Fun Foursquare Facts from the History Channel

It’s really interesting to see brands figuring out how they can best leverage the newest buzzworthy social media tool, and in this case it’s Foursquare. This partnership with the History Channel, to promote the new miniseries America: The Story of Us, is one of the best I’ve seen. When you check in to specific spots, Foursquare will tell you a fun historical fact about the very place you’re standing and award you a special History Channel badge. Great for history buffs and trivia nerds alike, plus it will likely inspire users to check out the miniseries for even more fun facts.

I’m also a big fan of the way the Financial Times is leveraging the platform, by giving limited-time free subscriptions to the online version of the newspaper to Foursquare users that are “mayors” of certain spots. That’s one way to break through the paywall!

—Alyssa

This ChristmaHanuKwanzaakkah, Please “Pitch In”

Best Buy has announced the launch of its Pitch In card - a card to which friends and family members can contribute money (in any denomination over $5 and at any time) to help you purchase all the fun gadgets and accessories you’ve been dreaming of! Just imagine…instead of spending your own $300 on that e-reader you’ve been lusting after, you can strong-arm 10 of your closest friends and family members to throw in $30 each and BOOM! You become the proud owner of this fabulous device.

The card never expires, exists both in physical and online form and can be used to purchase absolutely anything your heart desires at Best Buy store locations and online.

I’m actually surprised these cards aren’t generating more buzz. I’m sure it’s especially appealing for college students who are far from home, engaged couples, young professionals and, well, anyone whose friends and family members give lousy gifts, year after year. Not to mention, gift-givers asked to contribute to a Pitch In card will rejoice as they’ll appreciate having one less gift idea to brainstorm.

Now, if only Bloomingdale’s would follow suit.

- Andréa S.

(Reposted from Fabulously Frugal in NYC.)

How Should PR Pros Disclose Client Tweets?

Since the FTC’s new endorsement regulations go into effect today, I figured now would be a good time to blog about something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately — how do you provide proper disclosure in tweets, with only 140 characters to do so? Most recently, tennis player Serena Williams came under fire for twittering about Nabisco without saying she was shooting a commercial for them in one of her tweets.

However, the issue for PR professionals is more about how to disclose when we’re twittering about clients. In a Forbes.com video, O’Reilly Media consultant Joshua-Michele Ross says that as long as publicists state in their Twitter bios that they tweet about clients, that should be enough. However, bios are limited to just 160 characters, and I couldn’t even fit all of my clients’ names in there if I tried.

Common practice has been to include “(client)” in a tweet about one of the companies you represent, which I usually try to do — unless it doesn’t fit in the allotted space. In fact, Twitter’s new retweeting system makes this even more difficult, since it doesn’t allow retweeters to modify the text of the original tweet. In the past, when I’ve retweeted a client, I’ve added “(client)” into the tweet after their username, but Twitter no longer allows you to do that. I’ve also wondered about what to do when colleagues ask me to twitter about their clients — do I have to specify that the company mentioned is represented by my firm, but not me personally? Where do we draw the line?

I think CMP.ly offers an interesting solution to this predicament. It allows Twitter users to append a 16-character link to their tweets, which brings visitors to a Web page that further specifies the relationship between the twitterer and the subject of the tweet. So if I twittered about a client, I would include the link “http://cmp.ly/4” in my tweet, and curious clickers would see that I have a business relationship with the brand I mentioned. Except for the retweeting issue, CMP.ly seems like a good answer to me. But for now, the answer seems to be that nobody really has the answer.

—Alyssa

Someecards Launches Invites

These days, if you’re throwing a party, you probably just create a Facebook event to let all your friends know about it. But sometimes, if it’s a secret event that you don’t want the uninvited to know about, you might venture over to that old relic Evite and send out a stealth invitation, complete with hokey theme and annoying login requirements. However, now you have a better alternative, since the best e-card site in the world, Someecards, just launched an Invites section.

Within the next few weeks, the new tool will allow you to turn any Someecard into an invitation and send it to friends, who will be able to comment on the “Party Wall” and respond to the invitations with Someecards of their own. This would also be a great opportunity for brands who want to get in front of Someecard’s young, hip target demographic to advertise via sponsored e-cards/Invites, like Jose Cuervo and Puma have previously done. Eventually, the site plans to add Facebook Connect to integrate the invites with Facebook as well.  Now you only have to hope that the party itself is as cool as the invitation.

—Alyssa

Are Twittersquatters a problem for you?

As companies begin to dive into Twitter, they often find that their branded real estate has already been snatched up by Twittersquatters, the  term for those who register a brand trademark on Twitter and sit on it until they can sell it for profit. Twitter’s terms and conditions do not effectively protect brands from this type of misuse, so watch out for your brands!

-Maria