amazon or another new service, watch for it to take off in 2013. 

5 tech predictions for 2012

Read last year's 5 Tech Predictions here.

Streaming Best Buys

Our favorite devices and services for streaming content straight to your TV.

Zimedia's Streaming Best Buys (price considered):

Devices

1. Best Buy: Apple TV

2. Roku

3. PS3

4. Xbox 360

Services
1. Best Buy: Hulu Plus

2. Netflix

3. Amazon Instant Video

4. PlayOn

The Death of Physical Storage

It wasn’t long ago that we stored files on floppy disks and CDs. After that came USB flash drives and portable hard drives.

The next wave of computer storage and file backup is the cloud – and it will mean the death of physical storage, including our cherished DVD collection.

The Cloud

The cloud – or cloud computing – is really just a metaphor for the Internet and personal storage on a network. So it’s not exactly new. But increased bandwidth has made cloud storage more practical for both personal and business applications.

The cloud is like a hard drive in the sky, allowing users to store files on a computer network, accessible on-demand from any device with an Internet connection.

Users can upload documents in addition to music, photos, and video as well as use the cloud as a backup service. Files can be stored on the cloud rather than saving documents on a local computer – or physical forms of storage – and thus only accessible from that device and susceptible to crashes, accidental deletion or file corruption.

An Internet connection is required to access the cloud; though files can be saved from the cloud to a local device (computer, smartphone, tablet, etc) for offline access.

Services like Dropbox, Google Drive and Carbonite Online Backup save files automatically from a local computer by syncing when files have changed. Multiple users can have access – with permission – to the same cloud drive for easy collaboration on projects.

Cloud Choices

There are public clouds – also known as shared clouds – and private clouds – also called internal clouds, which feature added security and control – as well as hybrid clouds that combine the two. However, most small businesses would be fine with public clouds like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Subscription cloud services are being offered by the Internet’s biggest players including Amazon, Google and Apple. Most companies are offering a free amount of storage space to start, with premium-priced storage upgrades. Amazon and Apple cloud users can purchase music online and save it directly to the cloud or upload their own music collection. Google Drive also touts music storage with its Google Play Music Manager, a branch of the new Google Drive.

How big is the Cloud?

Want to know how big of a player it already is? How many of the digital photos you own are already stored on Facebook, Flickr or Instagram? These services are holding your photos free of charge on their servers – on their cloud. Last year, Facebook was storing a reported 140 billion user photos, at the time representing 4 percent of all photos ever taken.

Today, more than 300 million photos are uploaded to Facebook every day by its more than 900 million users.

I predict that Facebook will introduce personal cloud storage this year, a space to store files, as well as share and collaborate on projects with team members or friends. This would go head-to-head with Google’s new Google Drive, which replaced Google Docs when it launched in April. A Facebook cloud would also go hand-in-hand with the rumored Facebook phone. Facebook did not respond to my request for comment on cloud storage.

How you can benefit from the cloud

You can sign up for free cloud storage today. Whether you want to save files directly to the cloud for safety or collaboration, or use it as a back-up service, you can get started in minutes.

The cloud isn’t limited to just documents, photos and music. Walmart has been pushing a disc-to-digital service called UltraViolet which converts DVDs to digital copies. UltraViolet, which launched eight months ago, has attracted three million users. For an extra $2 per DVD or Blu-ray title, users can purchase a separate cloud-based digital version as well as a digital copy in Walmart’s streaming-video service Vudu. The disc-to-digital conversion includes older DVDs that consumers have already purchased.

How I use the cloud: Google Drive and Dropbox allow me to work on documents from the cloud and save them directly, without downloading them to my computer. This allows me to access them at work, at home or anywhere I have an Internet connection. It also provides me with a higher level of security, in the event my laptop becomes damaged or stolen.

Since my files are on the cloud, they are everywhere I am.

The latest version of Microsoft Office is entirely cloud-based. Microsoft Office 365 combines email, calendars, documents, web conferencing and Microsoft’s full line of Office products in one web-connected cloud service for easy collaboration among team members.

Cloud storage services are in a heated battle to see who can store the most user-data. Photos and music are at the forefront. Movies are next.

What’s next for the cloud?

Say goodbye to DVDs. In the future we’ll store our home movie collection on the cloud. Similar in effect to the way we operate our Netflix library. Buy a movie from Amazon and it’s stored directly to our own personal cloud. Blu-ray discs already come with a digital copy. Soon they’ll come with a cloud copy.

Today’s products and services are geared toward mobility: laptops, smartphones, tablets and entertainment services like Netflix, Hulu, Pandora, Slacker and Spotify. Mobile is taking over.

The cloud is the next logical step in connecting our content to our devices for business and entertainment.

The next five years will lay the foundation for cloud storage. As broadband speeds increase and high-speed Internet becomes ubiquitous, the cloud will play host to all of our digital lives and make physical storage obsolete.

The Facebook IPO and its Future

Launched in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, Facebook sought to connect friends and classmates, drawing inspiration from Friendster. Its platform soon expanded to Stanford, Columbia and Yale, then onto more than 800 college networks.

The Facebook, as it was originally called, was gaining users at an unprecedented rate.

The Internet took 31 years to reach 900 million users; Facebook did it in less than nine.  

Today, Facebook’s goal is to make the world more open and better connected. Its 901 million monthly active users have made 125 billion friend connections, by the end of March.

Facebook is now exploring ways to strengthen those relationships while continuing to build new ones.

Facebook IPO

In arguably the most-anticipated tech IPO in history, Facebook, Inc. (FB) began trading Friday, May 18, at an opening price of $38 per share.

An opening-day software glitch from Nasdaq resulting from last-minute order cancellations delayed the IPO.

The stock closed its first day at $38.23, up 0.6 percent from its IPO price, which was viewed as a disappointing start.

Nasdaq OMX Group, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Robert Greifeld publicly apologized for the delay, saying in a conference call with reporters Sunday, May 20, that the U.S. exchange was “humbly embarrassed” over the glitches that interfered with the IPO.

Shares began to slide one business day after opening, falling 10 percent on Monday to close at $34. Greifeld, however, said the glitches were not responsible for the falling stock price.

The stock slide has been blamed on an entirely separate issue, which has since resulted in shareholders filing lawsuits against Facebook. One suit alleges that important information about Facebook’s financial outlook was not made public but instead “selectively disclosed” to financial institutions prior to its IPO.

Facebook, Inc. finished the week down 16 percent from its IPO price, closing Friday, May 25, at $31.91.

It was a week as climactic as a scene from The Social Network, the 2010 Facebook-inspired biopic.

“There’s a lot of un-fundamental dynamics going on…there are a lot of moving parts that create uncertainty for me,” said Daniel Ernst, Hudson Square Research principal, in a CNBC video report. “The biggest thing that happened from a fundamental standpoint was their mid-roadshow filing, warning on revenues. That’s the point where I said…there ought to be pricing at the low end of the original range of $28 to $34. Then they raised the range and the number of shares. So I think what happened makes sense.”

Facebook mobile and Facebook Camera

In April, Facebook acquired the popular photo-sharing application Instagram for a cool $1 billion in cash and stock. Since the announcement, Instagram’s user base has experienced a 60 percent increase, from 30 to 50 million. The deal is subject to customary closing conditions from the FTC.

Facebook is clearly setting its sights on photo-sharing, a key component of the mobile experience.

More than 300 million photos are uploaded to Facebook each day.

On Thursday, Facebook introduced Facebook Camera for iOS, a standalone photo application where users can shoot and share photos as well as browse recent uploads. Facebook Camera is a very Instagram-like app that syncs with existing Facebook photos, creating a photo-only feed where users can like or comment on friends’ uploads directly from the stream.

“Today, we're introducing Camera, a new mobile app that makes using Facebook photos faster and easier,” Facebook product manager Dirk Stoop wrote Thursday on the company’s press page.

Like Instagram, Facebook Camera features photo filters and easy editing. Unlike Instagram, Camera allows users to upload multiple photos at once and comment on the entire set. Though, the biggest difference between Instagram and Facebook Camera is the inherent user base.

The company’s recent acquisitions and Facebook Camera are all in tune with its goal of a more open and better connected world – and illustrate its focus on mobile.

Facebook Advertising and Privacy

The more Facebook knows about its users, the more relevant the ads it delivers. This is true with any online advertising platform: Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.

Within the next year, I believe Facebook will incorporate more advertising into Facebook content and the news feed. It has already begun this process with Sponsored Stories.

Watch for the next wave of Facebook advertising to be better integrated and displayed on web and mobile as well as better targeted to users’ interests, activity and likes.

Facebook did not respond to my request for comment on upcoming advertising plans.

What’s next for Facebook

Facebook is positioning itself to be everywhere its users are: on the web, smartphones and tablets.

“We want to have every user in every market using Facebook – we’re investing in smartphones and at the same time as in mass market phones because we believe with great features and great integrations, every phone can become sociable,” said Facebook's Head of Mobile Business Henri Moissinac in the first quarter of 2011 after Facebook had acquired mobile startup Snaptu.

In addition to the rumored Facebook phone, there were rumblings Friday that Facebook will enter the browser business by acquiring Opera Software.

The company introduced Facebook email accounts in 2011, complete with the @facebook.com address. I see Facebook rolling out its own cloud service, for users to store files and collaborate on projects with friends.

Facebook did not respond to my request for comment on cloud plans or the possible Opera acquisition.

In the past six weeks, Facebook has acquired photo-sharing applications Instagram and Lightbox, gift-sharing service Karma, location-based service Glancee and launched its own photo app Facebook Camera.

Facebook is becoming the entire infrastructure for the web. A platform connecting our interests, likes, photos, messaging, friends, family and life events.

It’s anyone’s guess where Facebook will go from here. But if it accomplishes nothing else, there’s no debating the fact that we’re more open and better connected than we were before 2004, when four college buddies had an idea that would change the world.

Pandora and the Evolution of Radio

To stay relevant in our lives, media must evolve. We’re seeing it now on four levels: news, communication, commerce and entertainment.

The way we get our news is changing, from print to web and apps. We communicate and interact daily on Facebook. We shop online more than ever before. We’re entertained not by video-rental stores but by Netflix and Hulu. The radio dial we used to turn is now a digital dial.

Shifts in consumer behavior force media to evolve. Today that shift is toward personalization.

Pandora, the leading Internet radio service, is the evolution of FM radio. Its customized radio plays songs it knows we’ll like – it learns our tastes – using Pandora’s Music Genome Project.

Pandora announced Tuesday at the International CTIA Wireless 2012 conference in New Orleans that it has surpassed 150 million registered users, nearly 52 million of which are active listeners. It is now one of the most-used online services in the United States.

In April, Pandora users clocked 1.06 billion listening hours, an 87 percent increase over the same time last year.

Audience measurement and consumer research company The Media Audit revealed last week that Pandora is the No. 1 listened to station in Los Angeles, beating out KIIS-FM.

The Media Audit found that Internet radio has reached 20 percent saturation; which means there’s still plenty of room to grow. Among 18 to 34 year olds, the saturation – or market presence – hits 36.6 percent.

Ways to Tune In:  some of today’s popular destinations for music

• Pandora: Personalized Internet radio service that creates stations based on your favorite artists and songs. Pandora offers free andpremium Pandora One, which features ad-free listening for about $3 per month.
• Sirius XM: Subscription satellite radio service starting at $14.49 per month featuring more than 140 channels including 71 commercial-free music channels plus news, talk, sports and more. You’ll need a Sirius or XM radio to use the service, unless you opt for an online-only subscription for about $13 per month. Sirius XM is also available in select vehicle models.
• Spotify: On-demand music. Enter an artist and play the tracks you want to hear. Spotify also features genre-specific stations and the new Playlist Radio. Free on desktop or laptop computers – but to play on mobile devices or tablets Spotify Premium ($9.99 per month) is required.
• Slacker: Slacker plays songs based on your favorite artists or tracks, in addition to genre-specific stations. Slacker has a free level and two premium options: Slacker Plus ($3.99 per month) and Slacker Premium ($9.99 per month), with Slacker Premium featuring on-demand music like Spotify.
• Songza: Songza sets itself apart with its Music Concierge featuring situation-based music, from Waking Up, to Unwinding After a Long Day, or even A Sweaty Dance Party.
• Others: Grooveshark, Rdio, MOG, Rhapsody

According to the annual Infinite Dial study released last month by Arbitron and Edison Research, weekly Internet radio listening jumped more than 30 percent in the past year. The study includes streaming AM and FM stations.

Pandora listeners hit 22 percent of people 12 years and older who’ve listened in the past month, up from 16 percent last year, according to the same study.

New car tech is catching up, too. Including “Infotainment” systems that connect to Internet radio services like Pandora and satellite radio service Sirius XM. Pandora is available in 48 vehicle models across 18 brands and an array of aftermarket multimedia systems.

Cars with built-in iPod sync and audio jacks enable a driver to either wirelessly sync a device or plug it in, playing the audio through the car’s stereo system.

More than 70 percent of Pandora’s listening hours were from a device other than the computer, the company announced Tuesday. This correlates with the growing number of mobile devices and users accessing the Internet – and Internet radio – away from the computer.

In the past two years, smartphone ownership has tripled. The percentage of people who’ve listened to Internet radio by connecting a mobile device to the car stereo has experienced a 50 percent increase in the past 12 months, reaching 17 percent, according to Arbitron and Edison Research.

More than half of users between 18 and 24 years old have listened to an iPod or mp3 player in the car as their main source of music. One in five is streaming Pandora, according to a separate study by Arbitron and Edison Research.

In-car listening is the biggest area of potential growth for Internet radio services. In the next five years, Internet radio will gain more ground in the car. It’s only a matter of time before the technology hits the streets and moves along the adoption curve.

Turning the dial

Like television and newspapers, radio is evolving by adapting to shifts in the way we live – and listen.

The consumer’s desire for personalized media is driving the shift. We’re responsible for the changes that are occurring. It’s happening because we asked for it. Companies like Pandora and Spotify exist because they noticed it before the others, maybe even before we noticed it. 

Consumers told them what they wanted; and they were listening. They responded with services that are transforming the radio landscape.

“Mobile connectivity has allowed us to deliver on our mission of providing people with music they love…” said Pandora President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Kennedy. 

“The continued growth of Pandora shows that personalized radio is fundamentally changing the way people listen to music.”

Foursquare and Location-Based Services for your Business

In marketing school it is taught that the purpose of a business is to create a customer. One new way has emerged in recent years to specifically identify new customers, or at least those who opt to check-in.

Editor's Note: This article first appeared on StateCollege.com in a guest column by Eric Zimmett. Click here to view the original column.

Location-based services (LBS) allow users to check-in at businesses via smartphone and share their location with other users, in addition to posting photos, comments or reviews.

According to the annual Mobile Life study, published this week by research group TNS, there are six billion mobile users in the world. Among them, one fifth (19 percent) are already using LBS. They’re already “checking in.” And three times that number (62 percent) is planning to do so in the future, according to the same report, available at www.tnsglobal.com/mobilelife.

The most publicized of these LBS is Foursquare. Foursquare was founded in 2009 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadura.

Prior to Foursquare, Crowley co-founded a similar service called Dodgeball, which was acquired by Google in 2005. Four years later, Google shut it down and replaced it with Google Latitude.

There are a reported 20 million Foursquare users – up from eight million just one year ago – according to a Foursquare report released on April 16, 2012, a social media holiday also known as Foursquare Day. Foursquare's growth is a reflection of not only the company's success but the adoption of smartphones and our increasingly mobile-tech lifestyles.

Foursquare, which is free for both users and merchants, is now one of many LBS including Facebook’s own check-in feature – a 2011 revamp of Facebook Places – which allows users to tag a location in any update or post.

Four steps to Foursquare for the user

1. Check in
2. Get Points and Badges
3. Become Mayor
4. Get Rewarded

Check-in here

After signing up for Foursquare, and downloading the free application for smartphones, users are ready to check in. This is done by simply launching the Foursquare application and viewing the Places around you. Foursquare determines a user's location based on the smartphone's built-in GPS.

For those thinking Foursquare is a bit too personal, keep in mind that the check-in is a manual process. Users decide when and where to check in.

When checking in, users can add comments, tips or photos for a given location. If a business isn't in the Foursquare system, users can add it themselves.

As I noted in my April 1 column – 5 Things Small Business Owners Should Be Doing –Foursquare is mostly user-generated. Users check-in on their own; unlock specials that merchants have created and compete with friends on their Leaderboards.

By checking in, users receive points and badges based on where, when and how often they check in. The Mayor often receives the largest reward. All rewards are set by the merchant.

A user becomes “Mayor” if he or she checks in more frequently at a location than other Foursquare users in a 60-day period. And can be ousted as mayor if someone checks in more frequently.

When a special has been unlocked, a clear message will display on the user’s smartphone screen notifying him or her of the accomplishment. To get rewarded, the user must then show the screen to the merchant to receive the unlocked special.

Four steps to Foursquare for the merchant

1. Claim your venue
2. Get your stickers
3. Create a special
4. Track its success

Merchants can create a venue or, if it’s already been created, search for it then claim it. Once you’ve found your venue on Foursquare’s website, click the link to let Foursquare know that you manage the venue. (Foursquare also makes it easy for merchants with multiple locations.)

After a few quick confirmation steps, you’ll be ready to use Foursquare for business.

Foursquare will verify that you’re the business owner by providing you with a verification code by phone or mail.

If the information for your business listing is incorrect, you’ll be able to edit it and continue claiming the venue. In many cases, Foursquare users create venues with incorrect or missing information.

Once a venue has been claimed, Foursquare will send you a Foursquare sticker. A window-cling that reads: “Foursquare Check-In Here. Check in to unlock specials, meet up with friends and explore what’s nearby.”

Creating a special: Foursquare allows merchants to create specials for Foursquare users to unlock and redeem. Specials like a discount with a minimum purchase (spend $25, get $5 off); a free offer (check in and get a free gift); specials for return visits (free coffee on your fifth visit); or specials for achieving Mayor status. Foursquare has a group of specials at your disposal and a step-by-step guide for creating them.

Once you’ve completed the above steps to claim your venue, and created a special, it would be a good idea to notify all of your staff of Foursquare and the special you’ve offered. Foursquare makes this easy, too, with informational Employee Flyers for your staff.

Track the success: You’ll have access to real-time Foursquare analytics showing the total number of check-ins; most recent visitors; most frequent visitors; a demographic breakdown; activity across other social networks; as well as the success of any specials being offered.

And it’s all free. Get started at http://foursquare.com/businesses.

Thanks for checking in

With Facebook and photo-applications like Path and Instagram all incorporating location features, other services are following Foursquare's lead.  

This results in customer activity that’s happening as close to the register as it gets.

Location-based services are attracting users at an unprecedented rate. Businesses would be smart to jump on the location-bandwagon now before their next would-be customer checks in across the street.