Recently, NBA legend and future Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal, first announced his retirement through a new social media site called Tout; this announcement brought over 500,000 viewers to Tout in under three hours. Tout is a new breed of social media that has yet to be mastered, using video sharing. Shaq’s announcement was heard on television and shown in an ESPN.com article, which gave us a direct link to his Tout announcement. The reason this was so effective is because it showed fans that this announcement was for real, as it came directly from the big man.

Shaq Tout's retirement

Tout already has an iPhone app and is in the process of creating an app for the iPad and Android platforms. So how does this work? You shoot a video, and you “Tout” it. The video gets uploaded to tout.com and can be seen by anyone. Shaq has been utilizing this site to the maximum; he gets a role on the Advisory Board and he also has a stock option for the startup social media company. He has been seen shooting videos at the Taylor Swift concert with his girlfriend, Nicole “Hoopz” Alexander, he’s shot videos of himself working out, or just being an all-out clown. Perhaps the best feature of Tout is that you can jump straight to the most popular “Touts” of the day.

So how can this change the social media world or even the sports world? When you Tout a video, you have the choice to cross-post it to your Twitter account. Since Twitter currently has a much bigger following, more people will view the videos. Now imagine this…

You’re at the United Center watching the Bulls pregame shootaround. You’ve got incredible seats near the floor. You shout out to Derrick Rose, and he approaches you. You bust out your iPhone and record the conversation you and the MVP have for just a few seconds as he signs an autograph for you. Within a matter of moments, you can share that video on Tout. Soon enough, you’ll have a video moment others can interact around and experience while you are still courtside. Maybe your mom can tweet you a question to ask the star as well!

Here’s a perfect example of the potential power of Tout. When the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals on June 12, 2011, a controversial Tweet was sent from ESPN NBA guru Chris Broussard. The Tweet said that LeBron James had a postgame explosion in the Heat locker room. Minutes later, Broussard posted that someone had hacked into his account and that report was not true. Now, for the sake of conversation, let’s say that was true. Chris Broussard could have “Touted” live from Miami that LeBron had an explosion in the locker room. Nobody would doubt the legitimacy of that report.

Tout

There is something to be said for video. When you’re reading an article on a popular site, there usually is a video version of the article attached; most people prefer to watch the video and have it explained to them. Video social network sites, such as Tout, could be on the cusp of being a reputable source of news through social media. What if the people you follow on Twitter, your favorite athletes, celebrities, or even just friends could give you an up-to-the-second live report from wherever they are in the world?

The point is this if you’re a restaurant and you view social media as an ad buy, a groupon, or something that needs to pay immediate dividends instead of taking a longer term view you are going to be deeply disappointed.  If you value your customers and want to cultivate a community of people who believe in what your trying to do, social media is a great tool.  It’s just going to take some time

Here is the deal, we are a startup social media firm and by definition everyone has a number of responsibilities.  Mine include new business, client services, operations, and taking the trash out.  Finding new team members is not part of my everyday routine so making time for it can be challenging.  Also because we are a startup there is a premium on finding the perfect fit as they can have an outsized impact on the culture.

Lucky for me, we are in the social media business and between your Twitter and Linked I can find a host of relevant information about each candidate.  When I research a candidate I’m not looking to see if they mistakenly put up too many photos of themselves and friends having too much fun, I’m looking to see if they understand the mediums and how they use them.  More importantly, if you don’t have a Linked In profile or your Twitter account has 5 tweets it probably means you’re not a good fit for us.  Ironically after looking through 50 some odd resumes we choose to hire the one candidate who didn’t send us a resume.

Instead, we found Katie Gear’s resume.  We found her because she was active in social media and was interested in all the things we were currently doing.

She had over 500 followers on Twitter, and regularly supplied her followers with social media news as well as interacted insightfully on her twitter feed.  Her Linked in profile was up to date and linked to her website and slide share.  So even before I reached out to her to make her aware of the job I knew she had the experience we were looking for and was passionate about social media.

As they say ‘the news finds you,’ so to do future employees.

What I think is informative for all the people currently applying to be our next team member is that Katie Gear made information publically available that demonstrated her understanding of what we do far better than a resume or in person interview could.

In a recent Advertising Age article, it discussed the fact that brands FACEBOOKS alone drive more activity and engagement than the website they had previously created. It’s not only driving more page views, but Facebook likes, comments, and more click-throughs to the articles, blogs and photos posted on those websites.

Marketing and advertising strategies need to be able to shift as quickly as possible, especially when all of their consumers are embracing social media via Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and more. Just because these sites don’t offer the types of analytics a company may be searching for, it is much more worthy of the time and money flowing through these departments to get in the social media game even if they can’t measure it as effectively as some other engagements.

Consumers of all sorts are on social media… that’s a fact. Most likely, they are the consumers that you’ve been targeting all along. Most consumers seem to be more heavily influenced by peers and followers on Facebook and Twitter when asking an opinion about a product, which is why it should concern companies who aren’t effectively monitoring the answers.

Why not invest as much time and money into a medium where you’re consumers already exist, and see what possibilities could arise?

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Owner Verified

Google places can be a great landing page for all of your rich content, not to mention Google has fast become the new yellow pages.  With reviews from multiple sources, images and videos, it doesn’t take much to understand why people are turning to these listings over traditional yellow pages listings.  When you do verify your account and begin to add your own content, remember that your Facebook Page and Twitter Page are relevant places to be pointing your customers.  Of course you have to have a facebook page and more importantly keep it active and relevant.  Remember your on google whether you like it or not, its worth taking the time to make sure your information is correct and that potential customers are seeing the best side of you.

Being an early adopter of FourSquare means that you both love the product and recommend it to friends, AND are constantly wishing for more features, better stats and a simplified way of seeing specials data… or maybe that’s just me.  A couple of weeks ago FourSquare partnered with Starbucks in a move that had me applauding along with everyone else.  $1 off make your own frappuccinos for being the mayor of your Starbucks?  You bet I’ll take one with at least an extra shot of espresso.

It wasn’t until about a week later that I started to notice something interesting; I wasn’t finding specials for a lot of venues that I knew had specials.  I could locate the place and then see the “special here” but whenever I would see “special nearby” in a specific area I found it to be Starbucks.  Lately I’ve been encouraging a number of restaurants to actively engage their fan base in defining a FourSquare special (FourSquare Owner).  A lot of times that leads to dishes that are off menu or unique cocktails that are still being tested out.  Now, everywhere I go the $1 off Frappuccino seems to be stalking me.

This isn’t necessarily FourSquare’s fault or even Starbucks.  It just so happens that there are sooo many Starbucks locations that they are killing the unique entries that come from smaller venues.  It’s almost as if Starbucks has blanketed the country in one giant foursquare special.  I’m happy the promotion only lasts a month but we can only assume Starbucks will continue to use this platform to reward digital loyalty in the future.

All we can do is hope that FourSquare continues to refine its location to venue algorithms or update the specials nearby tab to list multiple specials, so that the small guys don’t get left out of all the checking in action.

What was the impact of new media on the UK election?  We are not totally sure, and since we weren’t in the UK during the election or following it like a good voter should, we are not going to answer that here.  However as new media enthusiasts we want to add our post/tweet/support to the UK post mortem.  And we are going to do it by picking apart a particular sloppy Economist article, trumpeting the triumph of old media.  A bit self congratulatory?  Yes we believe so.

As the Economist points out, a record number of people watched the leader’s debate and it led to a ten point swing for Lib Dems, thus old media (in this case TV) wins.  No doubt the televised debate was powerful as measured both by the impact it had on the race and by the days of coverage that followed, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum.  People interacting and engaging through social media might have generated additional interest prior to the event and led to the high viewership.  (Although the novelty of the first leader’s debate probably would have had a strong audience on any medium)  Twitter and Facebook have also been shown to amplify the impact of an event, which might have exaggerated the Lib Dems swing.

Strangely the article also positions social media as a niche media noting that television has the ability to reach more people.  Sure everyone has a TV and not everyone has a Facebook account and even less have a Twitter handle.  But relegating social media as the trendy fad for the young and hip stopped being a viable news angle in 2008. The day of the election #Ukelection #election, GE2010 and other related hashtags were the trending topics on Twitter.  While ‘trending topics’ does not have great utility for marketers it is a genuine measure of interest.  If there are 50 million tweets per day, a trending topic usually means there are more than 5 million related tweets to that topic.  5 million tweets, multiple hash tags, multiple days…you get the idea.

Measuring Tweets | Twitter Trends

Not to mention some of the most popular stories on the web and in those old time newspapers were related to tweets and posts about the hung parliament.  Our personal favorite the 404 Government not Found spoof, it got picked up by the BBC, UK Guardian and was pretty much retweeted from every British person we follow.

TV and social media tools are fundamentally different mediums.  TV remains and will remain one of the best ways to blast out a message or a series of static images.  The power of social media is that it does what TV cannot.  It solicits a call to action.  It encourages debate and collaboration in real time, which was demonstrated throughout the election and on polling day when people reported voting, problems, and irregularities.

Voting Map

So there you go, our straw into the haystack pile of the ‘power of social media.’  Lots of other people are going to do much better analysis such as @jamescrabtree, @nextleft, @iaindale, but we just couldn’t let the Economist get away with this one.

Frank Washington is the morning stock employee, or the line cook, or the owner.  Bottom line is he has to be there, he works there.

While FourSquare is a great game, colonizing the world over, the game is meant to benefit the customer.  It might not be possible for you to keep your inner Napoleon at bay all the time, but realize you are killing a valuable business opportunity by checking in at your own place or allowing your employee’s to regularly check in.  FourSquare is a game with a built in opportunity for business owners.  It gives you the opportunity to track and reward loyalty through “specials” at each venue.

@TheSouthernChi: Show that you’ve checked in and receive $2 off any Jack Daniel’s Drink.

@BaoMouth: Mayor of Wow Bao gets a free 6-pack of bao! All others, show you checked in at Wow Bao and get a free bao when you buy one

You can even keep track of these check in’s with the FourSquare venue page which gives you a small inventory of all the people who have checked in at your spot and a basic stat package.  To utilize FourSquare to drive business make sure the special you run is engaging.

• In a high traffic area, make sure to reward the mayor so that individuals keep vying for the top spot.
• Change up the special!  If someone comes in a month after their first check in and you have the same special, don’t be surprised to hear a groan of disappointment.  People want to be surprised and they want to be rewarded.  Is that so wrong?
• Utilize all social media platforms to promote your foursquare special.  People who use foursquare are almost always present on other social platforms like Facebook and Twitter.  Make sure to put it out to twitter as there are a host of “daily specials” twitter accounts that will retweet your post and expose your venue to a larger audience. The more people know about your special, the more they will participate.
• Ask for feedback, ask your twitter followers and facebook fans to sound off on what they want.  Is it a half price appetizer or a free pitcher of beer for the mayor?  What about a special for everyone who checks on the 4^th of every month? Post it to facebook, see if any of your most loyal customers are happy with the special.  If they are, they’ll engage – that simple.
• Most importantly, keep experimenting until you find the type of specials that work for your audience.