Local Social Summit Report No 1 & Trends for 2012

Edited by Dylan Fuller | localsocialsummit.com | Published 14 March 2012

Local Social Summit 2011 Day 1: Conference Report

Page | 1 www.localsociasummit.com | facebook.com/localsocialsummit | @locsocsummit

Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................ 2

Trends & Themes to Watch in 2012 ................................................................... 3

Local Social Summit ’11 Schedule - Day 1 ....................................................... 4

Opening Keynote: The Local Paradigm Shift 2011: ‘Big Trends’ Edition ...... 5

Panel 1: Search vs. Social ................................................................................ 11

Panel 2: Finding Locals – The View from Europe .......................................... 15

Afternoon Keynote: The Timely Death of the Daily Deal [and the Birth of Everyday, Everywhere, Every Way Deals] - A Daily Deal Insider Speaks .... 19

Panel 3: The Right Place at the Right Time – How the Real-Time World Influences the Local Web ................................................................................. 23

Panel 4: The Changing Landscape of Local/Mobile Content ........................ 26

Panel 5: Super Social Business – Field Studies ............................................ 29

Super Social Business Profiles ....................................................................... 32

About Local Social Summit & this Report ...................................................... 34

LSS’11 Sponsors .............................................................................................. 36

Local Social Summit 2012: Dates & Information ............................................ 37

Sponsorship Opportunities for Local Social Summit 2012 ........................... 38


Executive Summary Local Social Summit (LSS) is a conference that explores the intersection of local and social media. Designed to ensure dynamic dialogue and networking among conference attendees, the summit features interactive sessions constructed to share knowledge and find solutions by showcasing innovation, emerging trends and consumer insights. The origins for LSS date back to the summer of 2006 at an event focused on the local search space that was attended by some of the biggest local media players in Europe, including Deutsche Telekom, SEAT Pagine Gialle, Schibsted Group and the Irish Times. Subsequently, Dylan Fuller & Simon Baptist founded Local Social Summit in 2009 as a direct response to requests from media companies and thought leaders in the local space. Local Social Summit 2011 (LSS’11) was our third annual event, held in London on November 9th & 10th. LSS’11 was an expanded event, held over two days, that included 100 attendees, 40 speakers and six sponsors. We had 16 sessions: three keynotes, eight panels, two talks, a fireside chat, one brand hackathon and one seminar on social network analysis. As always, engagement was high and the level of discourse world class. Key Learnings:

1. Social media or social networking is no longer over hyped. The “social web” is transforming how consumers and businesses operate. Businesses can no longer afford to ignore this paradigm shift.

2. Mobile has truly arrived. The combination of new technologies such as mobile broadband, gps and apps together with consumer demand for new device types (smartphones and tablets) is the driving enabler for local commerce.

3. Everything is local. Local is not just about SMBs (small & medium sized business/SMEs) but is also about big brands and regional/national chains/franchises connecting with consumers at the local level. This has profound implications for the local and global economy.

4. Location is everywhere. Social is not just about data, trends and ROI (return on investment), but also very much about people, community and continuos engagement. Local is what is accessible.

Points for debate/disagreement:

1. Search vs. Social. It’s too soon to settle the debate. No one could agree on the relative importance of search (i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo, IYPs) when compared to social channels (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp).

2. What now? There is a big question around “what next” for local businesses after they have signed-up for a social networking service. What do they do with their Facebook fan page? Who should they follow on Twitter? Should they join LinkedIn?

3. In-house vs. outsource. There was intense debate on whether it was feasible or scalable to outsource social media activities to third parties. This has significant implications for a large spectrum of companies across online - including PR, yellow pages, technology providers, publishers and media agencies of all sizes.


Finally, everyone agreed that there was much left to learn, problems to solve and huge room for growth for business at the intersection of local, social and mobile.

Trends & Themes to Watch in 2012

Incumbents are at risk. Many industries are only just catching up to the social opportunity. Watch for an increase in PR from incumbents and action from agencies, start-ups and technology companies.

Data is everywhere. The social/mobile explosion has created the “big data” opportunity for businesses of all size. Location is a valuable and relevant signal within all that data.

Consumers demand great user experience. People are living, sharing and spending locally in new ways every day. “Pull” becomes “Push” and consumers demand product and services from brands they know and trust. They want this with the same great user experience they already get from most good apps.

Big brand local. Just as many consumer facing product businesses are shifting spend to direct marketing over time, so too are big brands with local stores are embracing social channels for dialogue-based interactions with their local customers.

The rebirth of local. Local moves beyond Groupon, Yelp and Angies List. Mobile broadband. 3G and 4G enables the connected consumer, who not only

checks-in and pins products but makes informed buying decisions and recommendations on the fly via mobile devices everywhere. This trend will expand and impact everything from groceries to fashion to restaurant to hotels and more.

The next Internet arrives. Watch for an explosion in next generation data-driven social apps and the legislative backdrop in the works (both in the US and the EU).

The death of daily deals. Deals move to check-in specials, loyalty programmes and other smart ways for business to incentivise customers

Social outsourcing grows. The outsourcing space is wide open and full of opportunity for smart service and technology providers. Watch for growth and innovators from new places.

The personal algorithm becomes public. Facebook Timeline and other social data signals have huge potential for transforming how/when/where consumers access local businesses and buy services, this could impact everything from daily deals to e-commerce to ratings and reviews.

CRM moves forward: adding a social and local layer helps to take CRM from the back office to frontline. This has implications for how companies are organised and how CRM is integrated into local platforms.

[Please Note: this report covers day one of LSS’11. A second report covering day two will be published

separately; if you are not already on our email list and want to receive a copy of report No 2 then please be

sure to contact the LSS team: [email protected]]


Local Social Summit ’11 Schedule - Day 1 Wednesday, 9th November, Wallace Space, London.

9:00 – 9:15 Welcome to the Summit: “3 Years & Counting” - Dylan Fuller & Simon Baptist, Co-Founders LSS

9:15 – 10:00 Opening Keynote: Local Social 2011 – The Paradigm Shift Picks-up Speed

Greg Sterling, Senior Analyst at Internet2Go/Opus Research, Principal at Sterling Market

Intelligence, Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land

10:00 – 10:45 Search vs. Social

Leader: Greg Sterling, Internet/Mobile Analyst

Panel: Dennis Yu, CEO Blitz Local; Kelvin Newman, Creative Director SiteVisibility; Grant Muckle,

Managing Director Upcast Social

10:45 – 11:15 - Break – Featuring Has Bean Coffee

11:15 – 12:00 Finding Locals – The View From Europe

Leader: Simon Greenman, MD Online European Directories

Panel: Michael Oschmann, Digital Industrialist and CEO Mueller-Medien; John Lervik CEO cXense and

former Corp VP at Microsoft; Miriam Warren, VP Europe at Yelp

12:00 – 1:30 - Lunch -

Plus 12:45-1:30 (optional): Brand Hackathon with Young & Foodish, Leader: Duncan Olge-Skan, EMO

1:30 – 2:15 Afternoon Keynote: The Timely Death of the Daily Deal [and the Birth of Everyday, Everywhere,

Every Way Deals]

A Daily Deal Insider Speaks - Perry Evans, CEO Closely

2:15 – 3:15 The Right Place At The Right Time: How The Real-Time Web Influences The "local" World

Leader: Seb Provencher, Co-Founder Needium

Panel: Ryan Mac Jones, Founder We&Co; David Ambrose, Mobile Lead Travelzoo; Phil Leggetter,

Developer Evangelist Pusher, Stefano Diemmi, Proximitips/Buongiorno

3:15 – 3:45 - Break – Featuring Has Bean Coffee

3:45 – 4:30 The Changing Landscape of Local/Mobile Content

Leader: Greg Sterling, Internet/Mobile Analyst

Panel: Niels Borgers, Lead Business Development Infohubble; Robin Allenson, Founder InnerBalloons;

Eric Freeman, Director of New Product Development at Schober PDM Iberia; Steve Ricketts, European

MD JiWire

4:30 – 5:30 Super Social Business – Field Studies

Leader: Dylan Fuller, eBay/Co-Founder Local Social Summit

New: Eric Partaker, Co-Founder Chilango; Ben Hopkins, Co-Founder Naked Wines

Alumni: Stephen Leighton, Owner Has Bean Coffee; Daniel Young, Founder Young & Foodish

5:30 – 6:30 - Networking Reception - Brought to you by InnerBalloons

7:00 – 10:00 - Optional Event - Experience a Young & Foodish pop-up restaurant for yourself


Opening Keynote: The Local Paradigm Shift 2011: ‘Big Trends’ Edition Speaker: Greg Sterling is the founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, focused on the Internet’s impact on offline consumer behaviour. Greg is a regular keynote speaker and moderator at LSS. He is also a lead advisor to LSS on content curation and programme development. The aim of this keynote was to introduce the key trends that are driving change within the local and social media space. This talk set-up the overall themes for discussion during the two days at LSS’11 and introduced the SoLoMo ‘Mandala’ into the conversation. [Note: Greg’s Presentation has 44 slides: download the complete deck on Slidehshare. We’ve include a

selection of key slides within and at the end of this summary.]

Keynote Summary: “Everyone is interested in local, but there’s a gap between intentions and the skills required to deliver on those intentions.” This comment from Greg near the beginning of his presentation neatly summed up his opening keynote, and set the tone for the two days of the Local Social Summit. Six Big Themes

Greg then set out six “Big Themes” [Slide 3]: 1. ‘Hype’ local 2. Mobile momentum continues 3. Social media, SMBs and the “Now What?”

problem 4. Local data tsunami 5. Payments and real-world analytics 6. From clicks to transactions

“Everyone is interested in local, but there’s a gap between intentions and the skills required to deliver on those intentions.”

–Greg Sterling

http://www.slideshare.net/LocalSocialSummit/opening-keynote-local-social-2011-the-paradigm-shift-picksup-speed-by-greg-sterling


‘Hype’-Local - Resent Historical Perspective:

Between 2000 and 2007, local was relegated to small businesses. Now everyone is interested. The essential point about local is the connections between offline and online.

Rough Timeline [Slide 5] Before 2000: Local was hot as part of internet-everything bubble Before 2000 – 2007: Local misunderstood, underappreciated After 2009: Mobile helps make local transparent and sexy Premium product: Local impressions/calls/clicks pay/command a premium (e.g.,

Nexage, xAD, AT&Ti, etc.)

Not just for SMBs anymore: “86 percent of national marketers surveyed intend to look for ways to better modify, adapt, and localize their marketing content, messaging, and prospect engagement practices. Clearly, localized marketing is becoming a critical area of strategic focus and competitive advantage for brands.” (Source: CMO Council study of brands/agencies October, 2011)

Mobile Momentum:

Key points [Slide 9]: By 2015 more mobile/wireless internet users than

fixed-line users – multiple predictions Between 30% and 40% (or so) of “EU5” have

smartphones UK smartphone penetration 40% (50% by Q1 2012) US smartphone penetration: 43% In US and UK roughly 7% of Internet traffic coming

from non-PC devices US mobile internet audience now 100M users

The aggregate numbers don’t necessarily describe the uptake of smartphones by the most desirable consumers. [Slide 11]

Mobile Web/Apps Huge (“Death of the Web?”):

Flurry recently contended that people spend more time on mobile than they do on the desktop web. [Slide 12]

The most time is concentrated in the top 10 apps, with more time being spent in apps than on the mobile web. [Slide 13, 14]

The Fourth Screen:

The tablet meanwhile is a fourth screen – a mobile/PC hybrid. [Slide 16]

It’s also a supercharged ecommerce platform; it’s much more commerce-friendly than mobile.

And tablets are cannibalising PC usage.

“Smartphone growth is the most profound change I’m talking about today.”

–Greg Sterling

LSS Insight: Not specifically called out by Greg but implied by this section is the emerging trend of what we call “Big Brand Local” – this is an emerging challenge for regional/national/global brands that need to engage with consumers at a local level. This topic was explored on Day 2 as part of a dedicated panel on the subject.


We will see more and more primary internet access via mobile, but often from the bottom of the demographic curve (by younger and more urban consumers). [Slide 18]

Voice “The New Touch” – Enables a Star Trek Future:

Apple’s Siri has taken the voice interface mainstream. [Slide 19]

As either Simon or Dylan said: “Voice is the new touch” [Note: credit for this quote goes to Simon Baptist]

Both Google and Microsoft will be compelled to respond. Mobile Deals:

Deals and offers are the preferred form of mobile advertising for consumers; they don’t want the other forms of ads on their mobiles. [Slide 20]

What is social media:

Social media is much broader than just Facebook and Twitter. [Slide 23]

Social media is: Consumers talking to each other online Consumers talking about companies, products and brands User-generated content

“Voice is the new touch”

–Simon Baptist

LSS Insight: The combination of mobile and viable 4th screen (tablets/iPad) along with apps, app stores and true voice interaction will only increase the adoption of local and social service via mobile devices. We also see these accelerating the “death of the web” and empowering the connected consumer.


Online word of mouth

Mobile is inherently social, and not just because people are accessing Facebook on their phones. [Slide 23]

Facebook has 350 million active mobile users globally Twitter has 100 million active mobile users and “46% of active users make

mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience” Overall comScore says US mobile-social networking audience just over 70

million 40 million US mobile users access social networks (including blogs) daily.

The “Now What” Problem:

The compressed timescale in which SMBs have adopted Facebook is very surprising, but it’s been a mixed experience. [Slides 26, 27, 29]

It’s the ‘Now what?’ problem

And there’s not much help out there for these people. Business owners or surrogates set up accounts They often don’t know what to do after that How to measure ROI, how to think about social They lack education, best practices advice Range of third parties now trying to help But how much of social media can be outsourced?

Life and Like:

The dominant reason people like a brand is to get a deal. According to Nielsen, only nine per cent of people who liked a brand wanted news from that brand. [Slide 31]

“So brands are bribing people to become their fans.” Local Data Tsunami:

Local data is being crowd-sourced and created by merchants, and it’s being sent everywhere by APIs. It enables publishers to do many more things than ever before. [Slide 32]

Mobile Payments & ‘Real-World’ Analytics:

The era of mobile payments has begun and eventually online ads and offline purchases will be connected in a closed loop at the point of sale. Of course there are lots of privacy issues, which will be more important in Europe than in the US. [Slide 34]

Companies are starting to use mobile phones for ‘real-world’ analytics, ie collecting traffic data for physical stores. The problem was that people would disappear between online and offline interactions. Now we’re able to start linking these things up. [Slide 35] Many companies trying to connect online and offline data/purchase behaviour Check-ins and other methods being used by Euclid to track in-store presence Lots of mobile promotional efforts (i.e, offers) to get people into stores Eventually much closer visibility on which ads delivered in-store visits, even

purchases

“If you’re a small business, what do you do in social media after you set up your account?”

-Greg Sterling


Deals – From Clicks to Transactions:

Deals are introducing a transactional focus to local. They’re much more tangible for SMBs than paying for clicks. [Slide 37]

But companies are split on whether they’d do a ‘deal’ again – there’s only a 50% repeat rate. [Slide 39]

There’s some diversion of ad spending from traditional marketing to deals; we’re not going to see SMBs pulling out of advertising wholesale, but the money is moving. [Slide 40]

The change is impacting on the traditional media that SMBs have always used. [Slide 41]

The criticism of the whole ‘deal’ approach is that when you get into it, you condition customers to expect a discount.

LSS Insights from the Opening Keynote:

Local is global – not just SMBs but also big brands. Mobile is the big driver – both smartphones and the 4th screen (tablets). The big hits are winning - the “head” is winning vs. the “long tail” in apps and

consumer attention. SMBs need help – opportunity here for third parties outside of Facebook and

Google. Local data – lots of it, good and bad challenges; social media and apps

change how user consume, edit and trust data. Closing the loop via offline and online linking – using smart analytics,

payments and other physical techniques. This will help the commercial value of local plus social to be realised and measured like never before.

SoLoMo drives new transactions – we move further into a post click era. Apps continue to dominate access, thus death of the Web is a real shift.


Selected Slides from Opening Keynote (Slides 12, 25 & 38):

For the complete slide deck go here on Slideshare.

http://www.slideshare.net/LocalSocialSummit/opening-keynote-local-social-2011-the-paradigm-shift-picksup-speed-by-greg-sterling


Panel 1: Search vs. Social Moderator: Greg Sterling Panellists:

Dennis Yu, CEO Blitz Local

Kelvin Newman, Creative Director SiteVisibility

Grant Muckle, Managing Director Upcast Social

Background: The idea for this panel was a celebrity death match style debate on search vs. social. No holding back.

By search we mean search engines, we could just say Google, but we wanted to give the other search engines a chance and there is vertical and product and local /IYP search options for consumers.

By social we could just say Facebook, but there is Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Tumblr etc, plus a myriad of new social services and social enabled mobile apps.

As the chart below illustrates Facebook has grown very quickly in terms of overall traffic size online. This adds some data context to our interest in the search vs. social or Facebook vs. Google debate.

Chart Source: Silicon Alley Insider - http://www.businessinsider.com/sai

The place where we wanted to start our exploration was from the perspective of a small or medium sized business (SMBs/SMEs) or a local business. Many local and small businesses are investing in social in a big way. Why?

As a business which of these two channels should you invest your limited time and effort into developing?

Which will benefit your business the most?

http://www.businessinsider.com/sai

http://www.businessinsider.com/sai


Which works better search or social?

Does social offer advantages compared to search?

Search or social which would you choose if you could only focus on one?

Does social trump search? Panel Summary: How do you define social media? This was Greg Sterling’s opening question for the panellists in a session intended to dig into the nuances of how search and social differ, in terms of execution and effort required, and in terms of what equals results. Dennis Yu, CEO of Blitz Local, was the first to respond, defining social media as word-of mouth marketing where you can see how much influence people have. But he was keen to challenge the view that social media is “just another channel”. “It’s not,” he said, “it’s an overlay over everything else.” And he also introduced one of the key themes of the entire conference, that of customer acquisition versus retention. Most fans of a brand on Facebook, he pointed out, are existing customers. Kelvin Newman, creative director of Site Visibility, then took on the task of defining social media. Social media is a return to the way commerce used to work in the past [i.e., word of mouth], with the most important change being the complexity we see now compared to the old days. This, he said, was what was creating the need to fall back on platforms. Grant Muckle, MD of Upcast Social, agreed with Yu that social media is not just about marketing. The fact that social media lets people share things online means it appeals to marketers, but is also the reason why they have struggled to make it work for them. The fact that it’s also a powerful customer service tool creates huge conflict in how brands manage their use of social media. Yu gave the example of Korea Telecom. “They think social media is marketing,” he said. “They want to shift calls to their call centres onto Facebook. But they’ve found it increases the interaction time, and therefore increases cost.” So is social media a marketing tool or a customer service tool? Newman said that if he had to pick one, it would be CRM. But he also said that the products with the best word-of-mouth tend to be the best products. Grant Muckle pointed out that social media can drive sales quite successfully. “A lot of people make comparisons of results from social media with search conversion rates,” he said, “but a lot of the effectiveness of search is due to brand activity further up the funnel. If you strip out the brand effects, the conversion rates for social and search are similar.”

“Social media is a return to the way commerce used to work in the past…”

-Kelvin Newman

“If you strip out the brand effects, the conversion rates for social and search are similar.”

-Grant Muckle


A member of the audience made the point that part of the importance of search is as a back-up to other marketing activity, so that once you’ve alerted customers to what you do, they can find you. The flipside of that is that if they can’t find you on search, people think there’s something wrong. What’s happening in social media now, he suggested, is the same thing. If you don’t have a social presence, people think there’s something wrong. Yu returned to the balance between acquisition and retention. “We talk about the customer funnel, but it’s really an hourglass, with the waist being the transaction” [and the bottom customer loyalty]. “What’s been missing is the bottom part of that hourglass, but social can play at the top and bottom. We’re looking at the ways social can be used to drive loyalty and repeat business. What’s important is to align all the different channels in the hourglass, but what we’re finding is that the bigger a company is, the worse they’re doing this stuff, because of the silos in their operation.” Yu also highlighted the issue of critical mass in how social media and search can work together. “We’ve found the base level is 250,000 fans in the US. At that level, there’s an 80% chance that, when you show an ad, people will see that a friend likes it. And we’ve found that that doubles click-through rate and cuts the cost of PPC (pay-per-click).” Search or social which would you choose if you could only focus on one? Sterling acknowledged that, although the panel had been intended as a battle between search and social, the answer to which you should use was clearly “both”. So he asked what the optimal way was for companies to leverage their use of search and social on a limited budget. Newman’s answer was not to spread the budget too thinly by doing too much. Rather, he said, do one big experiment. And be pragmatic; concentrate on one platform where you can be confident of the results. He also pointed out the huge value in understanding the algorithms of social media – testing to find what works best and understanding how best to communicate with your audience. Dennis Yu agreed that companies shouldn’t just jump into social media. His view is that what makes social work for a company is the content it has. “You’ve got to have good content – testimonials, reviews, whatever. It’s not about the ad budget, it’s about the content.” And he highlighted the key difference between search and social.

Google+: In response to a question about the future of Google+, Newman said he thought where it might succeed was by being more business-friendly than any other social network. As he pointed out, “they already have your credit-card details from Adwords”.

“In social media, you know who the consumer is, but not what they’re going to buy. In search, you know what people want to buy, but not who they are. So you need different strategies for both.”

-Dennis Yu


But Muckle was sceptical. “When Google search became successful, it was because the world needed a great search engine. I don’t think the world needs a great social network now.” The final word went to Dennis Yu. “Social media is not a tech play,” he said. “The key with social media is amplifying what your fans are saying about you.”

LSS Insights from Panel 1:

Social media is: 1. about word of mouth marketing; 2. an overlay for everything else; 3. an important customer acquisition and retention tool.

If a business doesn’t have a social presence then people will think there is a problem.

It’s not a customer funnel but an hourglass: o acquisition transaction retention customer lifetime value.

To make social work you need great content. Panel agreed businesses should use both social and search channels, but

that each required a different strategy.


Panel 2: Finding Locals – The View from Europe Moderator: Simon Greenman, MD Online European Directories Panellists:

Michael Oschmann, digital industrialist and CEO Mueller-Medien

John Lervik CEO cXense and former Corp VP at Microsoft

Miriam Warren, VP Europe at Yelp Background: The aim of this panel was to discuss the local search space from the perspective of three stakeholders - 1) users/consumers; 2) media owners/publishers; and 3) the SMBs/local business. We also wanted explore the two big disruptions in local search - which we define as social media and mobile access (ie, smartphones with apps). Panel Summary: The key themes that emerged were:

The challenges posed to businesses by the proliferation of competing eco-systems around the major platforms;

The need for service providers’ sales teams to fully understand what they’re selling;

And the dangers of being an innovator.

The session also covered one of the topics that ran through the entire conference:

The importance of accuracy in local data. The audience also took the opportunity to quiz Warren about Yelp’s current performance and future plans.

SoLoMo: Simon Greenman opened the session by stating that the next wave of online business is going to be about mobile, local and social, with huge room for growth in the space where the three meet. He predicted the pace of change of the past five years would continue “and probably grow”. Yellowpages Not Dead Yet: So he began by asking what’s going to happen to Yellow Pages businesses. The response from Michael Oschmann was that, as everybody has spent the past five years saying Yellow Pages is dead but they’re still here, he thinks they’ll survive. More seriously, he pointed out the advantages his company has as a family business, being able to take a long view. “My most important task is to keep my team enthusiastic about the future,” he said. “If I can do that I have no doubt we’ll survive.” There were differing responses to Greenman’s question about who the winners and losers would be over the next five years. Warren highlighted the importance of content

“… the next wave of online business is going to be about mobile, local and social, with huge room for growth in the space where the three meet.”

-Simon Greenman


and the lack of brand loyalty in the space, while Lervik talked about the importance of partnership, saying that the winners would be companies that could partner with publishers to get more traffic and wider distribution. Online Ecosystems: The theme of competing platforms and ecosystems emerged when Greenman asked whether companies should be more worried about Google or Facebook. Lervik replied that Google has always been the enemy, while Facebook’s plans for the local space are still unclear. But he noted that Facebook could be leveraged as a partner in this area more than Google can. Miriam Warren added that Facebook is a great way to distribute content, for example in the way that it allows people to share reviews with their social circle. Michael Oschmann meanwhile highlighted the growing complexity and competition in the space as ecosystems develop around the competing platforms, and the challenge that presents to Yellow Pages-type businesses. Oschmann continued to say “we can’t produce ecosystems for ourselves. We have to adapt to the rules of each different ecosystem to get reach. And there are more emerging. Is Foursquare an ecosystem? If it is, we’ve got to adapt to it.” One audience member picked up on this, asking whether, if the trend is towards platforms and ecosystems, a local ecosystem can be built. Warren responded by saying Yelp is building a local ecosystem which they want people to use through the API. “We know we need to get that data, and that we need to pay for it,” she said. Small Business (SMBs): Next, Greenman turned the focus on the small businesses themselves. They’re confused by this new world, so what should publishers be offering them? In reply, Oschmann explained his own company’s approach. “We define ourselves as a sales force more than as a product,” he said. “Our challenge is that our sales force needs to understand what they’re selling, as well as getting the SMBs to understand. We have to get what we’re selling in front of our sales force and get them enthused.” John Lervik too sees this as crucial. “The challenge is to create products that are so simple the sales force can understand them,” he said. “What’s critical is to take complex technology and put it in simple terms for the advertiser and the sales force. Then we have to distribute the ads more widely, so we need more partners in order to get more reach. But we also need more performance-based models to get more reach too.”

“We can’t produce ecosystems for ourselves. We have to adapt to the rules of each different ecosystem to get reach. And there are more emerging. Is Foursquare an ecosystem? If it is, we’ve got to adapt to it.”

- Michael Oschmann

“Publishers need to regain power in their struggle against Google by understanding more about their users.”

-John Lervik


Warren also used her own company as an example. “People come to Yelp searching for a plumber because they need one,” she said. “So as an SMB, you need to be there so people can find you. Our tools are all about connecting SMBs with their customers.” Quizzed by Greenman she agreed that signing up SMBs is about more than direct sales channels, explaining that the company really benefits from people going into a business and telling them they found them on Yelp. Information and Data Accuracy: Accuracy of information was a theme that occurred throughout the two days of the summit, and it was raised here by a question about whether customers are looking for accurate and complete reviews on local businesses. Warren’s response was that Yelp employs local people in every city it operates in to make sure its content is accurate. “Accuracy is super-important,” she said. “You’ve got to have people on the ground looking for inaccuracies, and there’s no silver bullet other than more people.” This idea of adding more eyeballs to reduce inaccuracies prompted a question about whether widespread adoption of mobile would help. Oschmann argued that sometimes, rather than producing your own reviews, it’s easier to adapt to an ecosystem that already has them. So what’s the benefit to me, as a consumer, in producing content for you, the panel was then asked. “Some people like to help other people; some like to be famous,” Warren explained. “Some just want to remember where they’re been and the experience they had. There’s no financial incentive from us.” The Yellow Pages Brand: Another question concerned the Yellow Pages brand and whether, with its diminishing relevance to consumers, Yellow Pages publishers should rebrand. Lervik’s answer went back to the question of partnerships. He argued that the brand is still a strength when talking to merchants, but that in order to reach more customers, Yellow Pages businesses need more partnerships with publishers. Someone else in the audience raised the issue of the industry creating products in a horizontal way, and asked whether verticalising them might be a better approach. Lervik’s response was that this is partly a technical issue. “There’s a lot of technology that can help you repurpose content,” he said. “We believe that by understanding the context of the user, we can personalise of contextualise the content. Publishers need to regain power in their struggle against Google by understanding more about their users.” On Innovation: Innovation was the next subject to come under discussion, with a question about why regional Yellow Pages struggle to come up with new products to compete with the likes of Yelp and Groupon. Oschmann’s response was that it’s hard for established companies to countenance failure. “It’s always harder if you’re losing something than if you’re winning something,” he said. “It’s hard to create an organisation that risks failure; it’s much easier for small start-ups to fail. That’s why we have a hybrid approach.” Lervik agreed. “It’s very hard to reinvent yourself if you’re not in a crisis,” he said. “The best way to do so is in separate companies or start-ups, because there’s no incentive to


disrupt a successful business; look at Microsoft. Apple is very different, because it has created a culture of reinvention.” Oschmann also pointed out that you don’t need to be an innovator to succeed. As he said, there are loads of people by the roadside who failed while trying to innovate.” Yelp and Web 2.0 Matures: This led Greenman to ask Warren about how Yelp sees itself as it moves from being a disruptor to more mature, established business. Warren’s response was that while in the US Yelp is “The Man”, in Europe it’s barely a toddler. “We’re figuring out how to do what worked really well in the US and take that to ten different countries and cultures,” she said. “Vienna now looks like New York four years ago. It’s a big challenge for a company that’s been very successful in a big market. We never feel like everyone in Europe knows who we are. For the team in Europe, the challenge is to make Yelp work in all these different markets, and it’s going to be a long road.” Warren was then asked whether Yelp has the resources to change its model in Europe to respond to the problems that it’s seen in San Francisco. Her reply was that the company has to be in a location first in order to see what works and what doesn’t (“We need to make tweaks to show we know Austria isn’t Germany”), but she said Yelp isn’t currently seeing any problems with its business model. She cited growth in London that is faster than expected, and then went on to praise European entrepreneurs. “They have to think about multiple countries, cultures and currencies from the start; in the US we don’t have to do that so I really admire people like that.” What kind of companies in this space would the panellists invest in? Miriam Warren said that she was really interested in companies encouraging community sharing: “we don’t all have to buy a shovel, we can share.” “I’m interested in companies that can take away the technological pain,” Lervik said. Oschmann offered: “Companies that can simplify the customer experience or make it more relevant.”

[On] community sharing: “we don’t all have to buy a shovel, we can share.”

- Miriam Warren

LSS Insights from Panel 2: The Yellow Pages:

o Are not dead yet. o Is still a strong brand with merchants (SMBs/SMEs).

Producing simple products for SMBs is one of the biggest challenges and lies at the centre of sales success.

Local data accuracy is very important and this remains a challenge. Facebook can be leveraged much more as a partner in local than Google. Yelp growth in Europe continues and is an important channel for many SMBs

(another potential “problem” area if users can’t find the business on Yelp).


Afternoon Keynote: The Timely Death of the Daily Deal [and the Birth of Everyday, Everywhere, Every Way Deals] - A Daily Deal Insider Speaks Speaker: Perry Evans, CEO Closely Background: The industry surrounding Daily Deals is rapidly morphing from one-deal-per-day delivered via featured email campaigns into offer exchange networks and live mobile commerce plus loyalty promotion. This keynote profiled the main changes, and highlighted the challenges to merchants, media publishers and consumers within an industry in rapid reconstruction. The slide deck from this keynote is available on slideshare here and has 18 slides. Keynote Summary: Individual deals have gone, to be replaced by a more complex approach that offers merchants better segmentation, better targeting, and the possibility of moving to a yield management model. That was the message from the second keynote presentation of LSS ’11, delivered by Perry Evans. Daily Deals Started as a Simple Concept “The daily deal was a very simple concept in creation and execution,” he started by saying. “One deal per day, per metro area, emailed to you, with a group tipping point. Now, a year later, there are many deals at variable times and of variable value, available across locations via email and mobile, and the tipping point for individual deals has gone (slide 3). The concept has been atomised. “So is this a flash in the pan. We have to balance the SMB’s reaction to the first version of the deals product – which was indifference (slide 4) – against the need to address this new audience, the mobile social consumer, in a new way (slide 5).

Slide 6

Direct Marketing Finally Falls to the Internet Revolution “Meanwhile, DM has been the last pillar of marketing to fall to the internet revolution. The daily deal has introduced concepts that have brought about that collapse. What’s more interesting is that it will enable the match of supply and demand in ways never before possible.

.

http://www.slideshare.net/LocalSocialSummit/lss11-the-timely-death-of-the-daily-deal

http://www.slideshare.net/LocalSocialSummit/lss11-the-timely-death-of-the-daily-deal


“Businesses meanwhile love the underlying concept of the daily deal – the guaranteed pre-paid transaction – but they hate the business model and they hate the lack of control (slide 7). “So there are some shifts going on in the industry around product patterns, distribution, the merchant experience and consumer targeting (slide 8). The first is around product patterns. Groupon Now was an early product failure from a customer perspective, but they’re shifting the business to real-time promotion. Trials show that businesses are very positive about the proposition ‘what if you had a promotion that could be turned on and off’. But it’s still a nascent product. “We’re also seeing the segmenting of deals by different product types. “Then there’s the question of return visits and loyalty (slide 9). The problem with daily deals is the number of people who then come back. At Closely we came up with personal deals to encourage repeats, and Foursquare is doing similar targeted promotion types. We’re also seeing time-based bonus deals, which incentivise people to come in to the business at certain times in a move towards yield management. “And all these approaches are solving the problems of the merchant’s business in a more sophisticated way. Distribution of Deals Changing Rapidly “The distribution of deals is also in rapid transition (slide 10). There’s currently a poor match in the supply and demand of deals. Networks like Google Offers will act as a new ad marketplace for deals, so the food chain is in formation, going beyond the silos created by the likes of Groupon and Living Social. And they mean that businesses that have failed to capture a list of their customers’ email addresses can still take advantage of the deal mechanism. “There’s also an expansion in the placement of offers, with ways for commerce to happen being embedded in the ads. Coupon distribution and ads are merging; that’s why Google is in this space. “As for the merchant experience (slide 11), SMBs are currently being overwhelmed by sales calls from deal providers. That means they’re retreating to trusted brands and relationships, and it makes it hard for companies that are just coming into the market to compete on price. New Tools for Businesses “Tools are also evolving quickly – businesses are being equipped with better tools. Bloomspot for example is capturing data around patterns of purchase and promotions.

“Then daily deal means that price is now being pushed to consumers. Also, consumers have to be re-acquired more and more. The idea of a loyal customer is a fallacy; people are continually being offered different choices and they need to be re-acquired. And it’s very hard to turn the clock back.”

- Perry Evans


“In customer targeting, Google Offers is pretty clever in terms of personalisation, for example in creating hangouts. Filtering is critical, as is verticalisation, and people have to be able to search by the availability of deals. “This is all leading to an industry shakeout (slide 13). We’re seeing the collapse of the ‘just like Groupon’ plays, and the companies that are still there are finding it’s not as easy as it seemed. The cost of creating an email list has tripled in the last year and click-through rates are dropping. Plus there’s a lack of loyalty among merchants to deal providers. “Also, it’s not about selling the same stuff over and over, it’s about getting into the wallet of the consumer and creating a bias towards action in your favour. “This has implications for local media. If you look at the hotel industry (slide 15), when you bring price into the equation and you have tools to create demand in interesting ways, that causes change and people have to pay attention. Redrawing Promotion Distribution from the Ground Up? “I think this is heading towards media being a layer above what businesses do with their existing customers.”

Evans was then asked whether the revenue forward model is the best way. “There is a range of types of promotions,” he replied. “The big thing businesses don’t understand yet is that when you understand and own the transaction, you can do something much more interesting. You can take the information, add more and do something more targeted. For example, you can target people who come in on a Monday or Tuesday to get them to come in more regularly. Your customer list becomes a living thing. Data is Key to Long Term Value in Deals “And that data is the reason you want to move from offers to deals. You want to collect the transactional data. A lot of local media companies went into the deal space, failed, and got out again. Instead they need to think about commerce-driven offers.”


The final question was about the ‘tour bus effect’ – the problem of merchants offering deals to entice in customers who never come back, but just continue looking for the next deal. Groupon as a Media Company “Groupon is a media company,” Evans said. “Their job is to get people back on the bus for the next offer. Also, research has shown that after doing a Groupon deal, the merchant’s Yelp rating falls by half a point, mainly due to them not being prepared for the demand generated. And there’s only so much you can do to help a business take advantage of a deal in terms of customer service. But there are also lots of tools around that allow you to pick the people you want from that tour bus and get them to come back to you again. It’s part of the process of re-acquiring customers. “I think that deal provision will be more of a serviced model than self-service; a service network model rather than a sales network model.”

LSS Insights from Afternoon Keynote: Daily deals started as a simple concept, but has become complex for

merchants. Direct marketing finally falls to the Internet revolution. The distribution channel of deals is in flux and changing rapidly. Tools for local business around daily deals is evolving quickly. We need to think about redrawing promotion distribution from the ground up. Data is key to long term value in deals. Groupon is a media company.


Panel 3: The Right Place at the Right Time – How the Real-Time World Influences the Local Web Leader: Seb Provencher, Co-Founder Needium Panelists:

Ryan Mac Jones, Founder We&Co

David Ambrose, Mobile Lead Travelzoo

Phil Leggetter, Developer Evangelist Pusher

Stefano Diemmi, Proximitips/Buongiorn Background: The rise of the real-time Web is well documented. Propelled by both the social networking revolution and mobile device ubiquitousness, we’re seeing the birth of new user services and business opportunities. Panel Summary: This panel set out to explore the time element in the local/social web; to try to discover what kind of content works well in real time, what the benefits are for consumers and what kind of business models can be developed to leverage the time dimension. What is the Real Time Web? Once again, the session began with definitions, with Seb Provencher asking the panellists to define the real-time web, and then asking them how important the time dimension is. Stefano Diemmi answered that time is most important for short pieces of information and in sharing social interactions. Leggetter built on that by adding that real time tends to mean data still has relevance once it’s published. He described the difference as being like registering for a subscription to information compared to looking for historical information. Ryan Mac Jones was more metaphorical, likening real time to “a giant trampoline with information bouncing around”. But he also pointed out that one of the problems around real-time content is the lack of context. “At We&Co we’re trying to add a people layer onto a places layer. We’re asking customers to thank an individual for a piece of service,” he explained. “We want to quantify that and use it to help push service businesses forward.” Phil Leggetter and Diemmi agreed that one of the advantages of real-time is to make web sites richer through the use of dynamic content, something that Leggetter regards as the next step for the online experience.

[the real time web is like] “a giant trampoline with information bouncing around”

- Ryan Mac Jones


“Adding real-time interaction makes shops more relevant and more interesting for the user,” Diemmi added. “It means for example they can have a real-time Q&A function that allows people to ask questions of other customers.” He also pointed to the reappearance of reverse auctions – a long-promised web business model – as another example of the effect of real time information, a development which Provencher, David Ambrose and Jones all confirmed. “Reverse auctions are cutting across everything,” Jones said. “A lot of big brands are going to have trading desks for this. P&G has already stated that it’s planning to operate in real-time mode, using point-of-sale information coming in live. And it’s already happening on the marketing and PR side where brands are monitoring the news to see how they can take advantage of events, the way Oakley did in giving sunglasses to the Chilean miners before they emerged from underground.” Moving on from this, Provencher asked the panel whether they thought there were longer-term benefits to customers of the move towards real-time information. There was some head-shaking, with Jones pointing out that customer convenience was behind all the moves to adopt a real-time approach. But while Jones agreed that the driving force was the ability to meet an immediate customer need, he also pointed out that seeing your friends checking in to a location creates a “wish-list” in your head for future action. And he highlighted the longer-term benefit in building brand equity for companies that are seen to respond in real-time. Provencher also saw the move towards demand forecasting and yield management implicit in capturing real-time data, a key theme throughout the event. As he said, brands can use this data to spot trends and then manage their resources to meet them. With this in mind, he asked what the benefits of real-time are to the merchants, and what kind of mindset they would need to take advantage of it. Jones’s response was that they need to be agile, while Ambrose referred back to comments that Closely CEO Perry Evans made in his earlier Deals session about the hotel industry. “Hotels have revenue managers who predict demand and use variable pricing to fill empty slots. They work with online travel agents and it becomes quite complex,” he said. “Lots of other sectors aren’t that sophisticated yet.” At a more basic level, Leggetter re-iterated the opportunity companies have to differentiate themselves from their competition by responding to customers’ questions and complaints, while Provencher mentioned the importance of listening to customers as part of delivering service and Diemmi talked about the opportunity real-time creates for merchants to have a dialogue with people who are not in their shop to try and entice them in. A delegate then asked how a real-time approach plays into customer service, to which Ambrose replied that it puts a lot more emphasis on interface design and the need to make that interface more responsive.

“Adding real-time interaction makes shops more relevant and more interesting for the user”

- Stefano Diemmi


This was followed up with a question about how customers value speed of response compared to engagement with, and trust in, a brand. Jones replied by talking about the size a company has to be before a real-time response is possible. “How big do you have to be before you can chase those one-off Tweets?” he asked. Provencher suggested setting categories of response time depending on the type of business; as he said, you want a quicker response from a restaurant if you’re hungry than from a car dealer when you’re buying a car. Another delegate said that this whole world of real-time communication sounds like a nightmare for a small business owner who just wants to run his coffee shop. “Won’t they be swept away when Starbucks starts doing all this stuff?” he asked. “What can we do to empower those small merchants?” Diemmi’s reply was that they’ll have to find different ways to compete, different marketing and promotional efforts. Finally, the panel were asked who they thoughtwere offering the best customer experiences around real-time data.

Diemmi: “services that deliver information about what’s on and where to go. From a business perspective, those delivering vouchers.”

Ambrose: “Yelp, although they’re not pushing their real-time content yet.”

Leggetter: “Foursquare, although people aren’t using its real-time elements much yet either.”

LSS Insights from the Real-Time Web Panel: The problem around real-time content is the lack of context. The real-time web is a challenge for SMBs, especially when it comes to

speed of response and CRM types of interactions. The growth of reverse auctions is a trend to watch in 2012. Forecasting and yield management will continue to evolve and become part

of the wider retail and FMCG business landscape. Using the real-time web will become a competitive advantage for many

businesses, both to acquire customers but also as a CRM tool. In 2012:

o Will there be a check-in battle between the likes of Yelp, Foursquare, Facebook and new local vertical apps?

o Will we finally start to see the promise of deals linked to check-ins for local merchants?


Panel 4: The Changing Landscape of Local/Mobile Content Leader: Greg Sterling, Sterling Market Intelligence Panelists:

Niels Borgers, Lead Business Development Infohubble

Robin Allenson, Founder InnerBalloons

Eric Freeman, Director of New Product Development at Schober PDM Iberia

Steve Ricketts, European MD JiWire Panel Summary: This panel aimed to answer the question “when data is so available, how do you create value and differentiation?” But it quickly turned into a session about why most data about local businesses is so poor, and what can be done about this. . Local Data Quality Robin Allenson started the discussion by pointing out that a lot of the data out there is junk, which means that data validation is hugely important. And he highlighted the problem faced by SMEs, which is how to keep track of all the information about themselves out there and make sure it’s accurate. Eric Freeman picked up on this point, agreeing that not all data is equal but going on to say that perfect data is impossible. The trick, he said, is to know what your users are doing with the information so that you can align your data with what your users want. This approach does hold out some hope for improving data quality. “Data quality rises to the needs of the most demanding users,” he said. “It’s also a great opportunity to ask your users what they want from you.” Steve Ricketts agreed that data quality is crucial, but he also stressed the importance of context. “If I’m in a shop and log in to that shop’s website, I should get a different experience to the one I’d get if I visited their site while I was in their competitor’s store,” he said. Highlighting the problems of data quality, Neils Borgers noted that there are 35 Foursquare check-in points at Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport. But Allenson challenged this view, arguing that it’s the wrong way to think about Foursquare. “Their data is good enough for their users,” he said. “You’ve got to look at all the sources of data and understand their respective strengths.” This led Ricketts to raise the point that it’s a company’s business model that determines how much they can spend on data, and how much that data is worth to them, with Freeman noting that data cost is not an item that appears on most companies’ budgets. “The belief is that data is free,” he said.

“Data quality rises to the needs of the most demanding users”

- Eric Freeman

“There are 35 Foursquare check-in points at Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport”

- Neils Borgers


Consumer Response to Local Content Quality Sterling then tossed out a statement for the panellists to either agree or disagree with; if you’re a well-known directory, you can get away with sloppier data than a start-up could. In other words, he said, customers are not punishing low-quality data sets. Ricketts disagreed with the point about customers, arguing that some customers are, but so infrequently that it’s invisible. But he agreed that start-ups need better data than their established competition, in the same way that they also need to offer better services and performance. Allenson said he would expect data quality to go up as it becomes more widely used. “There’s a huge amount of frustration around the poor quality of data on mobiles,” he said. “So we’re starting to see crowd sourced businesses emerge for data collection and verification. Foursquare gets round the frustrations of bad data by allowing people to change it.” Data Needs Vary By Vertical Sterling then argued that the quality of the data need depends on the business sector in question. Events and movies need very clean data, he said, while a plumber just needs his phone number to be right. He then asked whether the data quality problem is due, at least in part, to fragmentation, to the huge proliferation of places where this data can be found. Allenson agreed, but also pointed out that the other part of the reason is a lack of resource. “Data quality is appallingly low because the resource required to keep it updated is too great. The reason Yelp is so great is because they go from city to city, verifying as they go.” Consumer Services Built on Local Data The discussion then moved on to what services can be built on top of data that customers might value. Ricketts highlighted an interesting difference between the requirements of US and UK customers. “People looking for a local shop online in the US want to know about the sales promotions it’s offering,” he said. “In the UK, it’s reviews. Distance makes a difference too; the importance people attach to product availability information increases with the distance they have to travel.” And he pointed out that a fifth of smartphone users have changed their behaviour in-store as a result of information they’ve got through their phone. How Should IYPs Differentiate? Finally Sterling brought the session back to its original premise. “You’re advising small Yellow Pages publishers on how to differentiate themselves, based on content and data,” he said to the panel. “What do you tell them?” Allenson’s response was that they shouldn’t claim to be unique, the best or complete sources, because the merchants they’re talking to know this isn’t true. His advice? Offer clients a joined-up view, and start small.

“Data quality is appallingly low because the resource required to keep it updated is too great. The reason Yelp is so great is because they go from city to city, verifying as they go.”

- Robin Allenson


Freeman’s answer was even more fundamental; understand what your customers are looking for. And Ricketts returned to an earlier point: “Differentiate yourself through high-quality data, but surface it according to how people want to use it.”

LSS Insights from Panel 4:

Data quality is super important. Accuracy and quality of local data is a problem that still needs to be solved. Needs vary by vertical. Users are still frustrated. Opportunity exists for building great consumer services on local data. The model Yelp and others like Foursquare are using is pretty impressive,

and generally good enough based on most user context. User experience is the key to using local date effectively.


Panel 5: Super Social Business – Field Studies Leader: Dylan Fuller, Co-Founder Local Social Summit Panellists:

Eric Partaker, Co-Founder Chilango

Ben Hopkins, Co-Founder Naked Wines

Stephen Leighton, Owner Has Bean Coffee

Daniel Young, Founder Young & Foodish Background: The Super Social Business panel brought together four entrepreneurs who are using social media to power the growth of their businesses. The aim of this panel was to highlight real case studies from business owners using social media that all have some link to local. These businesses are probably all outliers, they are innovating and pushing the boundaries of what is possible. These are super social businesses. Two of the speaker (Stephen Leighton & Daniel Young) were alumni who had spoken on similar panel at LSS in 2010. Panel Summary: The discussion started with introductions to each business and speaker to set the scene, first by Dylan Fuller and then each entrepreneur spoke, Stephen Leighton, Owner Has Bean Coffee: “In the past we focused very much on educating our customers through social media,” he said. “When someone buys coffee from us, we send out a video of me talking about the coffee so we’re tasting it together. We’re now taking our business into cafés, so we’ve made a couple of videos explaining to café owners what we offer and have shared those via social media.” Daniel Young, Founder Young & Foodish: Young explained that he had been a New York-based author writing cookery books before he realised how competitive that was. He relocated to London and launched a pop-up restaurant business. He looks for “greasy spoon” cafes to take over for an evening, then brings in top chefs to cook one café-style dish for each event, recruiting the audience via social media. Ben Hopkins, Co-Founder Naked Wines: Hopkins was originally one of the founders of Virgin Wines. “That’s where we made all our mistakes,” he joked. He described Naked Wines as “a farmers’ market for wine”. “It’s a community of wine lovers and wine makers. We recruit customers via partnerships with other online businesses, either through vouchering, paying commission or paying advertising fees, and we also promote like-minded businesses to our customers. “We’re trying to cut the 33% sales and marketing cost on a bottle of wine and give that back to the customer, and we do that via an investment model. So we have “angels” who are our regular customers and their money is invested in allowing winemakers to make the wine they want to make.”

“People buy from people, and that’s what builds a brand on Twitter,”

- Stephen Leighton Has Bean Coffee


Eric Partaker, Co-Founder Chilango: Finally Partaker explained how he had been inspired to launch Chilango by working at Skype. “There’s nothing revolutionary about what I’m doing, and that was what struck me about Skype. VoIP had been around for a while, but Skype just did it better than anyone else. “We use feedback via social media to improve the business,” he said. “I do all the Twitter management myself. I used to worry about what I should say, but then I decided I should just talk.” Everyone on the panel agreed this was a crucial point. Authenticity is Key: “People buy from people, and that’s what builds a brand on Twitter,” Leighton said. “Having your own voice is super-important. I’ve done 156 video podcasts now; I edit them myself and people know that I edit them myself, they know it’s me talking.” Building Businesses Around Community: Young pointed out that the link between all the businesses represented on the panel raised the issue discussed earlier in the day, that each is built around a community. “It’s about interaction and engagement,” Partaker said. “There’s so much choice that loyalty happens through the restaurant experience, and through keeping a relationship with customers afterwards.” A delegate asked what the panellists thought of Groupon: Hopkins replied that, while it’s the same model as Naked Wine, it’s not an audience he wants to promote to. “I think Groupon’s got a limited life,” he said. Partaker too was unimpressed. “I don’t think they’re local enough; people walk five minutes to our restaurants,” he said. “The type of people Groupon attracts are just looking for the next deal, so it’s not attractive to me to sell them food at a 60% discount.” The rest of the session focused on how the panellists balance the time they spend on social media with the other aspects of running their businesses: Partaker picked up on a point made earlier in the day by Dennis Yu. “It’s a huge trap to make social media justify itself,” he said. “It’s just a tool that allows you to do the fundamentals of business more effectively. In terms of ROI, it’s hard in the restaurant space, which is a cash business, when you give people a voucher. Are they going to come back?” Hopkins reinforced another view from a previous session, that people think there’s something strange going on if they can’t find you on social media. “We don’t sell through Facebook or Twitter; it’s more about them being another channel,” he said. “Also people would question why if we weren’t there. But social media is also starting to look like CRM. We’re finding our customers defending us against criticism online.”

“… social media is also starting to look like CRM. We’re finding our customers defending us against criticism online.”

- Ben Hopkins, Naked Wines

“We use feedback via social media to improve the business”

- Eric Partaker, Chilango


The extension of the question about balance is whether social media can be outsourced. One delegate asked if the panellists would have outsourced their social media activities from the beginning, if they could. Partaker replied that he would have done, because he was scared of what to say in what was new medium for him. “Now we’ve tried PR people doing social for us, and the tone-of-voice they used was off, and our followers noticed I, so I do it all myself.” Young admitted he’d made loads of mistakes in social media, but he argued the same mistakes would have been made even if he’d outsourced, because he’d have told his agency to do the same things he did. And he learned from his mistakes. “People have to figure it out,” he said. Hopkins too rejected outsourcing for similar reasons. “It’s really important to do social media in-house,” he said. “That’s the way you get the skills to run your business. Absolutely get advice, but at the end of the day it has be your voice.” And Leighton echoed the point. “Social media has nearly killed me,” he said. “If I could outsource it I would, but there’s no PR company or social media agency out there that knows as much about coffee, about the effect of altitude, about the different varietals, about the roasting process. “What we’ve done rather than outsource is add more people in house to help me with the social media workload.”

LSS Insights from Super Social Business: Social media can help with both B2C and B2B business. Authenticity is Key. People buy from people. Building a business around a community is good for revenue, for loyalty, for

the consumer and the business owner. Business owners already successful with social media do not like the

Groupon model. Social is not just about ROI, it’s about doing the fundamentals of business

and about engaging with customers. Social is already about CRM and being on the right channel, not just selling

products.

[businesses] “have to figure it out” [it = social media]

-Daniel Young Young & Foodish


Super Social Business Profiles

Chilango Category: Restaurant, Mexican Location: London Size: Small, 3 locations Web: http://www.chilango.co.uk/ Blog: None Facebook (2594 likes): http://www.facebook.com/ChilangoUK Twitter (1325 followers): @chilango_uk Example Use of Social:

Launching the Chancery Lane restaurant with heavy use of social media. Great authentic voice on Twitter.

Local Part: Local restaurant, that’s 100% local

Naked Wines Category: Mail Order/e-commerce, Wine Location: Norfolk Size: Medium; 68,000+ wine angle customer who spend £20 or more per month Web: http://www.nakedwines.com/ Blog: None but website is a wine social network for consumers and wine makers; which means lots of daily updates and dynamic content Facebook (14,733 likes): http:// www.facebook.com/nakedwines Twitter (5164 followers): @NakedWines Example Use of Social:

Wine community, Facebook contests, online wine tasting that sold £80k worth of wine in 24 hours.

Local Part: Buys wine direct from buyers, organizes local events, delivers direct to your door

http://www.chilango.co.uk/

http://www.facebook.com/ChilangoUK

http://www.nakedwines.com/

http://www.nakedwines.com/

http://www.facebook.com/nakedwines


Young & Foodish Category: Food critic and pop-up event leader. Location: London Size: One Man Brand Web: http://youngandfoodish.com/ Blog: http://youngandfoodish.com/blog/ Facebook (1465 likes): https://www.facebook.com/youngandfoodish Twitter (1789 followers): @youngandfoodish Example Use of Social:

Twitter, video, burger swarm, iPhone app, Eventbrite

Local Part: Events are 100% local

Has Bean Coffee Category: Mail Order/e-commerce, also sells to coffee shops Location: Staffordshire Size: Small Web: http://www.hasbean.co.uk/ Blog (at least 4): http://www.inmymug.com/ Facebook (2086 likes): http://www.facebook.com/hasbeancoffee Twitter (5897 followers): @Hasbean Example Use of Social:

In My Mug videos, Twitter personality, B2B videos, is on most social channels (audio boo as well)

Local Part: Buys beans direct from the growers, local coffee shops stock it, delivers direct to your door

http://youngandfoodish.com/

http://youngandfoodish.com/blog/

https://www.facebook.com/youngandfoodish

http://www.hasbean.co.uk/

http://www.inmymug.com/

http://www.facebook.com/hasbeancoffee


About Local Social Summit & this Report "The event attracted the real thought leaders in the industry alongside traditional

media companies that are negotiating their way in social from a local perspective.”

- Ben Barney, CEO, Akesios

“Great job, again." - Perry Evans, CEO Closey

"Best conference of 2011." - Dennis Yu, CEO Blitzlocal

"LSS'10 and LSS'11 were both a great success."

- Greg Sterling, Search Engine Land/Industry Analyst

Local Social Summit is an independent event for knowledge sharing and networking that explores the intersection of Local and Social Media. We strive to educate and inspire with a focus on the cutting edge by showcasing emerging trends at the intersection of Local, Social and Mobile. LSS is designed for a wide spectrum of Local Media stakeholders, including publishers, advertisers, start-ups and investors. LSS has grown from a pioneering invite-only event series called Local Search Summit. It was during the winter 2008 event in Dublin hosted by the Irish Times, where the participants began to talk about the profound disruption Social was already having on Local. Shortly afterwards, the decision was made to widen the audience for the event and the first LSS was held in London in 2009. The co-founders would like acknowledge and thank the LSS advisory board for all their important contributions and time invested in helping make LSS the industry leading event for local social. As one 2011 participant who goes to more than 20 events in a year globally said: “LSS was the best conference I attended in 2011, thanks!” The LSS 2011 Advisory Board Included:

Greg Sterling – Analyst and contributing Editor for Search Engine Land.

Seb Provencher - Web entrepreneur and Co-founder Needium.

Perry Evans – CEO at Closey. Serial entrepreneur.

Jonathan Ewert – CEO at Codero, proven c-level executive.

Mike Abeyta - Co-Founder and Director, Akesios Search Analytics.

Thank you advisors!

Local Social Summit can be found on the Internet at the following locations:

Slide Presentations – slideshare.net/LocalSocialSummit

Facebook – facebook.com/localsocialsummit

Twitter – @locsocsummit

Tumblr - localsocialsummit.tumblr.com/

YouTube - youtube.com/user/localsocialsummit

http://www.slideshare.net/LocalSocialSummit

http://www.facebook.com/localsocialsummit

http://www.twitter.com/locsocsummit

http://localsocialsummit.tumblr.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/localsocialsummit


This Report & Contributors This report was edited by Dylan Fuller, Local Social Summit. You can follow him on Twitter @afullerview. Mike Nutley wrote the bulk of the session summaries. You can find him here on LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/michaelnutley Thanks again to all our speakers, panellist, moderators and attendees. Local Social Summit (LSS) was co-founded by Dylan Fuller and Simon Baptist. Contact details:

[email protected]

[email protected]

https://twitter.com/#!/afullerview

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/michaelnutley

mailto:[email protected]



LSS’11 Sponsors We want to thank our sponsors for their support, input and for being forward thinking. Without sponsors Local Social Summit would not be possible.

BlitzLocal serves retail and and franchised companies that need local presence. http://www.blitzlocal.com/

deCarta is the leading provider of advanced and comprehensive geospatial software platforms for today’s cutting-edge Internet, mobile, personal navigation and enterprise location-based service (LBS) applications. http://www.decarta.com/

InnerBalloons helps traditional publishing businesses innovate into vertical and local search players and help these niche sites drive greater revenues and profitability. http://www.innerballoons.com/

JoinHere provides a social engagement platform that enables businesses to consolidate and organize their social network. http://www.facebook.com/JoinHere

Needium is a social lead generation tool for SMBs. http://needium.com/

Social Media Research Foundation: We are social media researchers who want to create open tools, generate and host open data, and support open scholarship related to social media. http://www.smrfoundation.org/

If you are interested in sponsoring Local Social Summit 2012 in November please contact us on email: [email protected]

http://www.blitzlocal.com/

http://www.decarta.com/

http://www.innerballoons.com/

http://www.facebook.com/JoinHere

http://needium.com/

http://www.smrfoundation.org/



Local Social Summit 2012: Dates & Information

Local Social Summit 2012 (LSS’12): is scheduled for 14-15 November 2012 in London. We are confident that LSS’12 will exceed all previous LSS events in terms of content, engagement, insights, learning and networking opportunities. We are also working on plans to offer LSS attendees and sponsors additional benefits, so please stay tuned. Additionally, London is hosting the Olympics this year, the first truly 100% digital Olympics. We will be on the front line of this exciting global event and we are sure that this will be a major topic for LSS ’12. Topics for 2012 will include:

SoLoMo Picks up Speed

Social Travel

The Connected Consumer

Insights from London 2012: The 1st Digital Olympics

Big Brands Local

Super Social Business - New Case Studies

Innovation in Local Social Vertical Apps

Social Network Analysis

The Local Facebook Opportunity Attending LSS’12: If you are planning to attend LSS’12 the Early Bird tickets are now available here - http://lss2012.eventbrite.com/

http://lss2012.eventbrite.com/

http://lss2012.eventbrite.com/


Sponsorship Opportunities for Local Social Summit 2012

“Sponsoring this event gave Akesios considerable exposure and networking opportunities to both the market influencers and to prospective clients.”

- Ben Barney, CEO, Akesios LSS is funded by our proud and forward-thinking sponsors who receive visibility as thought leaders at exhibition/breakout sessions (workshops, labs, the demo zone etc), networking and other benefits according to their sponsorship level. Sponsors are selected based upon their ability and desire to contribute to the dialog of the conference, and to provide the highest value content to the attendees. Past attendees include people from companies including: BBC, Burger King, Deutsche Telekom, eBay, Eniro, Facebook, Foursquare, European Directories, Google, ITV, Lyris, Microsoft, NDS, Northcliffe Media, Nokia, Nomura, Ogilvy Interactive, Schibsted, Seat Pagine Gialle, Sky, Swisscom, The Toronto Star, Travelzoo, We Are Social, Yell and Yelp. Over 60% of the participants are at board or executive decision making level with titles like: CEO, CTO, CxO, Managing Director, General Manager, Senior Vice President and Founder. For more information on speaking and sponsorship opportunities for LSS 2012 please contact us on email: [email protected]


Local Social Summit Report No 1 & Trends for 2012

Business

Transcript of Local Social Summit Report No 1 & Trends for 2012