You might have noticed people posting check-ins from Foursquare on their Facebook profiles, or you may have seen the Foursquare logo somewhere on the net. What exactly is it, and why should you care? Well, it has some great social marketing potential, as well as being a way to reward your loyal customers.
Foursquare is a social networking program that allows people to connect with their friends – you can see where your friends are and ‘check in’ as you go to various places. Some of it is kind of silly fun – you can unlock badges, so if your inner Girl Scout didn’t earn enough as a child that is one possible plus. But you can also leave tips and read tips left by others. For example, you might be in a new restaurant or visiting a new city and you don’t know what to do – what is the best dish on the menu? What should be avoided? Which tourist attraction is worth the time and money to visit, and which isn’t? Reading the tips will let you know – and often it is the small things that would not be noted in typical restaurant reviews or tour guidebooks. But tips can also be used to share information on specials – so why not put that out there?
It can also be used as a rewards program. The person with the most check-ins at a place within a certain period of time gets bragging rights as ‘mayor’ of that location. Many businesses offer special perks to the mayor – nothing huge, but something that will keep them coming back. For photographers, that might be a free 8X10 with their session or a waived session fee. Of course, the mayor will only get those perks if they patronize your business – so they will have to keep coming to reap the rewards! You could also do a special prize opportunity for customers who ‘check in’ at lest once during a certain time period – have a drawing for a big prize.
When a foursquare user logs on to the app, it will show a list of places nearby. If your business is listed, everyone who opens up the app within a certain range of your business will see it there. Maybe they never knew you existed – maybe they’ve been looking for a local photographer, but your name didn’t come up in whatever search they did. Why not take advantage of the local factor?
Word of Mouth is a big seller for many small businesses – and Foursquare can help with that. Foursquare users can add friends to their accounts, and they will see where their friends are checking in. When your customers who use Foursquare check in at your business, their friends will see it as well. Take advantage of that by encouraging your customers to log in and you may find new customers calling.
Like any other social media, Foursquare isn’t going to be the savior of your business. But considering the cost of adding it to your arsenal of marketing strategies (did I mention that it’s free?), it’s one more thing to put in your bag of tricks.
I’ve recently been playing around with a new wordpress theme that has a very specific use – it makes a mobile version of your website, sized perfectly for smartphones, iPods, etc.
The first question you might ask is “Why should I have a mobile site? Can’t people just look at my regular site?” The answer is yes and no. Some mobile devices can’t display flash – so if you have a beautiful flash site, potential customers who are browsing on their iPads and iPhones won’t see much of anything. Also, regular sites aren’t as easy to navigate on mobile devices – having a ‘one-finger navigation’ set-up makes it much easier for viewers to enjoy your site. Finally, images that look great on monitors with fast connections might take so long to download onto a mobile device that viewers get annoyed with the wait time and end up going elsewhere! While some users have unlimited data usage, not all do – so smaller images optimized to look good on a mobile device really do make a difference.
The mobile site is separate from your main website – it is basically a wordpress blog, but one with a theme that displays well on mobile devices. It’s a simple layout with easy to navigate controls and unlimited galleries and sub-galleries for your work. If you are familiar with wordpress, it can be very easy to set up and maintain. I found it to be intuitive and it does exactly what it is supposed to do, without any bugs or glitches.
You can set up your mobile site with whatever address you like, although putting in a directory called /mobile is the obvious choice. You can even set it up to detect mobile devices, so that viewers will automatically be forwarded to your mobile site whenever they look at it on their device!
The theme is available at ifolios.mobi – the theme itself is $89. You can buy the theme from them, and they do offer installation and set-up services. Or, you can have me do the installation and/or customization once you’ve purchased the theme from them. If you’d like me to install the site and you do the content, the cost is $70. If you’d like me to install the site for you as well as do all of the customization and set-up (background, logo, links, portfolios) the cost is $100.
If you’d like to see the theme in action, check out my mobile site: lovebugsphotographydesigns.com/mobile. It doesn’t look like much on a regular monitor, but on a mobile device it’s just right!
Are you a new photographer, just starting out in business? It can be overwhelming to do all of the the things that need to be done so that you’re up and running. Lovebugs Photography Designs can help get your website off the ground!
For $500, you can have us ‘do it all’ – get you from point A to point B, so that you’ll have a website you can show customers.
The $500 includes the following services:
1. Set up a hosting and domain for you, with one year of hosting (after the year is up, you’ll need to renew and pay the hosting company).
2. Set up a WordPress blog on your server, customized to match your branding and logo (this is the basic or basic with theme upgrade option).
3. Set up Photocart for you customized to match your branding and logo.
4. Set up your portfolio website (if you have one) using the template you choose.
5. Set up a splash page that links to your blog, proofing and portfolio sites.
Please note: You will need to buy Photocart from www.picturespro.com before we can install it for you and set it up.
You will also need to purchase whatever sort of portfolio website you desire, through the company of your choice – Portfoliositez, Flashpalette, Winklet, and Bludomain are all possible vendors.
If you don’t have a lot of time to get the computer side of things done, or you just aren’t technology-inclined, this is money very well spent.
