Caveat: This is fun and non-scientific and directional. It took me about 15 minutes. I created three groups of posts:

• all posts about Scott Brown
• all about Martha Coakley
• all posts about Scott Brown and Martha Coakley

And through the magic of Social Media Monitoring (thanks @Radian6)…

Both Candidates are Campaigning Hard

Looks Like Brown Has a Slight Edge in Voting

query: voted for Brown (and not Coakley) vs. voted for Coakley (and not Brown)

Brown’s Supporters Are More Passionate

query: Love / Like / Hate / Dislike Brown (and not Coakley) vs. Love / Like / Hate / Dislike Coakley (and not Brown)

It’s going to be interesting to see how this one shakes out. I am voting later today.

Originally written for and also published at my employer, allen & gerritsen’s site.

Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, the crowd has a really good idea about what you do during a given day. iPhone and Android’s onboard GPS has given way to location based social networks like BrightKite, Foursquare and Gowalla, which allow you to tell your friends where you are and how often you go there. Location based applications are the next frontier, and in fact are predicted to be next year’s big thing, offering unlimited possibility for communication by geography and, of course, advertising.

My last two sessions at SXSW 2009 featured players in location based social networking. I remember being fascinated by how they approached it primarily because Gregory Ng and I concepted our own in 2007 (prior owning an iPhone and iPhone’s “reliable” GPS).

Applications

Each of the location based apps have the ability to figure out where a person is located. The user “checks in” to locations, signifying their arrival. In addition, the user is able to send messages to let people know what they are doing.

BrightKite allows you to post a status update and a picture.

Foursquare gives you points for creating and “checking in” to a location. It also has has a leaderboard to see how you rank against your friends and your city.

Gowalla’s check-ins are similar in that you can post a note, but the app also has quirky little items that you find and leave for others. For instance, I currently have an espresso, a silk robe and a tour bus in my inventory. I am never going to drop that tour bus. That is awesome. You can either exchange items for items left by others, or drop an item to become a “Founder” of a spot. I cannot say that I fully understand the purpose, although Gowalla says that they use the items as proxies for how important a particular place is.

Each application relies on the users to create locations at spots and rewards them for doing so.

Integrations

Each of the services works with Twitter and Facebook, allowing you to connect with friends from those networks and to post notifications. Some might call this oversharing (particularly if you are friends with people on Twitter, Facebook and the Location based network).

Foursquare has recently also announced an API that is will make it even more appealing to the community.

The secret to extension of social applications is the ability to integrate it into a grander scheme. With integration with Twitter and Facebook already functional, the API combined with its game-like addictiveness will give it an advantage over all other LBSNs. BrightKite also has an API, but adoption has been much slower because people simply do not have a lot of incentive to use the platform even though it is probably the best in terms of geo-location. BrightKite needs to evolve and add incentives for use in order to stand up against its competitors and survive.

Advertising Features

Foursquare appears to be the leader in advertising and monetization. I’ve started to see some “nearby special” bannerettes pop up when I am about to check in to a place. Foursquare allows locations to give special deals to mayors. A mayor is the person who has checked into a place the most. This creates a little bit of competition between loyal customers. There’s a great opportunity to generate social buzz and loyalty by being an early adopter.

Who Wins?

The winner is the one who makes money. There are a couple of ways for an organization to do so. One is to be acquired by another organization who is interested in your compelling technology. The other way is to actually have a business model that makes money. Obviously it is desirable to have both going for you. The winner will also have a very compelling API which will allow them to scale and proliferate rapidly. FourSquare’s looks to be based largely on Twitter’s which has been wildly successful. Foursquare has already begun selling ads that are based on where a person is physically. I have noticed ads when I go to check into a place. They say something like Deal Nearby and offer you a click path to that location with an easy back to your original location. Brightkite has some banner ads that display after you check in to a location. I have not noticed similar features on Gowalla yet.

Behavioral Data and Analytics

The real win here is that location data can be linked to conversations on both the application’s platform and on associated Twitter (and soon perhaps Facebook) streams. You can get a clear picture of how a person behaves by where they go, how often they go there, where their friends go, how often they meet their friends and what they talk about when they are there – or after they go there. An analytics offering segmented by demographics and interests would be very valuable to marketers. They would also pay to see analysis of popular places so that they know where to place their ads.

We know where they go and we know what they’re thinking.

Now we just need to get them to buy something.

Given the amount of information we have, I am sure we can find something appropriate to sell.

A public service message from Team Boston

Please support our efforts to cure cancer. http://bit.ly/bostonbeatcancer

What is Movember?

You may have noticed people walking around with additional (or in my case bigger and stranger) facial hair. These people are not trying to get in touch with their inner Joe Namath, they are involved in the fight against cancer. During the month of November, many of us have decided to band together and battle against men’s cancer. November is Movember.

The quick and dirty legend is that a group of guys were sitting together enjoying a few pints. Half were talking about giving back to the community and the other half were saying you know, I could grow a better Mo (moustache) than you can. You got your chocolate in my peanut butter and your peanut butter is in my chocolate. Wham. Movember is born.

Everyone Has a MOtivation

Everyone has their MOtivations. On the fun side, people style their Mo after someone ridiculous or famous. At the end is a gala where you dress up as your MOtivation.

We also have personal motivations. This year I learned that my uncle has stage 4 cancer throughout most of his body. It’s in his lungs, brain and spine among other places. He started with a melanoma on his neck and they thought they were able to take it all out. Unfortunately, it spread. I am fighting to improve treatments for others in a hope that we can keep them from suffering the way my uncle has and is.

Please consider donation of ANY amount. $1 $5 $10 $1000 $5000 $10000. If your company has a corporate giving program, I would love to talk to them. I will perform spectacle, create video or exchange time for donations. Want me to shave my head or go Brazilian? I’ll do it for $10K corporate donation. Be creative. Those of you who know me know that I am willing to do / eat just about anything for a laugh or just to create fun content to prove a point.

Team Boston

This year, we’ve assembled a group of marketers and social medialites in Boston to battle the forces of Team Austin. It’s billed as a competition, but it’s really a group of like minded souls who want to help bring attention to the need to destroy testicular and prostate cancer.

We started by shaving down to nothing

Mr Movember

And we’ve all been shaving a little less than usual in an effort to raise money to fight this horrible disease. For the record, here are the team members and their Movember Space pages. You can donate to any of them and it supports Team Boston and cancer research.

I recently had the opportunity to represent Allen & Gerritsen in Marcia Gray’s Marketing and PR class at Boston College. The class was made up of about 45-50 juniors and seniors who are studying Marketing as part of their business curriculum.

Conversation

I started the class by talking about conversations. I told them that I was not there to lecture, but that I was a consultant and that I am used to having dialogues with my clients where they challenge my thinking. I assured them that I am not a social media expert by any means, but that I have some experience using social media that they could possibly benefit from. I then swallowed hard – half expecting that they would end up teaching me a thing or two. They did not disappoint me.

Poll

I started by polling them.

Who is using Facebook? 100% of the class raised their hands including Marcia and I.
MySpace? No one was willing to admit they own an account.
Foursquare? Huh?
Gowalla? Gowhatta?

The surprise was when I asked: Who is using Twitter?

Not more than 5 people. I expected 30-40%. I was off base. I bit my lip, fighting the urge to tell them why I thought that twitter was a necessity for them, and asked them why they weren’t using the platform. Here’s what they said:

• I’m already on Facebook. Twitter is just another platform. Why should I bother?
• It’s yet another distraction from school and real life.
• My friends don’t have anything interesting to say on Twitter.
• It’s tough to get started on Twitter. I don’t really get it.
• I don’t give a ______.
• You need to constantly leave Twitter to consume content.
• One person sighted a cost in Europe for cell phone bandwidth.

I told them that their reasons for avoiding twitter were fascinating. I encouraged them to join twitter because it would open doors for them that they might not otherwise be able open. I told them that it would give them the ability to find like-minded individuals that they would like to get to know, network with or do business with. It would also give them a platform to build an interested niche audience.

I think I got them thinking about using free tools to build relationships, promote themselves and potentially establish themselves as opinion leaders in subjects for which they are passionate.

Thanks Rebecca Sullivan for making it happen.

Mr Movember from Schneider Mike on Vimeo.

Shaving my goatee so that I can grow the perfect Mo. I hate cancer.

Help me crush cancer by donating to my #Movember team. http://bit.ly/killcancer

You can also join my team: bit.ly/jointeamBOS

If you want to tweet or Facebook this link or either of the other 2, I would be grateful.

Steve Garfield invites us up to the stage to make media during his presentation on the simplicity of video creation.

Nearly every panel on Social Media mentions Marcel Lebrun’s team and the Radian 6 platform. With that comes the obligatory mention of the Listen, Measure, Engage methodology. During the MITX Brand Personification #MITXSM panel on September 17,2009, there was mention of the usual tenets of social media:

• Be transparent
• Do not attempt to control the conversation
• Engage

Each of these is riddled with theory versus practice, but the focus for now is engagement.

How do you decide where to engage?

Deciding where to engage should come from two angles. First, you need to decide how you want to represent your brand in social spaces and therefore you should have an idea of how you want to align with conversations that you deem important to you and your success. Important: you need to be willing to allow this to evolve.

offline your band is what you say, in online spaces, your brand is what the crowd says about you

The second angle is listening to the crowd. At #mitxsm, we established that in online spaces, your brand is what the crowd says about you. That means you need to listen to the crowd. They are going to dictate the conversation whether the brand likes it or not. A brand can choose not to participate, but there are consequences to ignoring a conversation with significant participation. Significant participation is not always number of people, it has everything to do with who is participating. Pissing off one influential individual can have a serious ripple effect.

What are the 2 Rules of Engagement?

Respond
A brand needs to speak to the people who are engaging. When someone addresses the brand, it should respond in kind with an honest answer. This is not always pretty. Even brands who are known for engagement like @Jetblue and @SouthwestAir get the occasional hater. [aside: @JetBlue seems to be ignoring a couple of haters. I am talking to them to see why they hate and if the brand has enaged them via DM versus openly]. It’s how you handle the feedback that counts. You can win the haters over or at the very least you can show how you graciously accept them and incorporate their feedback. Both win you points. Your brand may be late to the game because the crowd has already kicked off the conversation on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter etc, but it’s never too late to join.

Provoke
The conversations that you care about may not exist the way you envision them. That does not necessarily mean that the crowd does not care or want to have that conversation. Brands need to be willing to provoke, instigate, antagonize or tease out a conversation. The best way to start conversations is to seek out individuals who would be likely to participate.

What? Well, if your product is adventure oriented, you might seek out people in the extreme sports, mountain climbing, hiking, mountain biking, kite surfing and shark tossing crowds. Then kick off a conversation. If you want to be known as the fertilizer expert, then talk about fertilizer with people who like to talk about landscaping, lawn care and gardening. Do not worry about whether you know people. Jump in. Discuss your views. Push out content that your audience cares about. Debate the merits of your ideas and the merits of the ideas of others in the crowd. Eventually you will make new friends. You will even get to a point where you are meeting people “offline” and while you may start your conversation with a “nice to meet you” handshake, your conversation will pick up where you left off online because you already have a relationship.

Brand can be complex because companies and people are complex. Remember, when these rules apply to both personal and corporate brands. Mine is about social media, measurement, emerging technology, burrito enthusiasm, events, beer (which i channel through an alternate persona) and a little about style. I outwardly do not take myself too seriously but I do take my brand seriously.

@Direct_Tire engaged me today when I was talking about walking to work after dropping my car off for repairs. They got me to respond, but missed a chance to have a real conversation with them after I responded.

If you are a band, engage your fans or engage fans of music that you are paired with in the music genome project (Pandora), but find out what they like beyond your music. Analyze and choose the commonalities and have the conversation stem from there.

Remember, you are now building relationships, not just pushing out content. You can sponsor user generated content to get conversations going as well.

You can create campaigns using outreach programs that give people who like your products resources to create content for you, like Ford did with the #Fiestamovement. Oh and you thought I was just going to dog Ford in this article. Nah. They have made some good moves. And If you’re really feeling bold, engage your competition. That’s a sure fire way to get people talking.

The bottom line is that social media is not for the meek. What brand do you know that has a tenet of meekness? None. Is your brand engaging? What is holding you back?

Feature after wonderful feature, Friendfeed’s web interface is beautifully elegant. Control the flow of your content stream from raging amazon river to gentle backyard creek with easy-to-create groups. Beautifully done is the find / invite friends feature which not only allows you to subscribe to friends from other social networks, but lets you create a group on-the-fly.

If you’re a marketer, social media pirate, brand, celebrity or super hero, you probably have a friendfeed account, but are you using it? We know that content is king and friendfeed allows you to bring it all together for show – while also allowing you access to ALL of your friends’ content. Seriously. The Friendfeed team was tied to a chair, eyelids glued open and force fed Barney and Sesame Street until they fully understood that EVERYTHING must be shared.

Share Your Content

And share you can! Not only does it have real-time, native integration with 58 (at post time) blogging, bookmarking, video, status, music, books and news tools, it allows you to integrate anything else with an RSS feed. I currently share content from 18 different sites on friendfeed.

Share Your Thoughts

Friendfeed’s Like | Comment | Share features allow you not only to add your own thoughts to a stream, but post them to link prediction markets like digg and stumbleupon or other micromedia sites like facebook and twitter.

Friendfeed has support for comments on any content, but also allows you to pass it through to other social properties with the Share link. Want to follow a conversation for the ages? Like it. The My Discussions feature will pull up everything you like or comment on so it does not get lost in a raging stream.

Share Other Content

Want to share content on Friendfeed? Use the tool bar bookmarklet, or email it to share@friendfeed.com. Friendfeed even has ways to notify you when you receive new content- via text messages and instant messenger. It’s borderline sick.

So, how serious are you about sharing? Probably not as serious as Friendfeed.

The 2009 Boston Gravity Summit was held, surprisingly, in the home of traditional ideals, the Harvard University Alumni Club. The dark woodwork, winding staircases, private dining rooms and original artwork on the walls seemed an unlikely place for new media content delivery. But the hosts allowed the Boston social media scene to descend upon it, some of us in jeans, to tell our collective story to the public. And – this Gravity Summit was broadcast on CNN.

Hammertime

MC Hammer told a story of eyeballs and sales. His “social media” story was a story of authenticity. Ghosting, when someone else updates your social profile on your behalf, he shunned. He likened his experiences in the space to his experiences as a preacher (great question Gradon Tripp). His was the story of an entrepreneur- one who is convinced that he can sell the 250,000,000 Facebook users SOMETHING.

Shenanigans

Disaster Management

Surprisingly awesome was Wendy Harman of the American Red Cross. She told a story of a platform that is critical for disaster management communication. The American Red Cross has 150 twitter personas that they manage. She noted that the Santa Barbara Red Cross was more than likely furiously tweeting about the current forest fire situation in California. The Red Cross is also an excellent case for distributed brand persona management.

Worst Practices

Josh Levine of Rebel Industries gave a great talk on Social Media Worst Practices. He likened social media to a Bill Cosby joke about drug use.

I said to a guy, “Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful?” And the guy said, “Well, it intensifies your personality.” And I said, “Yes, but what if you’re an asshole?”

He also talked about authenticity and using social media to go underground. When complimented on his use of up-and-coming “what’s next” hip-hop artists in a Toyota Scion campaign, he said it was part passion play on his organizations part, but part going to the experts in the crowd to find out who is on the bleeding edge.

THUNDER

Gary Vay Ner Chuk brought the thunder as usual. Although his presentation was shorter than I would have liked, he got across a few key themes. First: people who are buying bus signs and billboards in places like Harvard Square are obviously not watching the crowd. Everyone is looking down at their phone and not looking the ads. Ad spend? Wasted. You think Gary’s a wine guy? He’s a new media guy – THE new media guy.

Firmly grasping that content is king, he also talked more on the topic of content ownership and creation. In true Gary Vaynerchuk fashion, he told us like it is. He said: If you’re truly passionate about the content, you should give it forever. Do it forever, bleed out the eyes, you will be happy because you are doing what you love. In other words: #crushit.

photos by (and of) Gradon Tripp