Mobile Marketing: Using Social Media and Social Networks for Free Advertising

According to the Peninsula Press, one in three American cell phone users have a smart phone. As a business owner, you need to capitalize on the free advertising that customers are now offering businesses via social media. Here are the top three reasons you simply cannot ignore mobile marketing.

1) One guy tells another guy something, then he tells two friends...

Wayne Campbell from "Wayne's World" said it best when he said, "you know how these things start... One guy tells another guy something, then he tells two friends, and they tell two friends, and they tell their friends, and so on, and so on..."

Social media is the hub of the internet. 73% of the US internet population visits Facebook each month (comScore). Now, imagine this scenario:

• You have a friend (imagine that!)
• He/she has 1,340 Facebook friends.
• He "checks in" to your restaurant via a mobile marketing app such as Four Square.
• The check-in automatically gets posted to his wall on Facebook.
• Without lifting a finger, you have just successfully advertised your restaurant to 1,340 people. To top that, it was via word of mouth... Their friend.

2) There is such thing as a free lunch!

Mobile marketing apps such as Four Square allow users to track their check-ins to your business, which in turn allows you to offer incentives based on their track record.

Some examples of types of customers:

• A new customer
• Repeat customer (e.g. someone who has checked-in five times)
• #1 ranked repeat customer (e.g. someone who has checked-in the most times over your other customers)

Some examples of types of incentives:

• 15% for new customers
• Free dessert on fifth check-in
• Free Coffee to the #1 repeat customer

3) Mobile devices officially have the world's attention.

Earlier this year, Yelp (a social network for business reviews), published some statistics that are incredibly hard to ignore.

In the month of December 2010:

• 3.2 million unique visitors used a Yelp mobile app
• 35% of all searches on Yelp.com came from a Yelp mobile app
• Every other second a consumer generated directions to a local business
• A photo was uploaded every 30 seconds from a Yelp mobile app

Think about it this way: if your restaurant was packed full customers every hour and even just 25% of them wrote a review about your business on Yelp, that's good press (assuming it was a positive review). If a Facebook user checks in to your restaurant and has over 1,000 friends, that is free advertising. All without lifting a finger.

For a free consultation on mobile marketing and how to get your business in the loop, contact us.