GeoFeedia Live Examines The ‘What’ And ‘Where’ Of Social Posts

By Lauryn ChamberlainLocation-based social monitoring specialist GeoFeedia has launched GeoFeedia Live, expanding the data and insights of its existing platform to better help brands search and analyze real-time social media content by location.GeoFeedia Live aggregates data around location tags as opposed to hashtags and keywords, which are the province of most social media monitoring companies. The idea is that real-time location provides a contextual backdrop that helps reveal a posters mindset and interests — making them more effectively targetable.“People are sharing more data on social media than ever before,” said R.J. Taylor, VP, product management at GeoFeedia. “Now, consumers can aggregate that data [by location] and use it to understand what’s going on — what’s popular, what’s trending — literally anywhere in the world.”GeoMarketing: How does GeoFeedia Live enable marketers to mine social posts for relevant data?R.J. Taylor: We’re using social media data and location data to understand things that are trending, things that are hot, in locations all across the world.We made it really easy with GeoFeedia Live for users to see a map of the world and then to zoom into a location — or all the locations that you care about — and then in one click to quickly see things that are trending. And then with another click, marketers can explore all of the data that really underlies that trend. It lets them dig into who’s talking about it, who are the influencers, etc.We work with all kinds of entities, but marketers care about this because the trend to real-time marketing is critical and is now. Creating and launching a campaign that was planned three or six months ago really doesn’t work anymore; marketers need to act on real-time data to take advantage of trends in order to increase views and drive interest. With GeoFeedia Live, they can figure out “What should my social post be right now? This trend is increasing so maybe I’ll change my Instagram posts or my social media posts based on that.”If they don’t have any way to tune into all that social media data then they probably don’t know how to take advantage of those trends. That’s really where GeoFeedia Live helps them with real-time campaign planning and adjustment and also getting ideas for future campaigns.How does understanding this social data and tailoring campaigns accordingly help retailers to drive the in-store visit?Using GeoFeedia Live, you can discover where your audiences are. You might not know that there are multiple areas across the world that are interested in your products unless you start looking. Effectively, you can discover your audience. You discover your audience and then you can plan all of your marketing campaigns around where your audiences are. There are a lot of assumptions that are made in marketing about who and what and where targeted customers are, and GeoFeedia Live really allows you to either validate or dispel those assumptions.That could be at a granular level, like a neighborhood or a specific suburb, or it could be an aggregate, like a whole city or a state. You might find that a particular trend or topic is bubbling up in a country or an area that you had no idea. If you’re looking to drive in-store traffic, there might be audiences out there that you didn’t even know existed who are interested in your product that you can discover with GeoFeedia Live.Can you share any results from brands who have tested GeoFeedia Live thus far?Not just yet, though I can say that we have a sportswear brand that is testing it right now to discover audiences, to validate previous assumptions about its consumer base, and to test audiences generated from GeoFeedia Live. Both of those are in flight and pretty exciting, so we’ll just be sharing results as they happen.

These Chicago tech firms are adding serious sales firepower

JOHN PLETZ ON TECH

GEOFEEDIA HIREGeofeedia, whose technology corrals social media dispatches by location, has hired former executives from GrubHub and Salesforce.com.Steve Sanger, former vice president of business development at GrubHub, joins Geofeedia in a similar role. Justin Fite, a former sales executive at Indianapolis-based ExactTarget, which was acquired by Salesforce.com, becomes chief revenue officer at Geofeedia.“These two hires allow us to move from a founder-driven company to more of a professionally managed company,” CEO and co-founder Phil Harris said.Fite and Sanger will help Geofeedia move more aggressively into enterprise sales and corporate partnerships. The four-year-old company's customers include police agencies, corporate customers and media outlets.The company, which has operations in Chicago and Indianapolis, has doubled headcount to 55 people in the past year. It's backed by Hyde Park Venture Partners.

Tech roundup: Demibooks acquired, Geofeedia picks up 2 key hires, & more

By Sam Dewey

Geofeedia picks up two new members to its executive team

Geofeedia, the Chicago-based leader of location-based social media analytics, announced this week the appointments of Justin Fite and Steve Sanger to their executive team. Fite, the previous VP of global cross channel sales at Salesforce, will fill the role of Chief Revenue Office, while Sanger joins as VP of business and corporate development. Sanger most recently acted as GrubHub’s VP of business development.

Chicago Download: Geofeedia Expands Management Team, Zebra's Tablets, HP Cuts, Dislike

Will FlanaganDownload Some Chicago Tech News:Geofeedia Expands Management Team:Geofeedia, the Chicago-based provider of location-based social media intelligence, announced the expansion of its executive team, including Justin Fite as Chief Revenue Officer and Steve Sanger as VP, Business & Corporate Development. Fite is the former VP of Cross Channel Sales with Salesforce and Sanger was previously the VP of Business Development for GrubHub.Zebra's Tablets:Lincolnshire-based Zebra Technologies, a global leader in RFID technology, revealed new, customizable tablets for the enterprise. The tablets are designed specifically for individuals in the field, with an emphasis on durability and security.Explained a Zebra VP, "The rugged ET50 line of tablet computers addresses all the business issues associated with deploying tablets inside and outside the four walls of the enterprise – from durability, security and expandability to device and application management." [More in Blue Sky]Moto Merch:According to Chicago Real Estate Daily, Motorola is looking to sublease a third of its space in the Merch Mart (nearly 200,000 square feet), just 18 months after it moved into its new headquarters. The announcement comes on the heels of recent job cuts (almost 500). [More Here]Download Some National Tech News:HP will reportedly cut 30,000 more jobs following its split into two jobs.According to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is working on a "dislike" button.Snapchat will now let users pay to replay lost messages. Gross, I think.Salesforce now knows when its the best time to email someone. You're welcome, maybe.Download Some National News:North Korea has improved its nuclear arsenal in "quantity and quality," says North Korea.Vladimir Putin called Elton John to discuss gay right, says Elton John. Russia disagrees.Download Some Stuff to Talk About in the Elevator:Boeing has an R2-D2. 

Uses Location-Tagged Data to Gather Social Intelligence

Geofeedia version 4.0

This updated social media monitoring and analysis platform enables the use of location-tagged data to discover, engage and analyze content across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Sina Weibo and other social media channels. With the new iOS app, enterprise security leaders can gather location-based social intelligence in the areas around the current locations, create or monitor any location while mobile, and access a streamer view of location-tagged social media posts on-the-go. The platform’s upgraded capability can process more than 1 billion posts daily, and users can save time by creating and reusing search criteria, such as locations, networks, keywords and usernames, within a search template.

Find out more at geofeedia.com

Huntington Beach police use social media to keep the peace

Government Product News Staff Huntington Beach, Calif., sees 16+ million visitors annually — 500,000 of them arrive each summer for the U.S. Open of Surfing, the world’s largest surf competition. The week-long event attracts surfers from around the globe, but it also brings increased petty crime, vandalism, disorderly conduct and littering.Even with 214 officers, the city’s police (HBPD) are stretched thin during the event. The volume of reports and offenses make it difficult to quickly respond to complaints, follow up on leads and maintain a police presence on the streets and beaches. That’s why the HBPD Crime Analysis Unit took a look and evaluated Geofeedia’s offering.Officers  needed an efficient, real-time, user-friendly way to monitor social activity and public sentiment around event venues, according to an HBPD representative.Officers were able to dive into Geofeedia’s platform immediately, and setting up perimeters around locations of interest was easy. The law enforcement team paid special attention to parking garages in the area because underage youths historically congregate there to drink, which often leads to fighting and other issues.By monitoring social media activity near parking garages, the HBPD team at the command center could identify potential threats in real time and alert onsite security guards to confiscate alcohol and deal with misbehaving youth. The team also used the system to monitor keywords like “gun,” “fight,” “shoot” and “riot.” The HBPD command center used keyword- and location-based searches to identify issues and send patrol officers to specific locations.When a riot broke out one night at the end of the U.S. Open of Surfing, the HBPD team used Geofeedia to backtrack events and look for clues about how it began. Not only were they able to uncover the instigators, they caught the vandals in the act and built cases against them.In years past, Huntington Beach citizens had been frustrated by vandalism and littering. It got to the point that they started a “Take Back Huntington Beach” website. But once they noticed HBPD officers’ ability to be in the right place at the right time – and follow up on more complaints than ever – residents partnered with the HBPD team to report problems.The HBPD started using the technology in March 2014. After seeing the value of social media monitoring during the U.S. Open of Surfing, additional HBPD divisions are using the Geofeedia monitoring tool.Click here to learn more about Geofeedia.

Will Social Media Give TV a Run for Its Money in the 2016 Election?

BY NICOLE SPECTORUsing social media to reach voters has, of course, become common practice among political candidates. A survey published by Pew Research Center last November found the number of registered voters who follow candidates and other political figures on social media had risen from 6 percent in 2010 to 16 percent in 2014. As we head toward the 2016 elections, the value of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are picking up steam as platforms for campaigning, especially at the hyperlocal level.Mike Fricchione, an NYC-based political consultant whose worked on a number of campaigns, says that social media advertising campaigns tend to average only about 10 percent of a political campaign’s advertising budget — but that is up from 2012, when most political campaigns wouldn’t be able to quantify how much money they spent because it was so small.“Politicians — and especially candidates running for office — are finally catching up to the rest of the word in terms of social media savviness,” says Fricchione. “A part of this is thanks to new Internet-based platforms that allow politicians and candidates to easily and affordably cross-match and connect with likely voters that are on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.”Tracy Graziani, the director of Graziani Multimedia, asserts that in 2012 people were still debating about whether or not social was actually important in politics.“There were those who still dismissed it out of hand, and that simply isn’t happening now,” Graziani says. “In the last six months some major hold-outs have given in and gotten social — even POTUS is on Twitter now.”By leveraging social media, politicians can not only connect with millions of Americans, but also target them via their location. Where someone lives can play a tremendous role in how they vote.“Politicians are starting to use social media extensively to understand behavioral patterns by location; especially areas that could swing an election one way or another,” says Phil Harris, CEO of Geofeedia, a location-based social media intelligence platform. “In the 2012 election, Ohio was of critical importance to understand voter sentiment and direction based on region by region. Politicians already know that an election can hinge on specific regions and using social media to listen and engage in those areas can have a significant impact on the voting outcome. In addition to the candidates, incumbents use social media throughout their terms to monitor and measure sentiment.”Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter each have their own sets of benefits. They are not created equal, or used to the same extent by every political campaign.“Each is good for different reasons,” says Graziani. “Your general voting population is on Facebook, [which comprises] roughly 75% of [Americans] now.”Though Facebook casts the widest net in terms of active users, it’s used less by national campaigns and more by local campaigns, according to Fricchione: “Most local campaigns rely heavily on Facebook because it allows candidates to quickly and easily mobilize close friends and rally neighbors for small-scale volunteering and grassroots efforts. As campaigns get bigger, they tend to rely more on Twitter and Instagram.”Why would a politician pour dollars into a campaign on a platform that has fewer users than the other? Doesn’t she or he just want to reach as many voters as possible? Nope. Presumably, once you get to a certain level, you’re not interested in simply gaining attention. You want to gain attention from the right people — the people who are paying attention to begin with.“Traditionally, Twitter has been great from a press perspective for candidates and for campaign staffers who want to send out issue or current events statement to journalists and local papers and blogs without having to write up a formal press release,” says Fricchione.Graziani finds that Twitter has more of a niche audience, but one where “a slightly more politically active voter is found,” she says. Instagram on the other hand is “perfect for branding and telling the story of the candidate.”When it comes to location-targeting capabilities, there’s no common consensus on which is the supreme platform. Harris has found that Twitter and Instagram “provide the best data available for the campaigns location-targeting abilities;” while Graziani says, “You’re much more likely to get a location-specific audience on Facebook, but an ideology-based audience on Twitter.”What is agreed upon is that these platforms are becoming increasingly used as tools to effectively target voters. Still, none of these platforms are nearly as mighty an advertising means as television, which comes as no surprise. But just because Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are not as widely used as TV, that doesn’t mean they’re any less valuable. They might even emerge as the more relevant mediums.“The viewing area for most television stations spans far outside the municipal boundaries for most local elections,” Graziani says. “The ad is being viewed by people who can’t even vote in the race much of the time.” What’s the point of reaching people in places that don’t count? What’s more, television doesn’t have a built-in aspect for debate. Social media, with its feisty comment sections and share capacities, was practically made for politics.“The biggest benefit of social media is that it is not just one direction,” says Harris. “Conversations and engagement can happen on social that cannot happen on TV. Social media can be one to many or one to one and the benefit of a multi-dimensional medium is the extended reach and influence of the campaign. Local influencers can continue to spread the messages and amplify the campaign’s effectiveness. When used properly, social media campaigns are more cost effective than TV.”Nicole Spector is a contributor to Street Fight.

Tech firms chase talent with sharp creative, communication skills

By Jared CouncilIt’s no secret that tech companies are on a constant hunt for software programmers.But these firms are also clamoring to get product specialists—the rare people who have both the communication skills to discover what customers want and enough technical know-how to bring it to life.“I think there’s this growing appreciation of, ‘Man shall not live on code alone,’” said former Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle, who created a product management position at the company a few years ago. “The world is waking up to the importance of people who have the creativity and resourcefulness to actually turn ... all these new tools and technologies into solutions that are valuable. But there just aren’t enough of them yet.”The dearth of this amphibious talent, at both the executive and rank-and-file levels, is leading local tech companies to poach it, outsource it and even attempt to grow it in-house. It’s also sparking calls for education institutions to create programs that expose all students to the mix of creativity, business and technical skills that product specialists have.Product teams typically include user-experience designers, product marketers and product managers.Whether it’s Web-based accounting software or a ride-hailing smartphone app, user-experience architects draw up blueprints for software engineers to go build. Product marketers articulate a software application’s value to potential customers. And product managers captain its entire life cycle.These roles have been around for more than a decade, but the need for them has increased dramatically as software technology increasingly permeates business and personal life. User-experience professionals, in particular, have seen a surge in demand as people expect the software they rely on at work to be just as smooth and elegant as using their iPhone or watching Netflix.“There is literally a shortage of this talent in Indianapolis,” said Mike Reynolds, CEO of InnovateMap, an agency he founded last year to serve companies’ product needs.“I started this company out of a vision and hope ... that this [need] was real,” the former Aprimo product vice president said, “and have been shocked at how real it is.”Product managers are in shortest supply, observers said. They drive the creation of tech products that people are willing to pay for. They listen to what customers want, predict what they need, and tweak products on the market as customer feedback rolls in. Even if they aren’t proficient software coders, they’re adept at expressing their vision to coders.“If you did a meet-up group in Indianapolis, there would only be about 15 to 20 of us,” said Jeff Middlesworth, a former Salesforce product manager who started working for Pittsburgh-based Branding Brand in April. Middlesworth is still based in Indianapolis.Chicago-based Geofeedia built an Indianapolis office around R.J. Talyor, another Salesforce alumnus, and plans to hire more than 300 people here by 2019. CEO Phil Harris said Talyor, who is vice president of product management, was a “strategic hire,” and that it’s not uncommon for tech firms to set up shop in other cities to hire proven product specialists.The alternative is cultivating such managers in-house, but Harris said, for many firms, “There’s not time to grow it in-house.”Angie’s List was able to grow its own. Shelly Towns joined Angie’s List in 2005 as a staff writer, took over search-engine optimization, or SEO, in 2009 and ultimately became senior vice president of product in December 2014. She oversees a team of 45 and reports directly to the CEO.Towns said it all started when she volunteered to lead the company’s SEO efforts as a cheaper way to acquire members versus television ads.“When Bill [Oesterle] asked me what [I knew] about SEO, I didn’t know anything about it,” Towns said. “I knew it had something to do with technology and something to do with content, so I figured I could check one of those boxes and figure out the rest.”Towns graduated from Indiana University in 2000 with a journalism degree, which proved beneficial.“She’s trained to interact with people, to diagnose what they’re trying to say, what they really need,” said Oesterle, who stepped down as Angie’s List CEO in June. “And she’s fearless about asking questions, which turns out is phenomenally powerful.”Geofeedia’s Talyor was also a liberal arts student, earning his bachelor’s in English from DePauw University in 2002. He buttressed that by participating in an honors entrepreneurship program, as well as software and accounting internships.He joined what was then ExactTarget in 2004 and became a product manager in 2008. He said he didn’t originally know what a product manager was, but discovered that much of it involved communicating effectively with customers and technologists.“The English background helps in that way because I understand what people are saying and can document that in a way that everyone understands,” he said. “And on the flip side, once the product’s done, create the messaging and the launch strategy for the product to really resonate with customers.”Good product managers can come from any background, observers said, including technology. Middlesworth, of Branding Brand, has a career in software engineering that dates back to 1999. He said the three best product managers he knows came from engineering, marketing and user-experience design.“There isn’t a specific background as much as there was a strong skill,” Middlesworth said. “And I think that skill is the ability to empathize with customers.”The labor market is so tight for experienced product managers that some companies even declined to speak about their product managers for this article over fear of poaching.The companies that can’t hire or develop product workers fast enough might outsource some product needs to agencies. Studio Science, which deals in user-experience design and product marketing, is one example. InnovateMap, which now has 25 clients, is another.“We’re a company capitalizing on this pain, but we aren’t the answer to everything,” said Reynolds, of InnovateMap. “I believe Indianapolis has to do something about grooming this type of talent.”One university program that appears to be contributing is the “human-computer interaction” program at IUPUI. It is currently turning out about 35 master’s and doctoral graduates a year.

5 Dashboards for Monitoring Nearby Social Content

BY STEPHANIE MILES Social media has become a go-to channel for small business marketing, but whether a business is successful at achieving its campaign goals depends largely on strategy. Forty-two percent of businesses surveyed in Street Fight’s Local Merchant Report said they use social media to generate leads, and 39% said they use it to build brand awareness. One of the most effective marketing strategies cited in Street Fight’s report involved using social media dashboards.More than half of merchants surveyed by Street Fight said they use a dashboard to manage social channels like Facebook and Twitter. However, merchants with the most developed social marketing strategies are increasingly utilizing platforms that zero in on what customers located nearby are saying about their businesses online. Here are five examples of location-based social monitoring dashboards that merchants can try.1. Banjo: Organizing “social signals” by locationBanjo connects social content to geographic location, and adds a real-time element for good measure. The platform offers brands a better understanding of what’s happening nearby their brick-and-mortar establishments, or anywhere else in the world, by filtering social posts and pulling out trending events. Banjo’s platform works across geographies, enabling brands to dig into the social activity that’s happening at specific venues or stores. Banjo users can see the posts being generated by customers shopping inside their stores, and they can use the information to improve operations or marketing outreach. Banjo also has plans to bring weather, traffic, and purchase data into its platform.2. WeLink: Capturing digital chatter on nearby streetsWeLink allows merchants to filter social media content down to the street level. Most frequently, WeLink users will monitor what’s being posted about their businesses within their own cities or related venues (like malls or sports arenas). WeLink monitors sites like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Foursquare, and Flickr, and it can filter content by keyword or hashtag, in addition to location. Merchants then have the ability to target nearby “influencers” with direct ads and respond to customer feedback in real-time. WeLink also offers analytics for examining tends and measuring marketing effectiveness.3. Gnip: Filtering social content by geo-boundariesOne of the challenges with location-based social media monitoring is that content posted by users who choose not to share their location is often lost in the ether. Gnip has developed a way to normalize the latitude/longitude data that users do share on social media, which helps merchants view the approximate location of users who haven’t geo-tagged their posts. Retailers and brands can filter posts based on geo-boundaries, keywords, and phrase matches. They can also generate maps to indicate the relationships between certain venues and user profiles. Gnip connects with sources like Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, and Disqus.4. Geofeedia: Location-based social media monitoringGeofeedia filters social content by time and location. Merchants can draw a perimeter around any area to see the content that’s been posted by users within that perimeter. Geofeedia searches platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Being able to see what people are posting about nearby provides merchants with insights into the types of content they should publish, along with the types of promotions their customers would be interested in receiving. (For example, if everyone nearby is talking about the weather, a retailer could promote a discount anytime the temperature reaches 100 degrees.)5. Ground Signal: Identify and understand local influencersDesigned for retailers, restaurants, agencies, and hospitality firms, Ground Signal allows its users to draw on maps to access social content and analytics. The company collects content from partners like Twitter and Instagram, filters that content based on the location a user has selected, and then layers the content with “audience enrichment and image recognition.” This provides merchants with insights into the types of stories their customers are sharing, as opposed to just looking at the stories themselves. Merchants can also use Ground Signal to find local influencers, and they can create alerts to stay updated in nearby trends.Know of other location-based monitoring dashboards? Leave a description in the comments.Stephanie Miles is a senior editor at Street Fight.

Geofeedia Brings Location Based Social Media Monitoring To Sports

Social media has become a barometer for people’s reaction to events of all sorts. However, tracking and monitoring these reactions has been difficult until this point. Geofeedia seeks to change that.Founded in 2011, Geofeedia strives to be the market leader in location-based social media monitoring. Recently, Geofeedia has been working with organizations to bring their expertise in social media monitoring into the sports world. Ally Brettnacher, an Account Executive at Geofeedia, experienced her company’s expansion into sports when the NCAA used Geofeedia during March Madness. In a recent interview, Brettnacher provided SportTechie with insights into Geofeedia’s workings with the NCAA.Brettnacher described Geofeedia as “a location-based social media monitoring platform that allows organizations like the NCAA to draw a virtual perimeter to understand conversations fans are having at an event, without necessarily searching particular keywords.” Geofeedia’s user interface creates a virtual perimeter, allowing users to navigate using a specific address, city, or state. Using the polygon tool, a certain geofence perimeter can be drawn based on the radius or size of an area.Prior to Geofeedia’s emergence in 2011, Brettnacher explained that there was no market for this type of tool; Geofeedia essentially invented the market space. A handful of platforms offering similar functionality are available now, but since Geofeedia patented their technology, no other companies have the same specific capabilities.Traditionally, in order to view social media content stemming from an event, users have to search for keywords and hashtags on each service. But Geofeedia departs from the traditional social listening tools by honing in on content based on where the conversations are actually happening—allowing the company to “cut through the noise.” Much on social media actually lacks a caption with the specific keywords most tracking platforms require in order to see the conversation, which is why Geofeedia’s location-based services are so critical.Geofeedia is able to navigate social media content posted on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, and Sina Weibo data in real-time within a virtual perimeter. In order to be discovered by Geofeedia, the social media profile has to be public and location services have to be on. Brettnacher explained the process their software uses, starting with looking at all content from the selected location—stressing that Geofeedia’s services are inherently location-based. Then, the content from the selected location is aggregated, sorted based on whether there is a caption. Eventually, the content is further narrowed down by keywords or hashtags.While preparing for March Madness in Indianapolis, the NCAA was looking for a platform like Geofeedia “without realizing we were in their backyard,” said Brettnacher—since Geofeedia has offices in Indianapolis, as well as Naples, Florida and are headquartered in River North, Chicago. The NCAA was looking for a platform to research and understand the social conversation in the area surrounding the tournament, in order to better cater to their fans and improve their overall experience.The NCAA utilized Geofeedia to contribute to the “superior fan experience via web, mobile, and social channels.” In the NCAA Social Hub, volunteers and staff used Geofeedia to look at areas of Indianapolis to connect with attendees of March Madness. For example, social media content taken at the airport revolving around March Madness, such as the banner welcoming those coming for the tournament, could be seen by users of Geofeedia. This allowed the NCAA to see some of the consumers coming to their event. Sometimes, the NCAA would “like” certain social media content to interact with attendees. The NCAA could also comment on the content, including comments welcoming attendees. Geofeedia also provided a way for the NCAA to see when attendees posed a question on social media about the event. In fact, Brettnacher said that “ninety percent of the inquiries were responded to within fourteen minutes [of the content being posted].” Overall, Geofeedia provided the NCAA with a level of fan engagement and proactivity that was not available to them before.From a security aspect, Geofeedia’s platform could also be helpful. By being able to view social media posts from within the arena, those in the NCAA Social Hub could inform security in instances where social media content indicates a fight or counterfeit tickets being present in the area.In addition to giving the NCAA a way to interact with fans, Geofeedia assisted in capturing content featuring title sponsors. Although Geofeedia did not work directly with title sponsors, Geofeedia worked to showcase these sponsors. In the past, the NCAA has had issues with non-title sponsors going into a “clean zone”—an area given to specific sponsors to showcase their brand—and handing out their own merchandise. By monitoring these clean zones throughout the tournament via social media, the NCAA is able to appease their title sponsors and ensure that those title sponsors are being taken care of.Geofeedia seems to just be scratching the surface of the sports industry. March Madness provided Geofeedia with a platform to display their capabilities, as shown in a recent case study. In the future, Geofeedia intends to work with more sports organizations like the NCAA and continue to add value to events by cutting through the social media noise and allowing users to contribute to the overall fan experience. Working with more organizations will only provide Geofeedia with more experiences that will help their company improve and evolve. Their improvements and advancements thus far will be detailed during the “Next Evolution of Geofeedia” webinar on August 13.

Mall of America Increases Its Social Presence

By Samuel Greengard

The giant shopping mall adopts a sophisticated social media platform to better engage visitors and boost sales.

Engaging shoppers and delivering value is at the center of successful retailing. But in today's world, smartphones and social media add both challenges and opportunities. One organization that understands this concept well is Mall of America (MOA), the Bloomington, Minn., shopping complex that measures nearly 2.5 million square feet and features more than 520 stores. The shopping center and entertainment complex tallies approximately 42 million visitors per year.MOA has about a half million followers on various social media channels. "It is extremely important to actively monitor all these channels at all times," said Erin Vande Steeg, senior social media and communications strategist. "In the past, our communications strategies and social media management responsibilities were very siloed. As a result, you never knew when you would receive a response after you called, e-mailed or posted something. In some cases, a guest would register a complaint on a Friday and no one would see it and respond until Monday."In 2013, the mall launched a new communication command center along with an enhanced service portal (ESP). The goal? Consolidate functions and ensure that guest communication takes place in the most efficient manner possible. In addition, MOA turned to Geofeedia to provide location-based social media monitoring, intelligence and analysis. Using the system, MOA is able to respond more quickly and effectively to social media posts within the mall as well as outside of it. As Vande Steeg puts it: "We are able to have a more authentic relationship with guests by connecting with them in more meaningful ways."

The Geofeedia system allows MOA to draw a perimeter around a location and view relevant posts based on keywords. This could include the Twin Cities area, the airport or a portion of the mall. If a visitor has location-based services turned on, the mall can also see that a person is on the property. "This allows us to customize engagement and interact with guests in a more personal way, including making recommendations and using surprise-and-delight tactics," she said. For example, if a person posts a picture celebrating a birthday or anniversary at the mall, the team might send a congratulatory message along with a request to visit the service desk, where he or she might receive a gift basket or gift card.The system is also valuable for security purposes, Vande Steeg noted. The team receives between 15 and 25 notifications per month that require further investigation, including celebrity appearances and people barred from the property. It has identified shoplifters by using the system to analyze social media posts and, a couple of years ago, identified participants in a fight that occurred in one of the mall's stores by analyzing Geofeedia data about YouTube posts. The participants were later arrested.MOA is now looking for additional ways to use the technology, Vande Steeg said. It recently installed a more robust wifi network and it is looking into beacons and other tools that would allow the mall and visitors to further interact through a mobile app and in social media."We have adopted an innovative and cutting-edge approach that allows us to connect with guests in far more effective ways. This has become a very important part of the way we do business," she said.

Geofeedia

GeofeediaBY GeoFeedia is a social media monitoring platform that lets users perform location-based analysis. Geofeedia enables the use of location-tagged data to discover, engage, and analyze content across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Sina Weibo and other social channels.GeoFeedia’s functionality has been used by police groups to help monitor potential problems during high crowd events. A recent case study looked at how GeoFeedia helped the Huntington Beach Police Department (HBPD) track crime surrounding the US Open of Surfing in 2013 which attracted half a million spectators during its nine-day run. The police department was able to monitor tweets at specific areas such as parking garages based on location and specific keywords such as ‘gun,’ ‘fight,’ ‘shoot,’ and ‘riot.’ This allowed the command center to monitor events happening in real-time and more efficiently direct limited police resources.The app was also used to collect evidence and witnesses to crimes after the fact. For example, a riot broke out towards the end of the US Open of Surfing and police were able to pinpoint social media users who were in the location of the riot at the time it was occurring. By combing through social media pictures and videos, the police were able to figure out who the instigators were and build up a list of charges. “We watched a lot of YouTube videos,”Julie Romano of HBPD’s Crime Intelligence Unit recalls. “Every time we saw a suspect break the law, their charge list got longer.”GeoFeedia has also been put to the use by the Mall of America as a tool to monitor and enhance customer service. With over 40 million visitors each, the shopping center is the most visited in the world and contains over five million square feet of stores, restaurants, and a theme park. Not just used as a security monitoring measure, the Mall’s staff also use it to implement their “surprise and delight” program aimed at providing social media users at the mall with gifts and mementos. For example, the employees surprised a couple that had mentioned they were on their first date at the Mall were surprised with a gift at the restaurant they were dining at.For more information about GeoFeedia and real-time social media monitoring based on user-defined geographic search parameters visit: http://geofeedia.com

Big Brands Get Smart with Location-Based Analytics

Since the inception of social media a decade ago, typical analysis centered around #words. GPS-enabled smart phones have empowered Geofeedia to aggregate user generated content by location, enabling a new way to analyze consumer trends.

Why location-based social media data is critical for security

By Phil Harris - CEO at GeofeediaSports games at stadiums, hurricanes along the coast, protests on city streets, guest complaints at hotels, customer praise at restaurants, bullying at schools… Things happen at specific places. These human experiences impact all of us, everywhere, everyday.Technology is playing an increasingly large role in these very human experiences. It is estimated that two billion of us will carry smartphones by the end of this year. These very powerful devices enable us to share our experiences in real-time with anyone in the world with a click of a button. And people want to share, using social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to do so. With robust GPS capabilities allowing shared moments to be even more dynamic, the identification of exact locations helps to deliver an authentic experience.The volume of social content is massive – one billion monthly active users, 500M daily tweets, 70M photos and videos shared everyday based on data from Twitter, Instagram and YouTube alone. There must be an effective strategy in place for listening to and analyzing the sometimes-critical data it brings and turning it into valuable, actionable information for security purposes.When do people share? They share when something really great happens or when something bad happens. It is these types of signals that organizations value the most. They want to know behavior so that they can keep the peace, limit the risks and dangers from nefarious acts, protect assets, break news stories, etc. Understanding real-time human behavior and observation happening at any place, worldwide without actually being there has become incredibly important and impactful. The means of getting and synthesizing this information is critical.Location-tagged social media data is utterly revolutionary and represents unprecedented opportunity for organizations to support their missions and increase security in a fundamentally new and unique way. So how do you harness this information and make sense of it?Like any new technology, education is the biggest challenge and imperative first step. Many of the organizations that would benefit most from location-based social media content have never even considered making social media work for them. They might not even be aware that people share their exact locations in this way so openly (and so often). Organization decision-makers are often of generations that don't typically share the way younger users do. They might not even use social media. They don't know that this valuable data is available to manage and improve their operations.Corporate security groups are able to improve situational awareness by “listening” to geo-tagged social media posts. Incorporating location-based technology, they are able to map a location anywhere in the world and monitor real-time social content from multiple sources, with one click. These teams are then better equipped to secure facilities, protect executives, identify intellectual property leakage, and monitor unrest. There are myriad ways this type of monitoring is being used – and paying off.Consider a recent intellectual property leakage at one of the world’s largest technology companies. Following a gathering of the company’s senior executives from all over the globe, the organization’s intelligence unit was able to uncover the unapproved sharing of proprietary intellectual property regarding upcoming, unannounced products via social media. By incorporating location-tagged data from the corporate meeting and listening to the social media chatter coming from the meeting site, the company was able to quickly curtail the dissemination of this proprietary information.

Midwest Report: All of Region's Fundings, Mergers, Acquisitions, and IPOs in June

Will Flanagan - General Manager at Chicago InnoWhile we're focused primarily on the Windy City's innovation economy, we also have our eyes on all of the startup and tech activity happening outside these proverbial walls. Here are all the major fundings, mergers, acquisitions, and IPOs that went down in the region this June.The Midwest Report: June, 2015:6/3: Overland Park, Kansas-based Codero Hosting, a provider of on-demand cloud hosting services, has been sold to a collection of 32 regional broadband and telecom companies. No financial terms were disclosed. 

Sports World Chicago’s sales double play assisted by micro-targeting

By Michael BarrisSports World Chicago is driving both online and in-store sales while boosting social followers through its micro-targeting of Chicago sports fans at home and on the road.The seller of Chicago Cubs licensed shirts, jerseys, hats and souvenirs is using Geofeedia to find fans who are near its store across from Wrigley Field in Chicago or in other cities at away games and compel them to purchase items while they are in the mindset to convert. Boosting the company’s social media presence to more than 28,000 followers on Facebook, 2,700 on Instagram, 1,400 on Pinterest and 1,300 on Twitter, the program points to mobile’s ability to drive social sharing and sales via a live event tied to an offer.“Digital engagement through social media channels to a consumer’s mobile phone impacts their behavior and experience,” said Phil Harris, CEO of Geofeedia. “If you deliver a relevant and actionable offer, it can impact a consumer’s behavior to drive sales and even more, they will share it with their followers.”Rich picturesThe Geofeedia platform allows marketers to identify real-time who is in a location and what their experience is because they are sharing on social networks. Besides tweets, they share rich pictures and videos of their experiences.Geofeedia identifies consumers across seven social media platforms – Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Picasa, Flikr, YouTube and Sina Weibo. It requires no installation of hardware or software because it leverages apps people are using on their mobile phones.The program allows marketers to place a perimeter around any stadium, game location, or city and begin gathering real-time social data within seconds. Geofeedia’s Streamer view gives the user a quick-hit, snapshot of social activity in real-time.Sports World Chicago can find fans who are near a store, or in other cities at away games, and give them compelling reasons to purchase – either from the nearby store or online – while they are in a mood to buy.The key is to find the people who are most likely to purchase and give them compelling incentives. In Sports World Chicago’s case, that often means limited-time-offer discounts that drive people to the store, and fun promotions that are tied to live game activity.About 80 percent of the driven conversions involve in-store purchases; the other 20 percent drive ecommerce.When a fan watches a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, he shares a picture on Instagram with his friends.The program identifies that the fan is at the game having fun. Its social media manager feature sends the fan a compelling time-sensitive offer for the purchase of Cubs sports gear at the store.If the fan goes to the store after the game with several buddies, odds go up that the fan and at least one friend will take advantage of the offer. If the fan shares the offer with 1,800 of his Instagram followers, several of whom are at the game, more purchases could result.Although Sports World Chicago was no stranger to social media and was already active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, it had no clear way of knowing which keywords and hashtags were relevant and whether social media users were near the store.Engaging the right people at the right time on social was even harder during away games. “I was tired of guessing at hashtags,” said Brad Rosen, a partner of Sports World Chicago, in a case study from the company. “There had to be a better way.”Geofeedia let Sports World Chicago draw search perimeters around key locations such as Chicago ball parks, fields, and stadiums, away-game venues and spring training camps.Paving wayThat move paved the way for discovering, engaging with and analyzing real-time social media data by location—not just hashtags or keywords.Sports World Chicago’s experience with Geofeedia points up a key strength of social and mobile tools for smaller retailers and other businesses – they can deliver deep impact while being cost-effective. The company’s Geofeedia experience involved only the cost of the program.“The viral sharing that can happen is incredibly powerful,” Mr. Harris said.Final TakeMichael Barris is staff reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York

Feature: Mall of America knows what shoppers are saying

By DAN BERTHIAUMEBloomington, Minn. – Malls have long been physical spots for consumers to socialize, and Mall of America is trying to extend that social aspect into the digital space. The 500-plus-store, nearly five million-sq.-ft. shopping center is using the Geofeedia location-based social media monitoring platform to actively engage customers and gain better understanding of what they are discussing and doing while visiting the mall.“We get unsolicited feedback from customers who go online and talk about our brand,” said Erin Vande Steeg, social media senior communications strategist of Mall of America. “It’s our decision if we want to take part in the conversation.”Geofeedia initially approached Mall of America about using its platform in late 2013. The mall already had a presence on major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and also used a Spredfast CRM platform to manage activities such as monitoring social keywords and managing outbound social content. However, Mall of America lacked the type of real-time insight into live shoppers offered by Geofeedia.“All we had to socially track who was in the mall was FourSquare check-ins,” said Vande Steeg.Mall of America uses Geofeedia’s geo-fencing capability to create a virtual perimeter around the mall, tracking the social activities of consumers who have turned on location-based services on their smartphones. The platform works on a remotely hosted basis and requires no direct integration to any of the mall’s other systems, although Mall of America does manually link Geofeedia data to its Spredfast platform.“We use Geofeedia to live up to the mall’s mottos of ‘make somebody happy today’ and ‘surprise and delight,’” stated Vande Steeg. “If someone tweets they are celebrating their anniversary, we might tweets back we have a surprise for them and then have an employee present them with a gift card.”Geofeedia also helps Mall of America monitor real-time customer complaints to identify and resolve issues that are negatively impacting the shopping experience. The mall even uses social commentary to detect and respond to potential security issues, including commentary from consumers who may be planning to cause trouble.“Some people post content they don’t expect us to see,” said Vande Steeg.Other uses Mall of America has for Geofeedia include identifying celebrities in the mall, including ones who are not actively announcing their presence.“A lot of celebrities come to the mall and might tweet a photo of themselves but not tag it or share their location,” said Vande Steeg. “We can see who in the mall is using handles with a large number of followers and identify them. If it’s a celebrity we can alert security to take extra precautions or even connect to them with special offers that also improve our branding.”Vande Steeg said benefits of the platform include shoppers staying in the mall longer and learning of different options once they are engaged via Geofeedia. Future plans include directly integrating Geofeedia with the Spredfast platform, as well as with email and social media marketing systems.“We want to create more robust user profiles,” said Vande Steeg. “We’re still molding and adjusting how we use the platform.”

Within Seconds, Geofeedia Customers can Take Action on Data

Susan SmithRecently, GISCafe Voice spoke with R.J. Talyor, vice president of Product Management at Geofeedia. Geofeedia is a patented, cloud-based platform, which searches, analyzes and monitors real time social media posts from any geographic location globally. In a couple of recent GeoFeedia case studies, the platform has been used to uncover drug use and distribution among teens at parties in the Los Angeles area, involving the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FDA. In one other instance, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men’s Division Basketball Tournament was already very active in social media, but needed a better way to cut through the noise on social media and discover and engage with social media users posting at specific locations of interest across Indianapolis. They were able to get up and running quickly on the GeoFeedia platform and draw perimeters around key locations, from which they gathered rich geo-tagged social media data in a matter of minutes. Consequently, the team was able to use GeoFeedia to make sure the fans had a good fan experience, and that counterfeit passes were aborted, as well as that tournament title sponsors receive high returns on their investment. GISCafe: How quickly can Geofeedia make something useful out of the data it picks up?R.J. Talyor: Immediately. Customers are able to discover, analyze and take action on posts since Geofeedia surfaces this content in about 15 seconds after it’s posted.GISCafe Voice: When you say it is a “social listening tool,” what does that mean exactly?R.J. Talyor: Geofeedia enables organizations to discover social media conversations within locations that matter.GISCafe Voice: Where does the data come from?R.J. Talyor: Geofeedia aggregates publicly-available social data from the top social networks (including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.), and includes text, images and videos shared.GISCafe Voice: What do customers do with the data that they glean from the Geofeedia tool?R.J. Talyor: Geofeedia customers range from news organizations (e.g. CNN, BBC, Mashable) looking to discover breaking news to public safety organizations gaining situational awareness in a crisis to marketers wanting to better engage with their customers.GISCafe Voice: What will customers be able to do with the updated tool that they could not do before?R.J. Talyor: Geofeedia customers have access to ten new core capabilities including the ability to aggregate data across multiple locations, track sentiment in one or more locations, and access this data on-the-go with the mobile app.GISCafe Voice: Where does the data usually go after it has been compiled – and how is it sorted, for use?R.J.Talyor: Geofeedia data is archived for customers within the cloud for additional analysis.  

Advice from VCs: Digital Content Investors Tell Us What They Look For

By Nancy Davis KhoIf you were measuring by the size of the headline fonts, 2014 looked as if it were an inflection point for venture capital (VC) investment into the digital content industry. According to Preqin, which tracks data on the investment industry, VC funding in the digital content industry reached $683 million in 2014, more than double the $286 million invested in 2013. From Andreessen Horowitz's $50 million Series E stake in BuzzFeed, to General Atlantic's $46.5 million Series E investment in Vox Media, to the whopping $500 million channeled from Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) and A&E Television Networks, LLC to VICE, high-profile deals seemed to signal a renewed sense of optimism by investors about the future of digital content.But if we take a step back and expand the definition of digital media to include those solutions that can help migrate traditional publishers to the digital world-think CMSs, ad platforms, and mobile content solutions-then interest in the market has been building for some time. Brian Rich, managing partner and co-founder of Catalyst Investors, which has invested in content companies such as F&W, Nine Systems, and Advantage Business Media, says, "If you look at the whole digital content ecosystem, it's been strong for years-not necessarily for private equity but certainly for VCs."Putting aside the question of whether VCs and digital content companies can play nicely together in the long term-the abrupt demise of Gigaom in March 2015 is perhaps a cautionary tale that the measured growth characterizing many pure content companies is an uneasy fit with the rapid payoffs demanded by VCs-the spotlight of VC attention on the digital content space seems certain to shine even brighter in 2015. A series of discussions with VCs already active in the digital content space revealed a real appetite for further digital content opportunities-provided those companies searching for funds bring with them scalability, engaged users, revenue, and quality.Scalability: A Critical FactorWhen assessing potential investment targets, most VCs have a standard punch list of proprietary requirements that are largely independent of industry. Catalyst, for instance, seeks companies with at least $10 million in revenue. Verve Capital Partners AG, which runs the Swiss online investment platform investiere, looks for those with revenues between 500,000 and 3 million Swiss francs (equaling nearly the same in U.S currency). David Sidler, investiere's head of communications, says the company uses a standard process to evaluate the leadership team, competitors, and the userbase.Solid business plans and a realistic understanding of the market opportunity are a given. As Brian O'Leary, founder and principal at Magellan Media Consulting, which provides research, benchmarking, and business planning services to companies with publishing and media components, says, "The hockey stick business plan-as in, ‘All problems will be solved in Year 3'-will not fly." Without the basics in place, no company-digital content or otherwise-advances in consideration.But assuming those basics are met, then (for digital content companies) scalability quickly becomes a key factor. Sidler explains, "VCs are looking for bang for the buck. Their assumption is that most of the companies they invest in will fail, so the one to two that don't have to generate enough revenue to cover the cost of all the others." For content companies in particular, low barriers to entry make scalability critical. Rich says, "Anyone can start a digital publication now. We want to see companies that understand how to replicate their solution across markets."O'Leary's advice to digital content companies seeking VC dollars is to be platform-agnostic. "You have to think about building a platform that works across audience segments and how you can make content available in as many forms as possible." O'Leary points to Vox Media as a content company that has successfully taken its model for high-end digital journalism into different verticals-with Eater (foodies), racked (fashion), and Polygon (gaming). Similarly, Nextdoor-the free private social network for neighborhoods that reaches more than 53,000 U.S. neighborhoods and could easily be extended to many thousands more-attracted an additional $110 million in funding in March 2015, from new investors Redpoint and Insight Venture Partners, bringing its fundraising totals to about $210 million in four rounds.Liza Boyd, a venture partner at StarVest Partners-which has a particular focus on SaaS and internet marketing companies, including CrowdTwist, iCrossing, and Travora Media, Inc.-agrees that scalability is important. But, she says, that on its own, it's insufficient: "You need to offer both platform and creative services. Creative services aren't necessarily scalable, but they increase the stickinesss of the platform." She cites StarVest's portfolio company Ceros, which offers interactive content marketing, as an example of a digital media play that combines elements of scalability and creative services in a way that StarVest is willing to back (to the tune of $6.2 million in April 2014).That stickiness can also stem from meaningful integration. Boyd says, "We look at how deeply integrated the company's solution is into customer workflow." O'Leary states, "You want to see companies that become a part of how people go through their day-to-day."User-Generated Content: A Proxy for EngagementAll things being equal, and particularly for business-to-consumer (B2C) players, the presence of user-generated content in a platform is attractive to VCs. In part, it relates back to the scalability question. Roger Lee, general partner at Battery Ventures, which has a stake in Angie's List, Glassdoor, and Gogobot, says, "When you have to hire people to create content, it's much harder to grow and for us to get the return we seek. That's a virtue of the user-generated content model; by definition, they scale gracefully. That model is flourishing."User-generated content, also speaks to a site's ability to engage its audience, an attribute that VCs will obviously find attractive. Sidler says, "It's extremely difficult to actually build a community, but it's valuable. It becomes a virtual circle-the end users creating content and other end users reading it," which increases the stickiness of the site. Catalyst's Rich says, "We clearly think UGC is an area of growth," mentioning his portfolio company Conductor, which provides web presence management and includes social aspects and UGC, as a sign of their interest in the space.Looking Beyond Advertising RevenuesIn terms of revenue models that VCs find compelling, advertising continues to play an outsize role. "The predominant model is, and will continue to be, advertising," says Lee. "There's still an opportunity to build an ad-supported media company, but you have to really understand the ad space."But interest in companies that are experimenting with diversified revenue streams (such as subscription sales, data sales, events, and integrating ecommerce) is high. "We don't have a definitive business model yet," says O'Leary. "It's not ads-only, but I don't think we know yet how content will be paid for. Ecommerce will be a piece of it; maybe it will be a broadcast model, where ISPs pay to distribute premium content to their end users."Sidler recalls a company that investiere opted not to back due to its small size, but that demonstrated the kind of innovative revenue model his investors like to see. "They had a platform making it easy for voiceover artists to create audio versions of news articles that people would pay to hear. The content providers got a third of the revenue, a third went to the platform, and a third went to the voiceover artist." Adding that it's hard to generalize, Sidler says that for investiere, an ads-only revenue model would probably be a no-go.Flight to QualityDoes content quality still matter? Perhaps more than ever. Rich says, "It was a land-grab for a while," meaning that VC dollars were chasing the sites that were chasing traffic, sometimes leaving commitment to quality in the dust. But now, he says, "users are getting more clever about where they go for information. They know which sites require them to wade through pages of ads before they get to what they want or use repurchased information." In Catalyst's case, Rich says that when it sees content that isn't unique or when a site includes a high degree of repurposed content, it tends not to move forward with consideration.O'Leary agrees, saying that funders are looking for opportunities in which companies have a positive relationship with their audience, both in the content they offer and in the user experience. "They're parsing platforms that engage and respect their audience," he says, staying away from those that repackage stale content or force a user to navigate through multiple screens.Lee says the quality-checking that sits atop the user-generated content in Angie's List is an important differentiator. "They've decided that it's better to have a few rich, deep reviews than thousands of less detailed ones. To that end, the Angie's List team proactively reaches out to reviewers, fills in missing details, and cleans up those that are obviously fraudulent."The focus on quality is, according to Boyd, an opportunity for traditional publishers willing to step up to the challenge. "Traditional media players have the best content," she says. "The problem is they also have traditional infrastructure, which was built for a different world."VC Wish ListsDespite an interest in the space, Rich says that Catalyst doesn't see many opportunities that meet all its requirements. Right now, only four of its 13 portfolio companies are engaged in digital content. "Either we're not finding them or there just aren't that many pure content companies that can [meet the criteria]," he says.investiere's funders would love to see companies that tackle the question of copyright infringement in an innovative way, according to Sidler. "Circumventing publisher paywalls just isn't that hard," he says. "We'd love to see some robust solutions that would give publishers a way to address copyright infringement."O'Leary believes there's still room for companies that provide greater depth in specific industries. "Amazon pretty much owns the publishing stack now; there's no part of publishing in which they don't have a presence," he says. "Why doesn't someone do that for, say, real estate? Figure out the problems that homeowners, realtors, and construction companies have and solve them? In this way, publishers can become solutions companies."Lessons for Traditional Media CompaniesWith investment funds flowing to those companies that demonstrate an ability to disrupt traditional media models, the message to traditional media companies is clear. Sidler lays out the implications of the uptick in VC money flowing into the digital content industry in black and white. "A lot of traditional media companies are investing in keeping older users happy, while VCs are looking for investments in those markets where the users will be around for a long time. I don't personally love BuzzFeed, but it's building a loyal, young audience."StarVest's Boyd sees the challenges facing traditional publishers as yet another sign of the potential for companies in the digital content ecosystem. She says, "No publisher, at this point, can afford to not jump. It's a good time for the infrastructure companies that can help them merge content and commerce."Finally, Rich has words of advice for traditional media companies, who he says have no time left for incremental change. "Be bold," he says. "As bold as you think you've been over the past few years, in whatever changes you've made, you need to step it up."

Making Social Media Investigation Easier - Geofeedia iOS App v4.0

Geofeedia released version 4.0 of its platform. With new capabilities and features, the updated platform makes it even easier to cut through the massive amount of social data to understand social media signals in real-time at a specific place. Geofeedia enables the use of location-tagged data to discover, engage, and analyze content across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Picasa, Flickr, Sina Weibo and other social channels.With the new Geofeedia iOS app, users can gather location-based social intelligence in the areas directly around their current locations, create or monitor any location while mobile, and access a streamer view of location-tagged social media posts on-the-go.Geofeedia research shows 74 percent of social chatter cannot be discovered with hashtag and keyword monitoring. In addition, six percent of posts solely include photos or videos without any text. Geofeedia fills in the data gap where most social listening tools fall short and empowers organizations with a dynamic way to pinpoint the critical signals found using location-tagged social media posts not only based on keywords and hashtags, but images and even sentiment.In addition to the core capabilities of Geofeedia’s location-based intelligence platform, the enhanced version includes the following innovations:

• New Look and Feel: Now it’s even easier to discover, engage and analyze social media data with a streamlined and updated user interface.
• Upgraded Data Platform: With the upgraded capacity to process more than 1 billion posts daily (~10,000 per second) by the platform, Geofeedia enables the most complete searches across the largest location-based data set in the world.
• Aggregated Location Monitoring: Save time and gain insight by collecting intelligence across many locations in a single search.
• Enhanced Location Analytics: Make smarter real-time decisions through updated and interactive location analytics.
• Location Sentiment: Quickly understand the sentiment (positive/negative) of posts from one or more locations.
• New Data Source: With the largest Chinese microblogging site Sina Weibo added to Geofeedia, users now have an even larger data set to discover, engage and analyze.
• Templates: Save time by creating and reusing search criteria (including locations, keywords, networks, usernames) within a search template.
• Influencers: Discover top influencers in a location and their social connections.
• Salesforce Integration: Increase sales and improve customer service by creating a Salesforce.com lead or customer service case from a location-tagged social media post with a single click.According to the company, more than 400 organizations and 10,000 users rely on Geofeedia’s powerful subscription-based patented platform, which was included in Gartner’s 2014 Cool Vendors report and and G2 Crowd’s Spring 2015 rankings of the top social media monitoring products. The company is on track to quadruple its client base by the end of the year. Customers leveraging the Geofeedia platform include major Fortune 500 companies such as McDonald’s and Dell and leading news outlets like the AP, BBC and CNN.