Q. What is schmap.me?
A. Schmap.me is a simple way to share map links using a meaningful, memorable, custom url.  For locations that you share frequently this can be a much more effective way of communicating location than sending a cumbersome google map link. For example, you can see the schmap.me url for Donald McMillian, VP of marketing. It includes additional information related to the location, such as phone numbers, directions, and photos – schmap.me/donald.mcmillan

Coincidentally, venture capitalist Fred Wilson recently commented on exactly this issue on his blog – http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/06/linking-to-google-maps.html (we’ll have to get him a schmap for Union Square Ventures)

Q. I see you have a limited number of preloaded cities on your publish or widget programs. Will those cities listed be expanded at any time?  What if someone like myself wants to publish or schmap about something not in one of those cities?
A. We do plan to expand those cities for which we offer browse-able guides, but do not have a release schedule at this time.  However, our services, including schmap.it, schmap.me & geotweeter, are designed for the sharing of information from any location.  And in fact we have seen schmaps created for places in all corners of the world, in cities as wide ranging as Singapore, Moscow, New York, Reykjavik, and many many more.

Q. So how can a small business benefit from using schmaps?
A. Many small businesses are already using Twitter for local marketing: bars tweeting happy hours, stores with discount sales, restaurants promoting lunch specials, realtors marketing property – these are examples of local businesses trying to drive foot traffic from Twitter for commercial gain. Schmaps give these same local businesses a much better way to do this – extending a 140 character tweet into a rich local marketing resource.

Q. Are they any costs involved in using your site/services?
A. The basic service is free, with an optional $9.95 /month PRO account for power users. The PRO account has some nice additional marketing resources, including tweet scheduling, direct message and @message marketing campaigns, and the ability to track campaign metrics. We’re currently offering a limited number of free PRO accounts – details at www.schmap.it/PRO-account-for-FREE – if any of your readers would like to take advantage.

Q. Where do you see local mobile marketing going in the near future.
A. Right now, we’re seeing an epic commercial migration taking place at the intersection of ‘local’ and ’social’. The same local restaurants, bars, shops etc. that took ten years to discover the Internet are now adapting to Twitter and Facebook with much greater speed, finding some great opportunities to engage local consumers with a blurred mix of content, service and local marketing. Local consumers are increasingly accessing social networks and local content from mobile devices: we see the future of local mobile marketing being driven by these two trends – local businesses going ’social’ and local consumers going mobile.

Again, I want to thank Paul for his time and insights.

Mobile-local and social-local are growing areas small business needs to understand and areas where they can reach more potential clients. Schmaps is one of those companies doing some interesting and cool stuff online in the mobile-social-local market. I wanted to learn more, so I reached out and was able to interview CEO, Paul Hallett of Schmap. Below is part 1 of that interview. (The more I investigated their site and business, the more questions I have. I hope I covered everything you might have a question one.)

Q. Good day Paul, can you tell us a little about your company?
A. We started out in 2004 – at that time, there were just three of us, developing a platform to combine maps with local content (reviews and photos) in a compelling and dynamic way. This platform became the foundation for our popular Schmap guides – www.schmap.com – a series of desktop and mobile local guides for 200 worldwide cities.

Q. What is schmap currently doing?
A. Our current focus is at the intersection of local and social, making it easier for local businesses to reach local consumers, and help these same consumers discover vibrant, real-time local content. One aspect of our rollout here is the geoparsing of content shared on social networks. Taking Twitter for example, at any point in time, there’s a wealth of vibrant local information being shared in tweets: people tweeting about great restaurant experiences, bands tweeting about gigs, bars tweeting about happy hours and so on.

The challenge is filtering and deciphering: if someone tweets ” Cool bash tonight at Joe’s”, has that person just returned from a private party at a friend’s house, or is there some kind of event coming up at Joe’s Bar? What is the event, where is Joe’s Bar, and who might this information be relevant to? The second aspect of our local/social rollout is http://schmap.it – a Twitter app for event marketing and local promotion.

Q. I recently signed up for that app,  can you tell us what this new tweeter app does?
A. Our schmap.it Twitter app basically allows the user to add rich local content to a tweet, in the form of a schmap – a map with text, photos, hash tags, and functionality that allows the recipient to retweet, add comments and RSVP to local events. The app is designed for commercial users – event promoters, marketing professionals and local businesses trying to drive folk from Twitter to real world locations: we saw a gap for this type of service left by the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla (services that focus on individuals sharing their current location).

Q.  After looking at your website, can you tell us a bit about your mobile apps….Schmap GeoTweeter?   Any Android or Blackberry versions coming out?
A. Geotweeter is an app that allows users to share their location via twitter as a customized map that can include photos, notes and custom icons. It was among the first iPhone apps to combine GPS coordinates with Twitter’s service.  We are currently developing a new iPhone app that uses many of the concepts from Geotweeter, but will integrate with our offering of real time local information.  We are considering Android and Blackberry platforms for development following the release of the iPhone app, but have no firm plans at this time.

I will end Part 1 here.  Tomorrow I will finish up the interview but if you are interested, you can sign up for a Free PRO account at  http://www.schmap.it/PRO-account-for-FREE.

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Can you really make a lot of money in a very short period of time? Well, may be, if you are really lucky. However, realistically speaking, you can’t get rich overnight. Success comes after you put in efforts.

See, I am saying this because there is a common notion that social media is a new way of making a lot of money online. There is no doubt that it is a powerful medium for marketers, but you can’t grow your small business and make hundreds of thousands of dollars in a matter of days only. You will have to remain consistent and keep evaluating and improving your performance and results.

If you rush, you will waste time. When you rush, you make mistakes. Sometimes, in marketing, we make big mistakes and we can’t undo them. It happens mainly when we rush without a proper plan. If you continue to make progress at a consistent pace, you will achieve the desired results soon. Of course, it won’t happen overnight, but you will eventually create your success story like others.

Make Up Your Mind First:

When you are ready to promote your business on social media, you need to make up your mind that you won’t become a millionaire in a week. It will take time. This way you will work with dedication and remain persistent. If you start marketing with a short term plan that you will achieve the desired results in a month, then you will end up wasting your efforts.

Stay Away from Spamming:

A lot of people have this misconception that simply sending promotional message will help them socialize with their network. Wrong! This is spamming, not networking. You need to communicate with your network just as you communicate with your friends. If you spam, you will lose your credibility and get labeled as spammer.

Get to Know Your Network Personally:

If you begin to know your network personally, then they will begin to recognize you as well. It can happen if you communicate with them regularly. When they post something, don’t forget to provide them with your feedback. Also, share articles and videos that your network will like and ask them to leave their comments.

Help People in Your Network:

This is a great way of connecting with people in your network and get closer to them. If they ask a question, try to help them out with a good answer. Don’t hesitate to offer any advice that you think will be helpful. This will help you build trust and become credible.

Now, You May Ask: Why Get Closer to Your Network?

The reason is that once they get to know you, they will take your offers seriously. See, if you just add friends and start posting links to your products, then you will soon become notorious. However, once you establish a connection with your network, then whatever you say will hold weight and your voice will actually be heard.

So, don’t rush and don’t waste your time. Walk towards success with a plan!

It still amazes me how some of my clients (and potential clients) run their business..ignoring the Internet or what is going on really is not a smart move.  (Ok I am off my soap box) Below are the articles I think provide a nice overview for these areas.  Happy reading!

A. Social Marketing:
10 Creative Ways Businesses Used Twitter in 2009 by Matt McGee

B. Linking:
11 Effective, Efficient Ways To Use Limited Time To Build Links

How To Take Control Of Your Link Building In 2010

C. Video Marketing
42 Ways to Use Online Video for Business Marketing by Mark Robertson

11 Predictions for the Online Video Industry in 2010

D. Reviews
How To Handle Negative Reviews Of Your Business by David Ingram

E. Local Search
Local SEO Predictions 2010 by Andrew Shotland

Blocking And Tackling: 10 Fundamentals Of Local SEO by David Mihm

The “Other 20%” Of Local SEO: Advanced Ranking Factors

Predictions For The Changing Local Search Landscape In 2010 by Neg Norton

Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media from the New York Times

The Twitter Guide Book from Mashable Social Media Guide

Twitter 1o1 from Twitter

How to Twitter… Naked from Will Scott, might have mentioned this one already

Twitter: Incredibly Valuable Or Utterly Useless As A Link Building Tool? by Eric Ward (Google is indexing twitter posts-saw one of mine the other day

From the press release/blog:

To further increase local business exposure online, MerchantCircle also announces the first-ever local city coupon Twitter feed. Merchant-built coupons are now automatically fed to city-specific Twitter feeds, so that local consumers can find local coupons and events in real-time. MerchantCircle local business owners create more than 50,000 online coupons and events every month.  Merchant-created deals and events are automatically posted to the new Twitter feeds to expose local merchants to even more potential customers.

“I’m thrilled MerchantCircle is always coming up with ways that make it easier for customers to find us,” says Ken Mapel, owner of The Glass Guy in St. Paul, MN. “I can create coupons for free on MerchantCircle and they distribute them across the web. And now with the direct Twitter feed, they’re making it even easier to find more local customers. I currently receive around 80 calls per month from consumers who have found me on MerchantCircle; ™ looking forward to this bringing in even more.”

Are you on Merchant Circle, if you let me know how it is working for you.

Twitter has changed a lot regarding blogging. I find myself reviewing my Twitter account more than my Google Reader. I still do read my blogs but with Twitter you get information/links/comments very close to real time. I find this helps me keep up with what is important to me (local search and sports).

From the blogs I follow, it seems like there has been less postings, but no lack of tweets. In addition, to getting information as it happened, it also appears that Twitter can act as an instant messaging tool.  I know I have used it a few times to get a hold of someone so I could call them.

So I agree with Gib that Twitter has effected blogging and commenting on blogs.  How long will Twitter be around?  Not sure, but right now it is hot and to stay competitive online, you need to make sure you are int the middle of it. My retired father-in-law even asked me if he should get a Twitter account.

So what has your experience been with Twitter? Has it changed how you read, converse online? Are the bloggers you follow on Twitter more than their blogs?

Anyone out there? If no one responds, I will understand.

Thank goodness that my blog post get sent to Twitter also.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter.

TwitterHawk “TwitterHawk is a real time targeted marketing engine that will find people talking on twitter now by your chosen topic and location, allowing you to really hit your target mid conversation with ease.

Twellow “The Twitter Yellow Pages”

TwitterLocal “AIR Client allows you to watch as many location-based Twitter feeds as you want”

LocalTweeps “By mapping twitter profiles and content to geography, Localtweeps encourages local connections and local information sharing. We’ll help you find local tweeps, get found locally and share geographic trends on Twitter.”

NearbyTweets “a geography centric social tool for networking and a business tool for building customer relationships and monitoring realtime buzz. With Nearby Tweets sophisticated geographic layer on top of Twitter people and businesses will find Twitter more relevant, manageable, and fun!”

WeFollow “User Powered Twitter Directory”

ChirpCity “latest tweets in your city and top user list”

CityTweets “twits new, near you!”

LoadedWeb” We focus on geo-centric directories: blogs, businesses, and Twitter.

Tweepz “Tweepz is a search engine which helps you find and discover interesting people on twitter”

Are there any that I missed that you use? Let me know.

Can Twitter Be Useful For Business? by Dave Wallace. Dave provides 5 points he believes Twitter can help small business.  They are:

• Puts a Human Face On the Company
• Community Outreach
• Product/Service Promotion
• Brand Management
• Polls/Surveys

Should Local Marketers Get Twitterpated? By Gregg Stewart provides a general commentary on Twitter and lists some good tools you can use.

Want some examples of local business using Twitter?  Check out these articles:

A Sign Of Things To Come: Naked Pizza Erects Twitter Billboard

Greg Sterling commented about this article: “Why do I show this? Because Twitter is as conceptually simple as email and faster/more effective. No code; no real learning curve. Indeed, it could become one of the top local biz marketing methods in a few years.”

Twitter To Go: How one local coffee shop used Twitter to double their clientele. What’s YOUR story?

Harness The Power Of Twitter For Local Marketing by Chris Smith. This article  by Chris has some great general info about Twitter and a listing of a number of business that are using Twitter to help themselves.

A couple of quotes from Chris “…the value of Twitter to your company may be in terms of audience engagement and as a communication vehicle, if you learn to use Twitter effectively”

“Twitter is full of word of mouth Marketing opportunities”

Remember Twitter is free and really easy to use. Take a look at these articles and see if using this hot social networking site can help your business.

Pros

• quick to do
• are limited in how much you can say
• plenty of apps for mobile devices and desktop computers to make it easy to search, follow, find info
• can see almost real time what is happening or what folks are talking/thinking about on a certain topic
• it is the hot topic these days
• can easily be a local or hyperlocal tool
• great way to connect with others

Cons

• can be a lot of “noise” out there
• tweets can happen so quickly, can be hard to keep up
• need to understand the “language” of Twitter to properly use it
• takes time to tweet, follow etc
• probably need to use other related sites to help get the most out of using Twitter

Another question for you, how does Twitter compare to Facebook?

This probably could be its own post but I thought I would introduce the idea here. I see Facebook being a somewhat passive social media. Yes you can add what you are doing and connect to friends but after that you can create groups, a business profile page, become a fan, etc…it does not have that same “instant info” aspect that Twitter does. With this being the case, then Facebook might be more of interest to the small business that would want to take the “slower” approach to social marketing.