Why are people not checking in?

Oddly, it seems that people aren't using the various social networks to tell everyone where they are... Why not? Apart from letting your friends / contacts know where you currently are or have been it does very little for you.
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Most of my social media experience comes from using Facebook to advertise and promote events to students and the public. So when I heard that Facebook had set up “places” my imagination began to run away.

It’s human nature for people to be nosey, especially about our friends and events, more importantly people you do not particularly like. I would bet a lot of money that people spend large amounts of their time looking at peoples profiles who they don’t really like, partners ex-girlfriends (or ex partners current girlfriends).

Location based networking has all the ingredients to be very popular and successful, but we seem to still be waiting for it to happen.

Someone really needs to have created the location you want to check into such as a fan page with an address on, whilst it is possible to do it yourself, most people won’t.  You can tag friends in a location with you as well which shows up on their profile & news feed. That is where it ends. Unless an offer has been advertised for “liking” or “checking in” from the business then nothing really happens, on top of that getting your phone out loading the app and checking in where there is either limited reception or GPS signal can be frustrating.

Facebook users haven’t come on board and aren’t really using it, so much so that despite user checking in being more popular than the entire FourSquare communtiy, Facebook are no longer pushing deals on it.

I was lucky enough to visit Las Vegas this summer with my family. I was amazed at the amount of advertisement that there was to take “off line” to “online”, from promotional material to your food receipts there with links to get people to join their fan page or follow on twitter. If the same amount of effort had been made to check in as well then it would make an impact

I like the concept of Foursquare although I feel at present it is only the technology savvy that really use and understand it, and in our local town it is the same faces that appear to be Mayors of all the local venues.

Chris Pool Follow @chrisbenoitpool

QR codes - the primer

Over the past year QR codes have rapidly spread we are starting to see them from MI5 recruitment adverts through to learn more links in Tescos.

So what actually is a QR code – put simply it’s a barcode designed to be easily read by mobile phone cameras, they usually need a bit of software to interpret it and can contain information from a simple link through to contact information (more can be contained, but to be honest for Social Media, it is the URL part that is important.

Should we sit up and take notice? No is the simple answer unless your target audience includes the digital natives who carry smart phones (typically touch) and you have a social media presence or a well built mobile site, something we can of course help you with if you need it (two things we can of course help you with).

If you answer yes to those two questions it is actually pretty simple to start including these codes in your offline media – you can easily direct people to your Facebook page, allowing them to click the like button for you to re-engage with them later, or your twitter account, or a mobile page which offers links to both.

It is actually really easy to do this – get your link, put it into one of the many QR code generators out there including Bit.ly, Goo.gl which also include tracking (this is important of course), place them in discreet locations on your printed materials (including clothing, banners and more).

You can make them ‘popout’ a bit by even colouring them in (thanks for Bob Bardsley for the idea) - http://phronesisseo.blogspot.com/2011/06/putting-colour-into-qr-codes.html

So to conclude – if you have a mobile site or social media and produce printed offline materials then try including a QR code – track it of course to make sure it is working for you.

The ubiquitous plug -
If you want to know more about mobile and social strategic solutions then chat to Chris at Social Loop.