Social Persuasion - The Social Media Marketing Agency Blog

What Is Stickybits?

Stickybits is a free app you use to scan barcodes on all the stuff you love, instantly turning it into even more stuff you love. Scan a snowboard – win free lift passes. Scan some wireless headphones – see what people say about them and check out what your friends are listening to. Scan a box of frozen chalupas – get a 2fer for even más chalupas. You get the idea. Scan any barcode. Read reviews and comments, and share your own. Score a bunch of big discounts and free stuff – both for what you’re scanning and related things you’ll like.

With the free stickybits app you have the key to unlock every single barcode to reveal an infinite world of info and deals. With a quick scan, you enter a social space where you can post and read info, reviews, tweets and videos. You can also grab details and promos attached to products, which you can cash in instantly.

Want the best stuff first? Compete in challenges to win free products and get points for stuff you’ve scanned – the more points you nab, the earlier you get in on the next challenge. (Think: never-ending treasure hunt. More scans = more scratch.)

Stickybits is kind of fun. Give it a try. Think about how you can use it to promote your own business or to accomplish your organization's goals.

Explore my stickybits page at http://www.stickybits.com/brentpurves and scan my code (download scanner app for your phone from http://www.stickybits.com and then drop me a line :)

Need help figuring out how to use Stickybits, product check in marketing, location based social media marketing or qr codes or barcode marketing to help promote your business or products online? Let's setup a time for a free 30 minute consultation. Looking for a social media marketing agency? Email me at brent[at]11marketing.com or call now at 1-604-847-3447 ext 104 or click here http://meetwith.me/brent to schedule a time to meet that works for you.

After announcing a partnership with Best Buy a few months ago, Shopkick is debuting a new implementation of its geo-coupon system at Target today. Users can now unlock coupons via Shopkick’s app in 242 stores in the Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York City, and San Francisco/Silicon Valley markets.

Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare or Gowalla, shopkick automatically recognizes when someone with the free shopkick app on their phone walks into a store.

Here it comes: Auto check in. Today you have to have the app installed on your smartphone for it to check you in and give you points, but I imagine tomorrow (ok, soon) phones will come bundled with auto check in capability using Facebook Places Shopping or Google Places / Android Shopping or Starbucks or McDonalds apps built right in.

Maybe now we can see why Yahoo wanted to buy location-based check-in service Foursquare last April - it's sinking its teeth deeper into the geolocation arena. The search engine and content aggregator announced this morning the release of Yahoo PlaceFinder, an expansion of their mapping and location capabilities that take aim in the direction of check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla and other location features like Twitter Places.

While Yahoo may have been a little late to the social game, it seems determined to not fall behind in the next big thing - mobile social.

On the web, small, seemingly insignificant things can have incredibly wide-reaching effects. A small ad placed next to a search result might be the start of a massive new enterprise. A service that lets you share your status, photos and links with others might become the largest social network on earth. Small changes. Big results.

And one day, people might say something similar about location service Foursquare and Location Layers – a feature that lets Foursquare ‘layer’ information from certain brands on top of certain venues. Check-in at a Starbucks and get some local news. Check-in at an underground bar and get a bit of trivia as to who was once there. Small change. But with possibly very big effects.

Foursquare is going to start rotating specials that users see in the “Special Nearby” tab. The service realizes that users are seeing the same ones over and over again in places they frequent, so they’re going to switch that up.

Second, Foursquare is going to extend the physical reach of some of these offers. Currently, people within about 200 yards of a venue can see a special. And while that works fine in tightly-packed cities, it can be useless in wide open areas. So they’re going to increase that range in those less dense areas.

Have you ever actually clicked on one of the Foursquare specials? I've clicked many out of interest because they're new and a novelty -- and I am mayor at a few Starbucks but have yet to cash in on the dollar-off-'Frap deal. Extending the physical reach should help increase the exposure of these deals. Seems like once it catches on with advertisers and businesses (and the user base grows) there will be a never-ending stream of rotating "deals near you" in whatever Foursquare or Gowalla or Yelp or Facebook or Twitter location based advertising app you're using on your smart phone.