Everyone is talking about it – the successful Twitter Party! But what the fuss is all about?

The so called Twitter Parties are innovative, highly influential and fun virtual parties, using the Twitter platform. A recent Social Media trend the Twitter conversation is grouped around a topic hashtag, sponsored or led by a brand. It discusses a selected topic, providing the audience an opportunity to interact with the brand in real time, ask questions, share tips and potentially win a prize.

Usually it has a party host as well as expert panellists and / or brand representative. As an option, the #hashtag conversation could be run by an influential blogger within the target audience, where the brand partners with the blogger, sponsoring the online event. Small prizes are usually used as additional stimuli for online interaction.

Twitter users tweet with a specified hashtag (#) for the party in order to discuss the selected and pre-announced a topic of choice. The rest of the twitter users use the hashtag in order to search and join the conversation

We are now planning another exiting Twitter Party #back2schooltips engaging with mums to share their tips about making the Back to School euphoria less stressful and more enjoyable – for both parents and kids. The party is planned for end of August and will be hosted by @GreenKiddie. So if you are an eco-friendly brand with products or services suitable to the topic, and are interested in taking part in the Twitter Party, please get in touch not later than 14^th August. There are various way to take part – from just supplying a prize to sponsoring/ owning the Twitter Party.

What it means for the brands

So far many Twitter parties have been trending on Twitter, making their way to the top trends and increasing significantly the brand online visibility. At >incite we’ve run successful Twitter Parties for brands like BornFree (#colic-free) and Graco Baby (#kidstravelsafe).

The key benefits for a brand are:

-       Minimal investment/ maximum impact

-       Twitter parties are an excellent way to drive awareness to your products or introduce new ones, start a conversation about your niche, or get better acquainted with an enthusiastic group of people

-       When hosted by an influential mummy blogger within the target community, such as greenkiddie, you will benefit from a “mum-to-mum” approach, already built and established online community members and message credibility (i.e. word-of-mouth)

To discuss your involvement as a brand, please email Nataliya at nataliya (at) incite-marketing(.)co(.)uk

Location-based service Foursquare is adding a new marketing component to its popular mobile apps.

Soon, the startup will be incorporating daily deals from partners such as Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt Groupe and others into its product.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Foursquare co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley stated the company would be passing on daily coupons from these marketing partners to the service’s users — and taking a cut of the revenue along the way.

“We are trying to see if our targeting works and how users will react,” Crowley told the Journal.

Currently, Foursquare partners directly with around half a million merchants, many of them small and medium-sized businesses, who use the service as a marketing medium. Through these accounts, merchants are able to deliver specials, including discounts and freebies, to users who check in at their locations.

However, merchants don’t pay for the privilege, and Foursquare makes no money from these merchant-initiated specials.

Foursquare recently passed the 10 million user milestone.

Source: Mashable

QR Codes were used tonight by the BBC (screenshot below) in the first of a new series ‘The Good Cook’ with food writer Simon Hopkinson. The QR Codes are displayed at the end of cooking each dish and resolve to a mobile page (screenshot in full below) with the ingredients, method and tips on the preparation of the dish. This is a well thought out page with links to other areas of the BBC Food site but the feature that I like is the ability to save the recipe to an online binder where you can store recipes and create menus.

Source: 2d-code.co.uk