After a long day at work, do you ever wish you could instantly know what local places are having the best happy hours? San Diego entrepreneur Noel Churchill has created an app specifically for this purpose. According to a recent article in the San Diego Union Tribune, “Happy Hour Finder” is a new iPhone app designed to provide users with happy hour locations, information on specials, hours, addresses, and directions. These details can be useful in finding the best deals because many happy hours start at different times or are limited to certain days of the week.

Churchill partnered with hundreds of local bars and restaurants to produce the app. As Churchill says, ‘We are a local business working hard to promote other local businesses.”

The app also now works across the United States, having secured participating restaurants and bars throughout the country. “Happy Hour Finder” is available on the App Store. Best of all, it is free for users because it generates money through paid advertisers.

Read the full article for more on the “Happy Hour Finder,” or check out a demo on Churchill’s site.

Not too long ago, when a person had a complaint against a business they would pick up the phone and dial a 1-800 number and speak to a company representative. Today it is more common for these people to turn to social networks to voice their opinions. Consequently, customer-service issues are being addressed on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and other social media channels, and this can pose a problem for companies that are not prepared.

The San Diego Union Tribune recently published an article addressing this issue. The article points out that companies need to realize brand-related conversations, both good and bad, are happening online, and they need to ask themselves whether they should join those conversations or not.  According to Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler, co-authors of Empowered, “consumers create 256 billion impressions on one another each year by talking about products and services within social networks. And these conversations have influence.”

It is imperative that businesses realize when a person makes a complaint on a blog or Facebook, the complaint will not only affect the purchasing decisions of that individual, but also the decisions of people in that person’s network. Therefore, businesses can no longer wait for people to call their customer service centers before addressing an issue.  They must be ready to address the issue on a one-on-one level with consumers. Empowered provides 6 tips to help businesses understand online brand conversations and how to integrate customer service with them.

First, staff should be trained on the tools and philosophies of social media and customer service. Anyone can send a tweet or post a status update on Facebook, but understanding how to combine social media and a customer-centric philosophy is much more important.

Second, a company should have a policy in place for dealing with social media. Guidelines that reflect a company’s code of ethics and brand promises help employees when they must engage in social media. Such guidelines can protect both the company and its employees.

When interacting online, tone and content are also very important. Online responses must be authentic. While it is important to have guidelines for employees to follow, it is also important that each customer interaction be unique. The foundation may exist in a policy manual, but every interaction should be somewhat unique. Additionally, humility truly is a virtue in social media. If a company has made a mistake, the message should be “we are sorry”. Owning up to a mistake can go a long way in building customer trust. Of course, it is also always a good idea to thank customers for their opinions as well. As the article states, “a happy customer is your greatest endorsement.”

Finally, the single most important bit of information comes from the article title. Company representatives must be empowered to make a difference. It is not enough to simply address a complaint. Issues must be resolved. Providing real solutions to customer problems builds trust and brand loyalty with all consumers.

Read the full article for more.

According to a recent article in the San Diego Union Tribune, visitors to Coronado Island (San Diego, CA) will soon see new additions to popular points of interest. Coronado officials are testing the effectiveness of QR codes on tourists’ and residents’ interest in local landmarks. QR codes are used by anyone with a smartphone and a QR code reader app. They are designed to “point” a user to a specific website that provides information about the specified object. In this case, when someone uses their smartphone to take a photo of the QR code for a particular landmark, the browser on their smartphone displays a website that provides more details about the landmark.

The Coronado QR codes are currently in place for the Coronado Tennis Center, Rotary Plaza, and the Glorietta Bay Promenade. The QR code at the Coronado Tennis Center (which is under currently construction) directs phone users to a website that describes the work being done, how much it is expected to cost, and the expected completion date. The Rotary Plaza QR code directs users to a site that advertises their free Wi-Fi.

City Manager Tom Blair decided to bring QR codes to Coronado after attending a presentation on their uses. If the test proves successful, the city hopes to expand this marketing tool to include other places throughout the San Diego area.

QR codes have been in use in Japan for almost a decade, but surprisingly they have not been popular in the U.S. until recently. Target is actually one of the first U.S. retailers to begin incorporating QR codes their business by using them in sales catalogs to provide customers with more information about products and toys.

Read the full article for more.

A recent article by Social Media Examiner discusses the difference between simply engaging in social behavior and becoming a social business. Almost everyone knows that friends, fans, and followers are important in social media; and maintaining a transparent, two-way communication with those followers is fundamental to increasing your social equity. In fact, most companies that engage in social media are successful in maintaining that two-way communication, but there is another challenge that is rarely discussed. For a business to truly succeed in social media, they must become a social business.

A social business is one that does more than simply converse with its followers. As the article states, “A social business deals with the internal transformation of an organization and addresses key factors such as organizational dynamics, culture, internal communications, governance, training, employee activation and much more.” Social Media Examiner goes on to describe three pillars that comprise a social business: People, Governance, and Technology.

The first pillar, people, deals with an organization’s most important asset, its employees. The first step in evolving into a social business is getting your internal communications network established. In order to be more than just social, you must manage your organizational dynamics and get your internal teams to communicate. Successful communication with your consumers begins inside your business.

The second pillar, governance, is simply how your organization manages the communication set up in pillar one. Training, social media guidelines and policies are imperative for organizations in order to maintain consistency. Governing laws that surround your businesses’ social media protect a company and empower its employees.

The third pillar, technology, establishes how your business will facilitate internal communication. Businesses must be willing to invest in the right channels if they want to truly be a social business. Using external tools such as Hootsuite, Sprinklr, or Radian6 can also be useful if your business deals with multiple social media accounts.

Being a social business requires much more than just social engagement. It takes understanding and participation from everyone behind the scenes, policies and governances to control how people communicate, and the proper tools to manage your social networks.

Read the full article for more on becoming a social business and great statistics on the interactions between businesses and consumers.

Breaking into social media for the first time can prove difficult, and most companies will have questions about what to do to be successful.Hubspot recently published an article that attempts to answer some of these frequent questions that concern how to develop a successful initial social media strategy.

One of these most common questions about social media is “Can social media be anti-social? Non-social? Too-social?” The answers are both yes and no. Social media is no different than other human groups in some sense. For example, you can be in a crowd of people and choose to sit quietly or make the decision to interact with others. Simply being in the crowd does not mean you are social. Such is the same with social media.

Of course, just as you can be anti-social in real life scenarios, you can also do so in social media environments. If you disregard established social media etiquette, speak negatively, or talk about yourself too much, you are certain to have people avoid you.

So the overall answer to social media interaction is to take an active role, but remember to stay positive and helpful. As Hubspot points out, you really can’t be too social in social media, as long as you act responsibly.

Read the full article for more common social media questions and a great presentation by Dan Zarrella.

In the realm of social media there are two types of people: followers and influencers. A follower is someone who “friends” or likes your brand, yet rarely does anything else. An influencer, on the other hand, is someone who actively takes part in discussions and reviews, thereby spreading your brand message. Generally, influencers are a very small percentage of your followers. One study shows that only about 1% of followers are actually influencers (on average). However, as the old adage goes, “it’s quality, not quantity, that counts.” In fact, that 1% generates approximately 20% of all traffic to your website. Therefore, it’s more important to identify and target those specific members of your audience who are influencers, rather than amassing thousands of followers and trying to persuade all of them. In fact, targeting your influencers eventually reaches a great percentage of your other followers.

But how do you engage with that select number of people who are influencers? It is easy to send out a message about your company to all of your followers, but it is more difficult to create a successful marketing campaign targeted to a select group of people. A recent article published by Fresh Networks provides a list of things to consider before engaging with your target influencers.

The first thing a business needs to do is to get to know their influencers. Listening to the conversations taking place in blogs, forums, and social media platforms is a great way to learn what your influencers are saying about you. This information can help you define the correct content and tone when you are ready to engage your influencers.

The next step is figuring out the right arena in which to engage your influencers. Instead of trying to engage every one of your influencers, the better approach is to target the most important conversations taking place. If a conversation about your brand isn’t relevant or appropriate for the topic you want to address, it’s best to ignore that conversation and move on to another. Essentially, it’s best not to waste time and resources on conversations that aren’t on point.

Another important item is the relationship with your influencers. A company must build a solid relationship with its influencers. Every interaction must be seen as a way to strengthen that relationship because influencers have a key position in your market. They both speak to and represent your target audience.

Of course, it’s also important to make sure the interaction is not a sales pitch. Your influencers understand you have a commercial interest in them, so it’s not necessary to bombard them with sales. Instead, widen the conversation beyond your brand, product, or company.

Finally, it’s important to be realistic with your expectations. In reaching out to your influencers, you are trying to engage and affect them, not control them. You may not see the immediate results you want, but that does not mean your efforts aren’t working. Just like real life relationships, online relationships take time to develop.

Read the full article for more.