Three Tools Marketers Overlook
Marketers and PR types looking to use the social web to build business relationships receive more than enough advice on using blogs, wikis, podcasts, and social networks to connect. While you’re considering which software tools might work for your online marketing strategies, don’t forget these three sites, especially if you have location- or niche-based information, products, or services to promote.
Yelp - Yelp is a social site that allows users to vote and review local businesses. Most commonly used to review restaurants, Yelp also has categories for professional services, shopping, places, education, home services, real estate and more. I wouldn’t recommend “stuffing the box,” so to speak, or voting for your own product or service, but with a little creative campaigning, it’s not too difficult to get a few people to at least take a look at your product or service, and give their opinion. I’ve also found that Yelp seems to be the ONLY web presence some local businesses have. If you were looking to work with smaller businesses, you could find lots of new customers this way, too.
Upcoming.org - Upcoming is a local event guide for the web. There are a few ways to use this. For marketers, if you’re throwing events, always make sure Upcoming has a copy of your event in there. If you’re looking to meet more business prospects, tracking events in the areas where you’re going is a really great way to build some new potential business relationships. I find that when attending conferences, a quick scan of Upcoming.org for that city and those dates almost always finds me something cool to attend that no one else seems to know about.
Meetup.com- Ah, the best new tagline in the world: Use the Internet to Get Off the Internet. First, watch this nifty little video they created:
Meetup.com is often overlooked as a place to market. One way is to build a small meetup local to your organization that covers the same area your product or service is used in. For instance, if I made a software that helped small to midsized businesses collaborate better over the web, I might throw together a Small Business Meetup for the nearest decent city near the office, and then at least show up to the monthly face-to-face meetings. It’s an instant word of mouth opportunity, provided you approach the situation in a helpful way instead of just trying to foist your product on people.
There are several tools like this that you might not have considered creatively in your potential online efforts. These might have even sparked other ideas for other tools people use on the web in a slightly different way. If so, let’s talk about that in the comments, shall we?
Otherwise, what do you think? Does this make sense? Any other recommendations?
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Comments
It’s funny how so many people still don’t understand how to “Use the Internet to Get Off the Internet”.
I really think once people figure out how to use the social web for local marketing, that’s when everything will really go mainstream. Too many marketing/PR pros approach the Internet as an either or proposition — they either reach an audience online OR offline. Very few see the potential power that blurring the line will bring.
hola!! Chris
Yes, yes I have overlooked these. Dammit, I’ve been slcackin, will get on it TODAY.
I hope everything is kickin’ ass for you sir
@Aronado
Hi,
I would like to open an account for meetup - be aware there is no contract for free nor a limited version - ugh!
Stefan
Chris,
Thanks for the the information on some very cool tools. Marketers and companies could utilize in a very creative way to reach their targeted demographic.
Juan David
@juandlondono
Hey Chris,
Thanks for this. We are working on a local restaurant project and totally left Yelp off our project grid. Thanks for adding to our to do list.
I’ve signed up and attended a meetup and I think they are great. Find one that fits your niche and go. They are usually very casual and revolve around a topic and happy hour resulting in small talk between people. It’s a way to slowly introduce your product to others as well as network in your industry. I will be attending more and recommend it to anyone.
We have a big Yelp! community in Washington, DC. They are viral, they are communal, they are artsy, literary, funny, no nonsense not to mention they throw some great happy hours here!
Nice. I just did a quick check on my day job in Yelp, and found a nice piece of feedback… Yet another great tool, Chris.
Hi Chris,
Funny you should point this out, I was at the Portland Maine Tweetup last night and found myself speaking to a restauranteur about social media. My first piece of advice was to use Yelp. 1. Listen to his customers and 2. Encourage his customers to write a review and then gave him specific examples of promoting such ideas.
I am a huge fan of Yelp as we have it built in on our WHERE iPhone app.
Thanks for the suggestions.
I always wondered how I could mix my online clients with the offline ones. Your suggestions should help to bring the two worlds together.
Thanks,
Michele Weeks
@AskMichele
http://www.askmicheleweeks.com
I think online opportunities are overlooked in general. It’s so easy to get caught up in the traditional marketing methods, causing us to forget that it’s a changing world.
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Chris,
This video is awesome. I have just begun blogging and using social media and my friends and family keep looking at me and asking me if I’m ever going to step outside again. I’ve ignored them for the most part, but this put it all into perspective. Thank you.
BTW, I love your articles and your blog. That’s why I just put up a poll on my blog asking people who their favorite social media guru is and obviously I listed you as one of the choices. I’m sure lots of people will vote for you.
Thanks again. I’m learning lots.
Sharon
http://footinblog.wordpress.com
Great advice Chris. I just stumbled on Upcoming a couple of weeks ago and have already started using it to post events and classes we’re offering at the store. I’m interested to see if it can drive any traffic. Good point about being proactive with Yelp - need to do a better job of asking customers to post their experience with us both in-store and on-line. Maybe some sort of an incentive?
OFf to figure out Meetup and how it might fit in for us.
Thanks as always for sharing useful info!
What a lot of swell folks you are. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It’s neat to see that you had a similar experience to me.
Meetup is not too hot. There is an exodus of event organizers from meetup.com (including ourselves). Platform is too rigid and people are moving away to smaller sites or rolling their own.
Just my 2cents.
Apolinaras “Apollo” Sinkevicius
Revolve, Inc.
Flexpertise(TM) - Business Law - Capital
http://www.revolvethis.com
Chris,
I have joined two Meetups.
One has resulted in meeting Leon for your project just handed over to Jim K.
The other has resulted in free pizza and water once per month in San Francisco, with the ‘millionaire-genuises’ of PPC.
I have been on Twitter, which led to my attending BlogWorld Expo 2008 for free, as a result of my offering videography services.
BlogWorld is where I met you after your panel and the Market Leverage Dinner.
The ‘power of the web’ and Social Networking is the key to my early success in meeting ‘thought-leaders’ like you who can advise a newbie in the application of tools and techniques for growing an on-line business.
Thank you for your clarity and professional acumen. It is a clear voice amongst the din and clatter of e-book marketers and ’stricly-SEO’ purveyors in the Wild-West-Of-The-Internet marketing experience.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase - ‘the video guy’ at BlogWorld Expo 2008
I’ve used Twitter & Upcoming a lot to organize Tweetups and Social Media Luncheons out here in Los Angeles.
I made it out to a few events on Meetup but started using it less and less as time went by because I ran into a lot of what seemed to be gimmicky “get-togethers.” People blasting the network to sell this or sell that. It became evident to me that I wasn’t going to find the benefit that I was looking for.
With the tweetups and luncheons, everyone always benefited from the collaborative discussion around social media. There’s always something new to talk about, a new idea to share…the conversation moves forward. Ya know?
Hi Chris
Yes, are absolutely right most people have overlooked these. We’ve been using it since last summer and have seen its benefits.
Nice you mentioned it here again
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Marketers spend a lot of time on MySpace, Facebook and on their own blogs, wikis and podcasts to connect to other marketers and to potential customers. That’s all fine and good – it’s great, actually, but many marketers are exclusively……
I love Meetup.com. I’ve met some good business contacts by taking my dog, a Puggle, to a Puggle Owners’ Meetup group. I’m afraid to attend any business-type of meetups though because I don’t want to be sold a timeshare (which I’ve heard of happening to a business associate)! I’ve never used Yelp before and didn’t even know it existed and it looks good from what I’ve briefly checked out. Thanks for the tip!
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Good article, but it’s interesting that you mention Upcoming.org. For San Francisco, I find it to be pretty sparse compared to Craigslist events (http://sfbay.craigslist.org/cal/). I’m pretty sure that Craigslist also has much higher traffic than Upcoming.
I’d recommend that marketers look at both Upcoming and Craigslist, and post to whichever makes the most sense for the market/community they’re trying to reach.
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don't forget fax-marketing!
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+1 Aaron
Wow Chris,
we just posted on the same topic how cool.
I truly believe in Meetups are a great way to get to opinion leaders and target your audience.
Last night i attended the London Bloggers Meetup and Smirnoff was there cerating a personal and engaging expereince
Julius