If you run a brick-and-mortar business like a storefront or restaurant, you can now start aggregating what’s already being shared about your brand on social media. New York-based startup Moment.me recently released its Places tool, which aggregates social media mentions of a locale (think restaurant, store, or hotel) into one platform.
Places is a “mobile microsite” that can be shared via social media and embedded into your website or social profile. So this is a way your business can share a live aggregated feed of the social media content being created around your business and location.
The service is free to use. You simply enter your address, choose and upload images of your business to create your business’s Places microsite.
In an email interview with Small Business Trends, Moment.me CEO and Co-Founder Ronny Elkayam explains:
“Small businesses in a competitive market need to make the most of every interaction with every customer, and they have the advantage in being able to engage in a more personal way with a smaller customer base. We’re giving them a way to make that interaction more targeted, personalized, and effective.”
Let’s say you own a restaurant. You constantly see patrons taking photos on their phone and tagging your location. Now you can embed the Places’ live stream of your restaurant on your website or Facebook page and allow visitors to see your restaurant through customers’ eyes by showing off all those photos and tweets they’re sharing.
The Places Tool Identifies Brand Ambassadors
Moment.me believes Places will be a boon for small business owners who can take ownership of the social media conversation going on at their places of business.
Places provides a resource for customers researching the restaurant or store they want to visit making it a potential marketing tool. It also allows businesses to identify regular customers who are actively sharing their experiences with the brand on social media. Brands can then turn those fans into brand ambassadors to incentivize new customers and generate more revenue.
You can also use the platform to offer deals or hold contests in an effort to directly engage social media users already having discussions around your business and location.
Elkayam elaborates:
“For example, offering regular customers free food or drinks if they can bring 5 friends, and then reaching out to those 5 new customers to ask them how their experience was and offer them the same deal if they are interested in returning. The fact that all this interaction takes place on social media not only means it’s free for cash-strapped SMBs, but also more targeted and personalized than reaching out to customers with undifferentiated promotions in an email marketing campaign.”
Add to the Message
In addition to the Places tool aggregating all mentions and tags near your location, you can also add your own social updates to balance out customer-created content with content of your own.
So, local brands can not only collect what’s being said about them, but also integrate their own marketing. This should allow you to engage with your fans, but, perhaps just as important, respond to and address customer concerns.
Laptop Photo via Shutterstock, Screenshot: Moment.me
Aira Bongco
This is nice for big brands. But I wonder how updated it can be. Like can a certain brand be included if it is setting up a store in a certain location.
Nice idea but the effort to stay on top of and remove the bad content before someone sees it must be an issue. I used my buddies restaurant and text messages with R rated language and some images were not appropriate.
T B
Awesome just damn too much awesome. Thanks for providing this useful Tips and I am going to use this for the benefit of my bog straight ahead.
Thanks and keep sharing great stuff dude 🙂