Posts Tagged ‘FourSquare’

Celebrate Social Media Day!

Thursday, June 30th, 2011

Social media tools have become like Starbucks runs. If you don’t visit one at least once a day, something is seriously amiss.

Social media tools: we all use them. So why not celebrate them?

Mashable.com created Social Media Day to do just that.

Today, June 30, Mashable.com invited fans of social media websites and networks to join together and praise the technology that links us to each other.

Mashable.com, a website devoted to social and digital media, technology and internet cultural news, created Social Media Day in 2010. Although it is a relatively new (and unofficial) holiday in the US, Social Media Day has garnered attention and support around the world. The state of Arizona, New York City and eight other cities (Victoria and Vancouver, B.C.; Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada; San Carlos and San Jose, California; Dublin, Ireland; and Toronto, Canada), have officially proclaimed June 30 as Social Media Day. Pretty wild, eh?

Social Media Day happened everywhere. Mashable.com’s Meetup page boasted a vast array of participating cities. From San Francisco to New York and from Antwerp to Buenos Aires, people from all over the globe showed interested in meeting (and Tweeting) in celebration of social media.


Although some city Meetups were more organized than others- San Francisco’s celebration took place at the indoor trampoline park House of Air—all social savvy tech users were encouraged to meet up in some way and say “Hooray!” to updates, virtual walls, news feeds and alerts.

The hosts of these updates go by recognizable names: Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, Foursquare, Yelp and of course, the irrepressible Facebook. These websites have become as integral to our daily communication as actual face-time conversations.

Social media not only connects us to each other in real time but also to information, events, trends and possibilities. In spite of distance, weather and time (elements that would naturally divide us), social media users remain closely knit in the bonds of community, friendship, business and common interests.

With this in mind, why wouldn’t we celebrate such a wonderful, revolutionizing tool?

Did you celebrate Social Media Day? We want to hear how social media has impacted your life and communication, so tell us about it!

To stay up to date on all the new and innovative happenings at Gunn|Jerkens, check back often, follow us on Twitter (@GunnJerkens) and “Like” us on Facebook.

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Posted in Around the Office, Consider This, General Blogginess, New Media, Our Neck of the Woods, Social Media, Technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

5 Things You Need to Know About Foursquare

Monday, June 27th, 2011

Over the last few months, social media network Foursquare has  really taken off. And no, I don’t mean it’s gone away–it’s actually quite the contrary.

So if you’re not using it already, you better hurry up and jump on the bandwagon now–because, honestly, who likes to be the last one to join the party?

If you’re not convinced, here are a few facts you should wrap your head around:

1. There are currently 10 million Foursquare users

2. 3 million check-ins occur each day

3. 400,000 businesses currently use Foursquare for marketing

4. 78,387 mayors get ousted each day (and you thought congress was bad)

5.  There are more than 358 million check-ins outside the United States

Not convinced yet? Check out this awesome infographic:

To learn more, click here.

To stay up to date on all the new and innovative happenings at Gunn|Jerkens, check back often, follow us on Twitter (@GunnJerkens) and “Like” us on Facebook.

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Posted in Consider This, New Media, Social Media, Technology | No Comments »

Mayor Jayne!

Friday, May 20th, 2011

Yesterday Jayne walked over to our office food and drink supplier, Trimana Café, for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Everyone in our office knows Trimana is a pretty tech-savvy café with its use of large screen TVs streaming Twitter and RSS feeds of national news, but what Jayne saw when she walked in nearly knocked her off her feet! Upon entering, Jayne looked up to see a picture of herself on the café’s big screen TV, announcing that she had attained the coveted position of “Mayor of Trimana Café” – courtesy of Foursquare!

Boasting more than 6.5 million users worldwide, Foursquare is a geo-social mobile application that is based on the location of the user and the registered “check-in” spots/“venues.” The location you “check-in” at can be shared with your friends and networks. Doing so allows users to bookmark future destinations of interest and assist with vacation planning and touring cities and locations unfamiliar to the user.

Using Foursquare for business is great because it creates a way for customers to interact with your brand and allows you to offer incentives to keep customers coming back. These incentives are known as “specials.” Specials can be tailored to fit the needs of the business while encouraging customers to visit your venue. In this case, because Jayne “checked-in” at Trimana a certain number of times and was designated “Mayor of Trimana Café,” the café gave her $5 Trimana Bucks for a future purchase. Way to go, Jayne!

In the past we’ve seen some epic office battles between coworkers enthusiastically trying to beat one another out for the title of “Mayor of Gunn/Jerkens.” But with Jayne’s new position, it’s only eminent that a new battle is on the horizon.

To stay up to date on all the new and innovative happenings at Gunn/Jerkens, check back often, follow us on Twitter (@GunnJerkens) and “Like” us on Facebook.

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Posted in Around the Office, General Blogginess, Our Neck of the Woods, Social Media, Technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Foursquare Users: Plugged in and Ready to Spend?

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Quite a few of us around the office are avid Foursquare users–in other words, the battle for Gunn/Jerkens mayor is always a heated topic. So, of course, when I saw this article, I knew it was something I had to bring up.

According to reports from RadioShack®, those who use Foursquare spend 3.5 times as much money on products as those who are not using the location networking app. The article further reports that because Foursquare users are generally young and tech saavy, Foursquare has become a very valuable marketing tool. For more, check out the article.

Once again, social media proves to be one step ahead of the game. So what about you? Do you follow brands on Foursquare or use it to find your next new gadget?

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Posted in Around the Office, New Media, Social Media, Technology | No Comments »

Jen’s Big Race Weekend

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Jennifer Fidelman is leaving for a few days to run in The 5th Annual Nation’s Triathlon To Benefit The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She’s been training for a while now, even denying herself some of the yummy treats we have during our office lunches for the past few months. I thought it would be nice tell her story before she leaves for Washington D.C. to join 6,000+ other athletes for the big race.

Jennifer has been training for The Nation’s Triathlon for about five months. Her workout schedule is intense: she’s training six days a week which includes a coached swim every Wednesday and an ocean swim every Saturday. Saturdays are also when she does her “brick” workouts where she trains for two disciplines back-to-back. She’s been training so hard that she’s the Mayor of her gym on Foursquare and she has the Swimmies badge!

Of course I had to know about her diet! She’s started hydrating for the race already to help prepare. Her food schedule for the next few days looks like this:

  • Day before: Lots of carbs, including the “Inspiration Dinner” with lots of pasta
  • Day of the race: Her coach’s mantra is “Nothing new on race day” so that isn’t going to be a day where she’s trying new food. She’s going to go with some peanut butter and bread and maybe a hard-boiled egg in the morning and then some energy bars for during the race. (She is the energy bar queen; she was rattling off names of bars I’ve never heard of!)
  • Post-race: Party time where she can celebrate with her team by pigging out and dancing!

Most importantly, using e-mails and Facebook (even Facebook ads!) to reach out to her network of friends, Jennifer successfully raised $3,000 for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society; since she started training for races five years ago, she’s raised over $20,000 for the organization.

To read more about Jennifer’s motivation, or to continue donating to support her training and the cause, you can visit her fundraising page through Team in Training.

Join us in wishing Jennifer (and her entire team) luck with her race in D.C. this weekend!

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Posted in Around the Office, General Blogginess, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

The Battle for Mayor is ON!

Friday, May 21st, 2010

I am a long-time Foursquare enthusiast. That may seem like the nerdiest thing to many of you, but to me it is a fun way to connect with new people, learn about new venues and get sweet deals at my favorite haunts.

WHAT’S FOURSQUARE?: Real quick – Foursquare is a location-based social networking website, software for mobile devices, and also a game. Users “check in” at venues using the program. They are then awarded points and sometimes “badges.”

So, I have been checking in at our building and our office, and as I have the most check-ins at these locations, I have been elected the “Mayor.” Now, as soon as someone checks in one more time than me, they will oust me and become the new Mayor themselves. Well, I will tell you right now that I have campaigned too long and too hard for that title, and I refuse to just roll over and watch one of my co-workers nab it from me.

Currently, there are two other employees that hope to steal this great honor from me. I won’t divulge their names, but they know who they are. The battle is on, guys. Bring it!

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Posted in Around the Office, Social Media, Technology | 20 Comments »

Mobile & Social: Connecting the Dots

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

An interesting concept was just brought up during F8’s Breakout Session on Mobile + Social.

“ ‘Checking In’ can actually change your behavior.”

So when you check-in to a local business with your favorite mobile application (mine is FourSquare), does your behavior change? Do you make your purchases differently? Were you driven to the location by an incentive provided by the application? All of these things have a lot of powerful people talking about the potential of location-based mobile games and apps.

It sounds strange, but I can absolutely see this behavioral change happening. For developers, I think that the long-term goal is always the same despite the function of the application or game: influence consumer behavior and drive traffic. As many of the most quickly emerging mobile applications are utilizing geolocation, these developers see location as the biggest and most important piece of the puzzle in terms of attaining that influence.

How have you seen this in action?

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Posted in New Media, Social Media, Technology | 1 Comment »

Location, Location, Location

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

I am a huge fan and frequent user of FourSquare, so this infographic makes me smile. It shows you the evolution of location-based technology. Enjoy!

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Posted in New Media, Social Media, Technology | 2 Comments »

The Jane Austen Guide to Social Media

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

The what? Yes, you read that correctly. Jane Austen was more than just a supremely divine author (I’m a diehard fan, can you tell?), she was also the source of some very accurate observations that can be applied to the new social media realm.The modern Austen? Photo by Theo Westenberg

Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way. ~ Emma

Many people consider things like Twitter and Facebook to be “silly” wastes of time. However, put a knowledgeable person behind a keyboard on one of these forums and watch what happens. You’ll notice that a steady stream of comments about sandwiches and celebrities will quickly transform into an invaluable information feed.

Everybody likes to go their own way–to choose their own time and manner of devotion. ~ Mansfield Park

Check that out – the brilliant Austen, in all her glory, predicted the demise of “push marketing” before anyone else! No one wants to be told what to do and when to do it, and this is directly connected to our current obsession with social forums. People would much rather turn to review sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor than take their cues from more traditional marketing efforts (i.e. print advertisements). That’s not to say that those aren’t important. It’s just that now most people want to hear from other folks about their real-life experiences, and then make decisions based on the candid opinions and feelings that they share. Jane was on to something big. (more…)

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Posted in Social Media | 7 Comments »