360DigitalInfluence

Summer officially starts in one day, and I’ve got travel on the brain. Given the outrageous airfares and hotel rates I’ve seen of late, I’m looking to rack up as many points as possible through travel and hotel rewards programs. If you want to maximize point-earning opportunities or you’re in the travel or hotel business and looking for ways to expand your loyalty program, start taking advantage of location-based social networks.

Several loyalty programs are already in on location-based rewards. Intercontinental Hotels Group’s Priority Club® Rewards, Hilton HHonors®, and Caesars Entertainment’s Total Rewards® are among the rewards programs on Topguest, a platform through which users can connect their Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Gowalla, and Instagram accounts to earn points, rewards, and discounts.

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This past week I came across some interesting new research that suggests that when it comes to online social networking, people are more likely to change health-affecting habits when encouraged to do so by online conversations with friends they already know well and with whom they are in close contact. In essence, the research suggests that the “redundancies and repetitiveness that characterizes interactions among close groups of friends is a central driving force behind encouraging people to change their health behaviors.”

This aligns with word of mouth statistics showing that recommendations from a friend or family member are the most trusted sources of information. Similar to the impact of close personal relationships, local community businesses have the opportunity to utilize their proximity and relationship with their local community to serve a similar role. continue reading

Over the last year, location-based social networks such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite have exploded among early adopters. It’s no question—with increasing adoption of smart phone usage, location-based social networks are rising in popularity every day.

Recently covered in GigaOM, CNN, Ad Age and The New York Times, Foursquare is currently one of the most buzzed about location-based mobile social networks. Intel and Ogilvy recently used Foursquare to drive traffic to and create buzz around Intel’s offline events and activities at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month.

For CES, Intel created a branded Foursquare page, featuring locations where Intel had activity and tips for Las Vegas visitors. Intel also rewarded check-in’s to key events with branded badges, paired with the chance to win an Intel-powered netbook for all badge recipients.

This exclusive collaboration allowed Intel to track and build relationships with online influencers active on Foursquare at CES. With more than 400 cumulative check-in’s to Intel-affiliated locations and events, the collaboration was a breakout success and proved to be an interesting event-based model for brands looking to work with Foursquare.

We interviewed Tristan Walker, head of business development at Foursquare, to learn more about their vision for what’s to come for brands, businesses and Foursquare.

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This is the final post in a five-part series exploring the trends laid out in our webinar, Facebook Bootcamp for PR. Look out in the coming weeks for some interesting updates to the original presentation!

One of the oft sited benefits of Facebook is its ability to keep us connected to friends and family who may be thousands of miles away, but there is a missed opportunity to better connect with the friends and fans in our own backyard. That’s why we’ve identified geolocation and mapping as a Facebook trend we’d love to see blossom in the near future. A hat tip to Trendwatching.com is due here- they’re January piece on Mapmania was an inspiration to notice all of the ways that virtual maps make daily life easier and with maps and social networks both growing in use on mobile phones, the two trends must eventually intersect. continue reading