Geo's Tech PR & Social Media Post

PR and Foursquare??

At first, I didn't quite get the appeal of Foursquare. Ok, so I'm supposed to notify the world when I'm at the bank, the grocery store or Babies "R" Us (yes, I'm a new dad)??  That's a lot of sharing! And, why would anyone want to be the "mayor" of the DMV??

So, I decided to try it out to see what all the fuss was about. After a few days, I started to understand the appeal. It's quite addictive, particularly for folks like me who have a hard time being idle. 

Now I have something to do while waiting for my sandwich to be made at Subway or while going through the car wash. I can see why it has become one of today's hottest mobile apps.

As a social media and PR pro, I naturally think about how something like Foursquare could serve as a business communications and marketing tool. I recently came across a guest post by PR pro, Alison Kenney,on the Lindsay Olson's blog (PR recruiter).

Among the key points Kenney makes, are the fact that mobile, location-based services are becoming big business -- projected to generate $12.7 billion in revenue by 2014 (Juniper Research) -- and that "location-based services are a natural fit for tourism and travel-related brands."

You can read the full post, "What PR Pros Need to Know About Foursquare," here.

Check it out, and let me know what you think.

Geo.

Twitter has 105 million registered users -- pay attention, corporate America

During it's Chirp Developer Conference today, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone (finally) announced the company's registered user number, and it’s big: 105 million.

And that's not all, Twitter its still adding 300,000 users per day.

Say or think what you want about Twitter -- most people either love it or hate it -- but I think that these numbers should put to rest any lingering doubts corporate America may still have about the viability of Twitter as a legitimate communications and marketing tool.

Now, I know it's far from perfect, the company still needs to figure out how to best monetize the service and a lot of the content is, well, silly (to be kind). And, Twitter is not the be-all-end-all social media tool for all companies and situations.

Still, I have a feeling that this type of news may light a small, but visible fire under communications and marketing managers that may have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right time to jump onto the Twitter bandwagon.

What do you think?

Geo.