Twitter just launched their Geo-API for the rest of us...  What does this mean? It means you need to be careful about where you're tweeting from, or change your settings.  Remember FourSquare's problem?

I'm working on this side project that I'd love to get some feedback on. I caution you, it's slightly nerdy, and will most likely only interest marketing/advertising/research people and geeks.

The site is 4QR.me and it's essentially the marriage of Quick Response codes (those 2D checker-board things you see on the FedEx label) and Short URLs (like TinyURL, Bit.ly, etc) except with a reusable component making the effort more long-term, and with built-in analytics, to make it more attractive to marketers.

I made a nice picture to help explain it.

I'd love to get your feedback about how this early concept works, so if you'd like an invite to this private beta, just go here and get one.  If you want a bit more info, check out the blog I set up to explain it.  Cheers.

People think that all of these random, albeit funny, Facebook pages are harmless. You can always hide or un-Fan, right? Yes and No.
Here's the trick:  You create a page that people rally behind, because it's timely, funny, etc.  You get people to share with their friends, and spend most of your effort on your quest to a number (Most fans than Stephen Harper, or more Canadians than Americans, etc).  You end up with possibly hundreds of thousands of people who are fans. I watched the "Sidney Crosby's Goal" fan page go up by tens of thousands in under a day after his amazing gold-medal winning goal. But why? It's a rally-point, but not something/someone you want to hear from again and again. Once you have all these fans, you can un-publish the page.  It won't be found in search by anyone except admins, and somewhat disappears from the site.  So now what.

Well, as the spammer that you are, you have have the ability to inject marketing into the streams of your fans. This is the key to any Fan Page.  The ability to inject targeted messaging, images, links, video or any combination thereof into the feeds of fans is a dream for a shifty marketer.

Now the rub is that with every deployment, if it's too spammy, you'll get hidden, you'll get reported, etc.  If it's just commercial enough to get the point across, but not piss anyone off, you're golden.  You also can't change the name of your page, so it will always say "Can this Pickle get more fans than Nickleback" before all your messages, however you can of course change your profile picture and thumbnail to anything else.

I have a feeling the spammers know this.  I have a feeling the average person does not (which is why we see some many of these pages spreading like herpes).  You're not likely to ever see a trusted brand pull this kind of move, because it would get eaten up in the media, and would lose a lot more than fans-- however, it's average joe's that have made most of the viral pages, and they may not have the same code of conduct.

Beware.

One of the side benefits of doing campaigns on Facebook using social ads, is that if the ad copy and image and headline are crafted properly, and the landing page is relevant, and the fans are engaged by what you're doing, you can actually grow a fan base in addition to marketing your campaign.

The graph above is my approximation of two curves relevant to this discussion. The first is ad spending, and this can be across all campaigns, regions and internal stakeholders, as long as the ads are all going to the fan page.  The second is showing the growth of the fan base.

Stage 1) You have very few fans. Your social ads are targeting lots of different groups for various campaigns and of all these people, a percentage will stick around and become a fan. Anything you put in your news feed (and thus push out to your fans) is generic, because you don't have very many fans.

Stage 2) You're starting to get a fan base. You are targeting ads more and more, but your existing fans are still seeing everything you push out to them.

Stage 3) Fan base is starting to take off. Now you are starting to target your posts so that you push more relevant offers, events, etc.  You still have some generic content for everyone, but that's brand-building stuff, and only engages on the surface.  You're still doing highly targeted ads, but your fan base is starting to cover almost all of your market (who are on Facebook anyway...)

Stage 4) This is where you want to be. You have a huge fan base now, and can get a huge lift in sales or community engagement for event (or any other action) just by targeting posts in your feed.  Almost everything you're doing now is targeted. (You're using a spreadsheet just to keep track of what your posting, because there are some many stakeholders and groups involved.  Ad spending can now start to be scaled back (see graph). You're reaching so many people (who are telling their friends, who tell their friends) that you only need to spend on social ads to get the buzz started, or to launch something out of left field, or to find a new audience (for example when Dove started marketing harder to men: Their existing base was likely a high percentage of women).

We all want to get to my Stage 4.  Huge fan base. Lots of eyeballs, lots of engagement, comments, interaction and conversation-- but to get there, organic growth isn't enough.

Consider your next marketing campaign, and examine the marketing mix. How much are you allocating to digital, and of that, how much are you spending on clicks from your exact audience.  It really puts it in perspective when you compare what kind of conversion you can get from $5000 in social ads vs. that same $5000 spent on the radio...  

Agree? Disagree?  Let me know.

Do you have a blackberry? Are you friends with people who have a blackberry? Would you want your friends to know where you are without having to tell them? Latitude is for you.

Different from many of the 'Check In' based apps out there like Gowalla and FourSquare, Google Latitude is much simpler, and (personally) more useful. Many have said that it's too big-brother to share real-time GPS location with their friends, but I have to say-- when you're trying to pull off the ultimate Romantic Weekend in Niagara Falls, and your friends are on their way down via car from Toronto, knowing where they are to time the surprise in the lobby is unbelievable. Just ask Danielle and Claire.

First, it's Google Maps. Amazing maps, overlay for satellite or traffic, plus streetview where available. This is ridiculous. Street view on a mobile device is the best thing to happen to "I can't find the place" since sliced bread. Since Google Latitude is a service that's fully integrated with Google Maps, there's no switching or closing, just turn it on, and your friends appear on the map. Assuming many of your friends are savvy and awesome like you, when you are in a part of town that you don't normally go to, you can see who's around and maybe who's already at the party, etc.  Great for meeting up, timing a rendezvous, or seeing where the action is.

Second, it's got individual privacy settings. Say you want your wife to know exactly where you are, but your out of town friends to just know that you're 'In Town' you can customize who sees what. You can even temporarily set a location if you're supposed to be at the dentist but you're at the ball game instead.

Third, the alibi generator.  Quietly and securely, Google is keeping track of all of the GPS data funneled through Latitude in a Location History page. I can view where I've been, what time, what route I took, etc.  I see this useful for two things: 1) Accused of a crime I didn't commit. 2) Business owner tracking all of their employees/fleet/deliveries, etc.   What a great tool to be able to see utilization of a team of couriers, or track the travel routes of the pizza guys to optimize delivery time.  Business can use this for Business reasons.  (Just tell your employees you're tracking them, for the love of god.)

What are some other ways that businesses (who spend all this money on Blackberrys just so that their employees can read email and make calls) can use apps like this to save or make money? How about insurance claims?  If you're already tracking GPS with a Time/Date stamp, you could have employees take a photo of an accident (or whatever incident would be relevant to your business) and email it.  Great. But what about something that benefits the customer?  Real time "Where is my Pizza?" maybe? UPS does it (sort of) with package tracking, but the next step in that evolution is a real-time GPS location on that package. Or Pizza.

The downfall for individuals, much like the other services I mentioned-- if your friends don't use it, what's the point. It's a very symmetrical social networking tool. It makes very little sense to share your exact location with strangers, so this type of networking is more akin to the privacy of Facebook or trusted-walled-garden of LinkedIn, vs. the openness and random sharing and asymmetry of Twitter and the like. It does work for business though.

Since those with a blackberry should be using Google Maps instead of Blackberry maps anyway, I recommend you test this out with a trusted friend. 

Google's Street View team strapped some equipment to a snowmobile (or SkiDoo if you're Canadian) and took a tour around Whistler, BC in all their beautiful pre-Olympic glory.  Here's the Link.  Google Street View at Whistler.

Ontario's newest, most famous apple is the Red Prince.  A variety of apples brought over from Europe and now grown locally in Ontario, the Red Prince is in the midst of a very public PR campaign, beginning on Friday with the distribution of 10,000 apples to the public, in the PATH in Toronto.

THE RED PRINCE CIVILITY EVENT - PHOTO OP AND FREE PUBLIC EVENT
What: The Red Prince Civility Event
When: Friday, February 5th from 11am until 2pm
Where: Toronto's underground PATH system at the Exchange Tower (130 King Street West, on the Concourse level in the main hallway) and First Canadian Place (100 King Street West, on the Concourse level near the waterfall)
Why: To celebrate the Red Prince apple and to reintroduce manners and etiquette to society
Who: Everyone

 I was lucky enough to get the Etiquette Pack from Faye Clack, the agency handling the account. What a delight!  I had already become a Fan of their Facebook Page, and followed the new Red Prince Twitter feed, and thought that the Etiquette Pack would be a PDF or some documentation about the history of the apple.  Nope.  I was sent 5 polished Red Prince Apples, one of which (above) you'll see came (like royalty) on a little red pillow.  Now that's classy!

Of course I did get the background, and the details of the launch, but more importantly, I got the product to taste.  Claire was reading the info pack with me, and said something like "what does it taste like?"-- so we tried them for dessert after tonight's Rigatoni and Meatballs.  They're great.  Crunchy, juicy, sweet but not too sweet, tart but not like a granny smith tart, firm but not hurt your gums firm, with a thin enough skin that you don't need to peel it.  (Side note:  I had a Granny Smith the other day and after the first piece, had to peel it, because it was like eating leather. Blechh.)

It's a great apple, but what better way to tell people about it then to give away 10,000 of them and get people talking about it themselves.  For more info about the apples, the launch, or the company, check out their website: Red Prince Apples