shutterstock.com

As a business owner, one of your top goals outside of making a profit should be visibility within your market space. After all, you want the most amount of people to see your brand, right? We have already established the importance of having a website for your company. Now it’s time to discuss business directories.

Online business directories are a great marketing tool for companies of all sizes as you can upload photos, have clients post testimonials and list important info specific to your business. Being online, you have a greater chance of reaching more potential customers than you would just listing in tangible publications. The name of the game is customer attraction so the more you put yourself out there — the greater the chance of getting those new clients.

Check out nine online business directories you should seriously join.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaking at today’s press event. AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

Today, Facebook hosted a press event announcing Graph Search, an internal feature that will help Facebook users find out more detailed information about their friends.

Graph Search is different than more traditional web search because it is designed to answer a question, said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the announcement, not just links to answers. Users can search for people, photos, places, and interests to determine things such as “my college friends living in San Francisco” or “nearby friends who like Game of Thrones” for a viewing party, for example. Results are also ranked by relevance to the user, with close friends showing up as top results.

The search function will allow users to more easily dig through all the friends, data, and content that has been shared with them via Facebook, and it will be privacy aware, only permitting searchers to see what their friends have posted or what is made public by other users.

“When Facebook first launched, the main way most people used the site was to browse around, learn about people and make new connections,” the company said in a press release about the feature. “Graph Search takes us back to our roots and allows people to use the graph to make new connections.”

During the announcement, Zuckerberg, Tom Stocky and Lars Rasmussen, who developed the feature, demonstrated how to use Graph Search for dating, recruiting, and commercial uses, with restaurants as an example. Because Graph Search can bring to light photos of users that had previously been hidden from a user’s Timeline, Facebook is also offering tools and resources to help users understand the privacy implications.

A search function was one of the rumors floating around after Facebook announced its event last week. The media predicts Facebook will work to compete with Google in helping individuals find information and answer questions.

This is the latest news to come out of the social networking site and yet one more thing to keep track of in the constantly-changing social media landscape. Here is a handy guide, keeping you up-to-date with your favorite (and soon-to-be-favorite?) social media sites.

AP Photo/Michael Dwyer

As a small business in America in 2012, the potential for growth in revenue and brand awareness is increasing due to the deluge of interactive business tools like mobile applications. For example, we recently covered, the new Around the Way app, which directs users to black-owned businesses in their area. “For any small business listed, the app could be literally sending customers through the door,” we noted.

Small businesses that jump onto the mobile app bandwagon also hope to take advantage of the different ways that technology allows customers to interact with them and their products, from scanning product barcodes in stores to receiving more information to offering discounts and coupons on a consumer’s favorite products. This increasingly effective way to interact with businesses also increases the pressure for small businesses to create their own applications. But before you begin to step out into the complex world of mobile app creation, consider the implications of the process.

“For the most part, creating an app is not cheap, and it’s also not easy,” Jared Hendler, digital media strategist and executive creative director at PR firm MWW Group, says. In his role at MWW, Hendler oversees the company’s digital marketing/social media group and visual branding practice.

“The biggest disadvantages of small businesses looking to create a mobile app are the costs and maintenance of the app itself. You have to keep up with the updates of each operating system,” he says. Small businesses would have to manage the upkeep of an app within each of the leading mobile OS systems, Apple, Android and the latest OS to the mobile market, Windows 8.

“When you’re creating an app, you have to create for all these different screen sizes and make sure it’s going to work on all these different devices, whether it’s Nokia or Samsung or HTC. It’s challenging,” he adds.

Another aspect a small business owner must note before tackling the mobile app process is the time that must be considered to create and maintain a full mobile application.

“The challenge with small business owners is that they wear many hats: they put in long hours, they are the marketing person and the accountant, they’re doing inventory, they are doing a lot of different things, and they’ve got to allocate a specific amount of time doing digital and social,” Hendler says.

Sian Morson, founder/CEO of Kollective Mobile and Chief Technology Officer of Around The Way App, believes that small business owners could handle the major project of creating an app, with the right knowledge to do so, or a team of those who do.

“App development is big business, and lucrative too. I’ve heard stories of small businesses owners getting burned by people who promise to deliver apps and never do, or deliver badly developed app or quite simply apps that don’t work. If a small business owner is planning to develop a company app, learn as much as possible as you can so that you can speak the language. Or find someone who does.”

Morson also comments on the costs associated with app creation, which could sometimes be too good to be true for quality development.

“It really depends on your needs and your budget. But always make sure you’re getting quality work.  I would say that cost is mostly driven by functionality. If a price sounds too good to be true, as with anything else, it probably is.  Apps these days, range from $5,000 and up depending on who is doing the work.”

A small business owner must also be able to put in the work of marketing themselves. One example of this is Janine Hausif, CEO of recently launched app, Around The Way, which helps consumers find local black-owned small businesses.

“The old adage ‘If you build it, they will come’ is dead and gone in today’s tech-savvy world,” Hausif says. “Now it’s ‘If you build it, you need to tell people about it or they’ll never know you exist.’ Small businesses need to create a solid, consistent brand to gain and retain consumers.”

Between the time allocated for creating and maintaining a business app to the cost associated, a mobile app for a small business might be a major undertaking and more of a disadvantage to a business that isn’t based in technology itself.

“If a small business is insistent on creating an app, those businesses that are in technology or selling services through web or social media or for development sites are the businesses that might benefit from an app,” Hendler suggests.

Although creating an app might be out of the realm for your small business, there are many options to explore when looking to interact with consumers via mobile, beginning with creating visibility of your business.

“Small businesses can find other alternatives to becoming mobile, like getting involved with apps like FourSquare and making sure your businesses are linked and listed, where consumers can check-in to the business,” Hendler advises. “Make sure your business is listed on all of the [mobile] maps and make sure you’re connected in using mobile payment options, like PayPal or Square, which is a great option for a small business.”

Sian Morson agrees.

“I don’t think that a mobile app is a necessity for all small businesses. Before small businesses owners think about creating a specific mobile app, I believe that they should explore other mobile options like local search and a mobile-optimized website. Local search is exploding right now, and the majority of people on mobile devices who conduct a local search take action. That means they will either call, or check a store’s location to see how close or far they are from it. For a small business owner, that’s gold. ”

Utilizing other mobile apps that are designed for the visibility of smaller businesses locally could also increase your visibility to consumers in the mobile world.

“Apps like Scoutmob, which empowers small businesses to offer local deals and apps like Cardagin, which a business can create loyalty programs without having to create your own infrastructure [in the mobile app world], are also great for smaller businesses. Go where the eyeballs are.”

If you are looking for something a little closer to your own platform, creating a mobile website that works on various mediums is also a great way to gain mobile exposure.

“A small business would be much better off having a mobile version of their website instead and doing something with responsive design, so their website is responsive to whatever platform is needed, whether it is a tablet or mobile phone,” Hendler recommends.

Creating experiences in the mobile realm for your consumers could begin with just more visibility, one little step closer to bigger consumer brand awareness.

“Entering the mobile space will be necessary in the very near future. Find out where you fit in that space. Prepare for it. Plan around it. Make it happen or else your existing and potential customers will lose interest,” Hausif advises small business owners.

The Internet has brought lots of wonderful things into our lives: Facebook, online shopping, and Madame Noire Unfortunately, it has also given people the ability to get all up in your business from afar. We all do it on some level; we Google that cute new guy at work or  check out a high school frenemy’s Facebook page. However, things can ugly when folks use social media to stalk and harass you. This most often happens with a former significant other, especially when things did not end amicably. Although your romantic relationship is over, an ex can still use social media to check up on you, see who you’re with, and download pictures. Your ex’s social media stalking can be as mild as posting passive aggressive comments on your Facebook wall or as extreme as checking Foursquare to see where you are and showing up there. You should not have to put up with any level cyberstalking, so here’s how you deal with your ex’s stalker steez.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Business Insider) — Two years ago, a Stanford business school student named Tristan Walker sent Foursquare cofounders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvaduraian email out of the blue, asking for a job.

Today, Tristan is Foursquare’s director of business development.  During his tenure, he’s built partnerships between Foursquare and huge brands such as Bravo, MTV, CNN, New York Times, NBA and Starbucks.

To celebrate the two year anniversary of the email, Tristan just published it on his personal blog, along with some notes:

(The Grio) — Tristan Walker has enabled a mobile social application, Foursquare, to completely transform location-based marketing since 2009. By generating major corporate and media sponsorships with Starbucks, MTV, New York Times and NBA, Walker and his business development team have brought attention to and incentivized use of the popular app, which has more than 3 million users.  Tristan Walker is making history … by getting users and corporations hooked on Foursquare, a mobile social networking app that encourages people to “check in” when they visit specific places, like restaurants, bars, shops or parks. Each time someone checks in, Foursquare alerts the user to nearby deals and lets them know if a Foursquare friend recently checked in near by. The deals are the handiwork of Walker’s business development team, and they’ve helped draw Foursquare’s more than 3 million users to the app.

Read More…

The Silicon Valley Hustle of Tristan Walker, VP at FourSquare [ENTREZ]

New Music: Ron Isley featuring Lauryn Hill [ENTREZ]

Halle Berry and Olivier Martinez Caught Kissing in Paris [ENTREZ]

Islamophobia Did Not Start at Ground Zero [ENTREZ]

Georgia Mayor Makes Sagging Pants a Crime [ENTREZ]

Detroit Mayor Calls Fires ‘Natural Disaster’ [ENTREZ]

by Liz Burr

If you haven’t heard about mobile social startup FourSquare, then you must not be paying attention to the news, your TV or your local Starbucks. A location-based application for your phone, FourSquare is seen as the frontrunner among the crop of location-based services vying for your attention. In charge of business development over at FourSquare is Queens-bred Tristan Walker, a recent graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and former Wall Street oil trader turned tech shot-caller. Walker leads FourSquare’s partnership development with media, brands and retailers such as MTV, Bravo, American Eagle, CNN, The New York Times, Louis Vuitton, and VH1.

Walker talked with The Atlanta Post about what it’s like juggling a full-time exec-level position at a hot startup while simultaneously finishing up his MBA at one of the leading business programs in the country. Find out how he landed this position, how he became interested in the Silicon Valley hustle, and what he thinks about diversity in technology.
________________________________________
Name:  Tristan Walker
Position:  Vice President of Business Development at FourSquare
Hometown: Queens, NY. (Born in Jamaica Queens, raised mostly in Flushing)
Located: Palo Alto, CA
Undergraduate School: Stony Brook University
Major: Economics
Marital Status: Married
Last Book Read: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Favorite movie: The Godfather
________________________________________

Tell us a little bit about FourSquare.
[At Foursquare], we’re trying to make things that make cities easier to use.  What I mean by that is that we’re trying to get people out exploring the cities in which they live or visit and incentivize them to do so. FourSquare is part friend finder, part social city guide and it uses game mechanics to tie it all together and encourage people to check in and share their location with their friends.

What does your position as VP of Business Development involve and tell us about your journey to this position.

Before business school, I was an oil trader on Wall Street. Hated it. I did that for a year and half, almost two years. I started out with this ambition to get as wealthy as possible [laughs]. I grew up with humble means and thought, I am never going to live like this again. How can I get rich? I felt that there were really three ways you can do it: 1) Be a professional athlete 2) Work on Wall Street 3) Start your own company.

At the time, I thought I didn’t have the money to start my own company, so I couldn’t do that. The professional athlete thing was just not working out for me [laughs]. So I really hustled to get on Wall Street. I had the fortune to do so, but then I realized that it just wasn’t for me. So I said, now that two of the three [options] are gone, I might as well try this entrepreneurship thing.

I applied to Stanford Business School. It was the only place I applied and fortunately I got in. I knew Stanford had this appeal toward entrepreneurship, so I wanted to dive in with both feet first. I got out here and started exploring. I didn’t know much about the Silicon Valley tech thing until I got out here. Once I learned about it, I just started getting really obsessed [with] it. I tried to read every blog and book I could about technology in general. Then I started to narrow it down to social media and particularly how brands are starting to use it in interesting ways.

I hustled and got my way into an internship with Twitter. I did that in January of last year until June of last year. I helped them with what is now Twitter 101 for Business. Essentially my internship [involved] talking with a bunch of brands on how they use the service, and helping give Twitter ideas around how they can potentially monetize the engagement brands are having with their consumers.

Last summer, I had some experience at a consulting firm with a consumer retailer. I helped them think through their operations and so on. Then I got this fascination with retail brick-and-mortar in general. Transactions are something that have always fascinated me. I wanted to blend what I learned at Twitter (how brands engage consumers online), with how they engage consumers offline with brick-and-mortar. And I wanted to do something at the intersection of that.

With starting my own company I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew I wanted to do something, so I kept researching. Then one day I heard about this thing called FourSquare back in June 2009 and right away I got it. They work perfectly at that intersection. That night I emailed Dennis [Crowley] and Naveen [Selvadurai], it was only them at the time, and I didn’t get a reply back. I think I emailed Dennis about six or seven times before he got back to me. And when he got back to me, he said, “You know what I just may take you up on some of this. Are you ever in New York?” And I said, “Yeah, coincidentally I’m in New York tomorrow.” When I got home I booked my ticket and flew out the following morning and hung out with him for a week.

What did your email say?

The more Dennis was busy, [the more] he couldn’t think through the business and locations. I was more fascinated by the transactions and the point of sale when people swipe their cards. I wanted to get as close to the point of sale as possible. When I heard about this thing called “the check in,” I thought, you can’t get any closer to the point of sale than that, right?

So I told [Dennis] all the implications of what this could mean for business. [I said] give me a chance, and I’ll work for free, I’ll do whatever it is. I get it and I want it. I kept reiterating that over and over again. I was a big fan of his from Dodgeball, which he started like 10 years ago, so he’s been in the space for a while. Then he let me in, [I] hung out with him for a week and we just brainstormed together, and a month later I was doing biz dev for the company.

(Ad Age) – In a study published on Monday, Forrester finds that location-based social platforms are too small for major marketers to concern themselves with. At least for now. The reasoning Forrester gives is that location-based start-ups are still too small for major marketers to take great advantage of. Regardless of its current scale, here are four reasons why at 360i we’re including Foursquare and other location-based social networks in our client thinking today.

Read More…

(Black Web 2.0) — New York, NY. The home of the Knicks. The home of Foursquare. So why are Mikhail Prokhorov, Jay-Z, and Gowalla plastered on the side of a building on 34th & 8th overlooking Madison Square Garden? Mikhail is the majority owner of the NJ Nets with hip-hop mogul Jay-Z as the minority owner. Gowalla, based in Texas, is that other location check-in service you may have heard about.

Read More…