Joe Sorge, who runs a burger joint in Milwaukee called AJ Bombers, shot me a tweet yesterday to tell me about a Foursquare party they had this week that brought a flash mob of 161 Foursquare users to his restaurant.  My eyebrows shot up when I read that number. 161 check ins in one day?! How could that be? There are only about three or four hundred Foursquare users total in Milwaukee?! Over 150 of them were in the same place, on the same afternoon?

When I called him up, Joe explained. They came to earn the highly coveted and elusive Foursquare “Swarm Badge” – something you can only get when 50 or more Foursquare users check in at the same place at the same time. I hadn’t heard of it, but apparently the promise of this coveted Foursquare badge can really draw a crowd.

Before I launch into my interview where Joe discusses how he did it, here’s video from the  beginning of the event so you can get an idea of what was going on at the restaurant at the start of the event.

Video From The AJ Bombers Foursquare Swarm Badge Party

Flickr Photos from the AJ Bombers Foursquare Swarm Badge Party…

Wonder how AJ Bombers did it? Here’s my interview with Joe…

Q: What made you to decide to take the leap to try and base an event around the Swarm Foursquare badge? (did you see it done well and replicate? did foursquare come to you? How did you find out about it and decide to go for it?)

A: We had been noticing our twitter fan base really getting in to Foursquare lately so I went about investigating the various badges that could be achieved and found the elusive Swarm badge at the bottom of a badge page, awarded for a gathering of 50 or more foursquare users. We thought it was a great idea, so we started searching the web for how the badge worked and got in touch with Foursquare who helped us out.

Q: How did you organize/coordinate the event with foursquare?

A: Total time considered, organizing the event took us about a week. Once I connected with Foursquare, I emailed back a forth with them about logistics and asked some specific questions about how the badge was awarded and to how many users, etc.   They were TOTALLY on board with the event by the way, even tweeting about it themselves just hours before we were to be awarded the badge

Q: How did you get the word out before the event?

A: We used twitter primarily, but the main tool was called a Twtvite from the good tweeps at TwApps. Here’s the Twitvite we sent out. We cross promoted the event as a fundraiser for Milewake SWSX.  As we got closer to the event the invite spread out on social networking sites like Facebook as well. We had almost 100 people sign up beforehand, and over 100 people Tweeted about it. By 1:30pm, before the event was supposed to start, the restaurant was already packed with people.

At almost 3pm on the dot, people on the inside of the restaurant all got notification at the same time from Foursquare that they had earned the Swarm badge and they all started Tweeting about it. There was a lot of energy in the room at that moment that I wish we could have captured on video. There was so much word of mouth happening when people started telling their friends on Twitter that they’d gotten the badge. New comers were earning the badge for over 3 hours, right up until 6:20pm. Even 56 users who’d never used Foursquare signed up and checked in just to get the badge.

Q: Did you have any anxiety/legitimate concerns that it wasn’t going to work before the day of? (if so, what were they)

A: Absolutely I was concerned that we couldn’t get to the number needed all at once. FourSquare assured that the network would be there for us, and it was!

Q: Just one more thing, got any tips for managing the mob when they show up?

A: Eat, Drink and Check-in!

Q: What sense did you get that people really wanted out of the event? To meet others? Were they there just for the badge? How many of them knew each other already (i.e. did they come in groups, or were they all individuals who came alone)

A: This event, like nearly every Social Media event that we do was and is all about community and building something, or in this case earning something together.  We are, after all, a restaurant built by twitter and now made even more fun by foursquare.

So there you have it, right from the horse’s mouth. I hope this confirms for any nay-sayers out there that social media can work for you. If you have any questions for Joe, let’s discuss them here in the comments.

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

Case Study: How To Use Foursquare To Draw A Crowd Into Your Restaurant

If you sell online, pay attention to the data trail your customers leave. There are golden nuggets of information about what your customers are like and what they want everywhere; Some really good stuff can be found in customer reviews, automated “customers also bought” or “you might also like” recommendations (just to name a few). Paying attention to these details can lead to great insights about what your customers actually want, how they use your product and what their other interests are. If you’re an author, what other books are they buying when they purchase yours? If you’re selling electronics, what are customers bundling their purchases with? You’ve got to ask yourself these questions. It could tell you a lot about services you should be offering, where your product might be lacking or even what partnerships and opportunities you might seek for win-win promotions.

This (above) is just one example. I’ve talked about how tons of people are hacking their Flip cameras because the company isn’t listening and offering a wide-angle lens adapter. There are a ton of blog posts and YouTube videos about how to glue-on wide angle lens adapters to make the Flip more useful…and these lenses only cost 30 bucks. If the company was listening, they’d be partnering with a lens maker (or making their own) and offering a premium version of the Flip with an adapter included. The trail of breadcrumbs around the Flip already shows that people are willing to pay for the parts and go through the extra hassle to get the improved performance, so this is a no-brainer.

What’s the trail of breadcrumbs around your product telling you about your customers?

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

Your Customers Leave A Trail Of Breadcrumbs Online

Recently, I’ve had a few of my clients ask me whether they should be video blogging more. My answer usually starts with the question “how comfortable are you on camera?”. Video blogging isn’t for everyone, and it can make or break you, in my opinion. While it’s true that your audience wants to interact with you in an authentic way, it’s also true that when people read text-only blog posts, they tend to bring their own filters and voice to what they read, which can work in your favor if you’re a talented writer who happens to be blessed with a squeaky voice or a shy demeanor.

By contrast, when they watch you on video, there’s no where for you to hide and your strengths as well as your flaws get amplified and become a focal point of the audience’s experience. People are picking up all kinds of non-verbal cues that they’re using to decide whether they like you and what you’ve got to say. There are people out there who are so comfortable and enthusiastic when they’ve got a camera in their face that they were born to do it. Others…not so much.  Whether you were born to be on camera or stick to writing is not necessarily a reflection on your character or intelligence either – you’ve just got to know your DNA.  Stephen Hawking wasn’t born to be a TV rockstar. Enough said.

The good news is that if you’re thinking about trying out video blogging, you can dip your toe in without committing too heavily on equipment and time, and use TubeMogul to measure and test how people are reacting to you and your video content in real time. If you’re a video amateur the instant feedback you can get from seeing how long people watch your content, where they’re watching it and when they drop out minute-by minute (called drop out rate), can give you a pretty good indication of how you’re being received, and whether people like what you’re doing or not. You can use that data to tweak your message and style and see how your audience responds. Pretty neat stuff. This way you can borrow a camera from a friend (or rent one) and see if this is something you want to invest in long term. Here’s the demo video from TubeMogul on how their drop-out analytics work:

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

How To Test How Your Audience Is Responding To Your Online Videos In Real Time

You know when the technology itself makes the most difference to how much engagement you get on the social web? In the very beginning, when it’s brand new to everyone. That’s when the alpha geeks, the 1% of  the people that produce the most content online, temporarily ignore their other social networks to focus all their attention on the shiny new object. For just a few weeks following any major launch, you can build lasting relationships with the true online influencers by being a part of the action as they congregate on the new service in an excited feeding frenzy. If you’re there, and you’re as enthusiastic, helpful and engaging as they are, you’re seen as part of the tribe.

The engagement cycle is almost always the same on new social networks with a lot of hype (Google Buzz is a perfect example). The alpha geeks “follow”, listen and interact a lot early on when the community is still a small, tight-knit group of early adopters. They amass large followings quickly, and while they develop dense networks of influence, they are also less discriminating about who they interact with and “friend” because the frenzy is highly social.

Eventually they all hit a saturation point, though. The numbers get too big, their sense of true community dissipates and the initial excitement wears off. The second the enthusiasm for the shiny object disappears, they start spreading their attention out evenly again on the tried-and-true social spaces where they get a real sense of intimacy and personal connection. That’s why, in the long run at least, the technology doesn’t matter much and why focusing relationships to achieve long-term social goals is so important.

I’ve made these observations from interacting online and joining and leaving social networks for years, but I don’t have any hard data to back this up. It’s just a hunch, so I’m really interested to hear other people’s opinions and ideas on this or get pointers to any good examples. It’s sound long-term strategy to focus on relationships over technology, but if it’s the early adopter crowd you want to notice to you, there doesn’t seem to be a better time to get their attention than on someone else’s launch day. What are your thoughts?

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

Sometimes It IS About The Technology

Back in January I wrote a post discussing why the iPad would be so significant to the future of publishing where I said the following:

“the reading experience itself is going to change…it’s all about the apps… that’s where the real innovation is going to happen, and that’s where consumers are expecting it to happen. They don’t want a crazy new device they have to learn how to use – they want something they know how to use that does new and useful things.  The extra screen real estate is exactly what developers have been waiting for, and it’s all they need to change the way we think about reading.”

I stand by what I said – and I think the upheaval we’re about to see in the publishing market is going to be driven by a shift to tablets in general. Once again, the point is that the significance of the iPad isn’t due to the fact that Apple has created something conceptually revolutionary, it’s that they’re in the best position to create a new market and change consumer behavior on a massive scale with what they’re releasing (feel free to debate this point in the comments ;-)).

This afternoon I found this demo (below) of Wired Magazine’s new iPad Table app that made me pretty confident that the way we consume magazines is about to change in a hurry. I’ve seen similar demos like this for magazine-like reading experiences on a tablet (The Mag+ by Bonnier that was demo’d on PopSci immediately comes to mind), but the fact that this is a working demo for the iPad (which hasnt even been released yet!) is pretty significant. I think Chris Anderson’s bit in this speaks volumes about how publishers perceive the opportunities for rich story telling and revenue that the tablet phenomenon presents (not just the iPad, tablets in general). He says…

“This is what we’ve been waiting for, for 15 years. We’ve been waiting for an opportunity to use all these visual tools at our disposal to tell these stories in a way that is efficient, that is multi-dimentional. But we also think it’s an opportunity to reset the economics. For the first time people might value this experience so much that they’ll pay for it.”

Touch Changes The Revenue Game

Chris’ point about resetting the economics for magazines is an important one. We all know that print is on its way out. You’ll notice in the demo that they make the point that advertising is just as important to the consumer’s experience of Wired as the content itself is….but check out how interactive the ads are. It’s a whole different experience. You know why you haven’t seen ads like that on your laptop? Because we don’t touch our screens, that’s why. When you’re encouraged to touch and explore, ads themselves are much closer to interactive content than they are to an object of interruption. The act of touching is literally creating a whole new category for advertising (as content). Now, you couple the opportunities there with the fact that what you’re touching (the magazine) comes in the form of an application that consumers are downloading (easy distribution) and probably paying as much for as they did for the print version…no wonder these guys are excited.

Considering this is a working demo for a product that hasn’t even been released yet, I’m pretty excited to see what other players are doing. Apple was smart to give developers a window to get going between the official announcement and the actual release date. If this is the beginning, this is a really exciting time to be in publishing.

This post was written by Steffan Antonas. Find more at blog.steffanantonas.com

The Way We Consume Magazines Is About To Change: TOUCH Changes The Ecomomics & The Experience