Local Social Summit 2011 Conference Report Day 1

Local Social Summit 2011
Day 1: Conference Report

Edited by Dylan Fuller | localsocialsummit.com | Published 14 March 2012

Contents
Executive Summary ............................................................................................ 2
Trends & Themes to Watch in 2012 ................................................................... 3
Local Social Summit ’11 Schedule - Day 1 ....................................................... 4
Opening Keynote: The Local Paradigm Shift 2011: ‘Big Trends’ Edition ...... 5
Panel 1: Search vs. Social ................................................................................ 11
Panel 2: Finding Locals – The View from Europe .......................................... 15
Afternoon Keynote: The Timely Death of the Daily Deal [and the Birth of
Everyday, Everywhere, Every Way Deals] - A Daily Deal Insider Speaks .... 19
Panel 3: The Right Place at the Right Time – How the Real-Time World
Influences the Local Web ................................................................................. 23
Panel 4: The Changing Landscape of Local/Mobile Content ........................ 26
Panel 5: Super Social Business – Field Studies ............................................ 29
Super Social Business Profiles ....................................................................... 32
About Local Social Summit & this Report ...................................................... 34
LSS’11 Sponsors .............................................................................................. 36
Local Social Summit 2012: Dates & Information ............................................ 37
Sponsorship Opportunities for Local Social Summit 2012 ........................... 38

Page | 1
www.localsociasummit.com | facebook.com/localsocialsummit | @locsocsummit

Executive Summary
Local Social Summit (LSS) is a conference that explores the intersection of local and
social media. Designed to ensure dynamic dialogue and networking among conference
attendees, the summit features interactive sessions constructed to share knowledge and
find solutions by showcasing innovation, emerging trends and consumer insights.

The origins for LSS date back to the summer of 2006 at an event focused on the local
search space that was attended by some of the biggest local media players in Europe,
including Deutsche Telekom, SEAT Pagine Gialle, Schibsted Group and the Irish Times.
Subsequently, Dylan Fuller & Simon Baptist founded Local Social Summit in 2009 as a
direct response to requests from media companies and thought leaders in the local
space.

Local Social Summit 2011 (LSS’11) was our third annual event, held in London on
November 9th & 10th. LSS’11 was an expanded event, held over two days, that included
100 attendees, 40 speakers and six sponsors. We had 16 sessions: three keynotes,
eight panels, two talks, a fireside chat, one brand hackathon and one seminar on social
network analysis. As always, engagement was high and the level of discourse world
class.

Key Learnings:

1. Social media or social networking is no longer over hyped. The “social web”
is transforming how consumers and businesses operate. Businesses can no
longer afford to ignore this paradigm shift.
2. Mobile has truly arrived. The combination of new technologies such as mobile
broadband, gps and apps together with consumer demand for new device types
(smartphones and tablets) is the driving enabler for local commerce.
3. Everything is local. Local is not just about SMBs (small & medium sized
business/SMEs) but is also about big brands and regional/national
chains/franchises connecting with consumers at the local level. This has
profound implications for the local and global economy.
4. Location is everywhere. Social is not just about data, trends and ROI (return on
investment), but also very much about people, community and continuos
engagement. Local is what is accessible.

Points for debate/disagreement:

1. Search vs. Social. It’s too soon to settle the debate. No one could agree on the
relative importance of search (i.e. Google, Bing, Yahoo, IYPs) when compared to
social channels (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp).
2. What now? There is a big question around “what next” for local businesses after
they have signed-up for a social networking service. What do they do with their
Facebook fan page? Who should they follow on Twitter? Should they join
LinkedIn?
3. In-house vs. outsource. There was intense debate on whether it was feasible or
scalable to outsource social media activities to third parties. This has significant
implications for a large spectrum of companies across online - including PR,
yellow pages, technology providers, publishers and media agencies of all sizes.

Page | 2

Finally, everyone agreed that there was much left to learn, problems to solve and huge
room for growth for business at the intersection of local, social and mobile.

Trends & Themes to Watch in 2012
 Incumbents are at risk. Many industries are only just catching up to the social
opportunity. Watch for an increase in PR from incumbents and action from
agencies, start-ups and technology companies.
 Data is everywhere. The social/mobile explosion has created the “big data”
opportunity for businesses of all size. Location is a valuable and relevant signal
within all that data.
 Consumers demand great user experience. People are living, sharing and
spending locally in new ways every day. “Pull” becomes “Push” and consumers
demand product and services from brands they know and trust. They want this
with the same great user experience they already get from most good apps.
 Big brand local. Just as many consumer facing product businesses are shifting
spend to direct marketing over time, so too are big brands with local stores are
embracing social channels for dialogue-based interactions with their local
customers.
 The rebirth of local. Local moves beyond Groupon, Yelp and Angies List.
 Mobile broadband. 3G and 4G enables the connected consumer, who not only
checks-in and pins products but makes informed buying decisions and
recommendations on the fly via mobile devices everywhere. This trend will
expand and impact everything from groceries to fashion to restaurant to hotels
and more.
 The next Internet arrives. Watch for an explosion in next generation data-driven
social apps and the legislative backdrop in the works (both in the US and the
EU).
 The death of daily deals. Deals move to check-in specials, loyalty programmes
and other smart ways for business to incentivise customers
 Social outsourcing grows. The outsourcing space is wide open and full of
opportunity for smart service and technology providers. Watch for growth and
innovators from new places.
 The personal algorithm becomes public. Facebook Timeline and other social
data signals have huge potential for transforming how/when/where consumers
access local businesses and buy services, this could impact everything from daily
deals to e-commerce to ratings and reviews.
 CRM moves forward: adding a social and local layer helps to take CRM from
the back office to frontline. This has implications for how companies are
organised and how CRM is integrated into local platforms.

[Please Note: this report covers day one of LSS’11. A second report covering day two will be published
separately; if you are not already on our email list and want to receive a copy of report No 2 then please be
sure to contact the LSS team: info@localsocialsummit.com]

Page | 3

Local Social Summit ’11 Schedule - Day 1
Wednesday, 9th November, Wallace Space, London.

9:00 – 9:15 Welcome to the Summit: “3 Years & Counting” - Dylan Fuller & Simon Baptist, Co-Founders LSS

9:15 – 10:00 Opening Keynote: Local Social 2011 – The Paradigm Shift Picks-up Speed
Greg Sterling, Senior Analyst at Internet2Go/Opus Research, Principal at Sterling Market
Intelligence, Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land

10:00 – 10:45 Search vs. Social
Leader: Greg Sterling, Internet/Mobile Analyst
Panel: Dennis Yu, CEO Blitz Local; Kelvin Newman, Creative Director SiteVisibility; Grant Muckle,
Managing Director Upcast Social

10:45 – 11:15 - Break – Featuring Has Bean Coffee

11:15 – 12:00 Finding Locals – The View From Europe
Leader: Simon Greenman, MD Online European Directories
Panel: Michael Oschmann, Digital Industrialist and CEO Mueller-Medien; John Lervik CEO cXense and
former Corp VP at Microsoft; Miriam Warren, VP Europe at Yelp

12:00 – 1:30 - Lunch -
Plus 12:45-1:30 (optional): Brand Hackathon with Young & Foodish, Leader: Duncan Olge-Skan, EMO

1:30 – 2:15 Afternoon Keynote: The Timely Death of the Daily Deal [and the Birth of Everyday, Everywhere,
Every Way Deals]
A Daily Deal Insider Speaks - Perry Evans, CEO Closely

2:15 – 3:15 The Right Place At The Right Time: How The Real-Time Web Influences The "local" World
Leader: Seb Provencher, Co-Founder Needium
Panel: Ryan Mac Jones, Founder We&Co; David Ambrose, Mobile Lead Travelzoo; Phil Leggetter,
Developer Evangelist Pusher, Stefano Diemmi, Proximitips/Buongiorno

3:15 – 3:45 - Break – Featuring Has Bean Coffee

3:45 – 4:30 The Changing Landscape of Local/Mobile Content
Leader: Greg Sterling, Internet/Mobile Analyst
Panel: Niels Borgers, Lead Business Development Infohubble; Robin Allenson, Founder InnerBalloons;
Eric Freeman, Director of New Product Development at Schober PDM Iberia; Steve Ricketts, European
MD JiWire

4:30 – 5:30 Super Social Business – Field Studies
Leader: Dylan Fuller, eBay/Co-Founder Local Social Summit
New: Eric Partaker, Co-Founder Chilango; Ben Hopkins, Co-Founder Naked Wines
Alumni: Stephen Leighton, Owner Has Bean Coffee; Daniel Young, Founder Young & Foodish

5:30 – 6:30 - Networking Reception - Brought to you by InnerBalloons

7:00 – 10:00 - Optional Event - Experience a Young & Foodish pop-up restaurant for yourself

Page | 4

Opening Keynote: The Local Paradigm Shift 2011: ‘Big Trends’
Edition
Speaker: Greg Sterling is the founder of Sterling Market Intelligence, focused on the
Internet’s impact on offline consumer behaviour. Greg is a regular keynote speaker and
moderator at LSS. He is also a lead advisor to LSS on content curation and programme
development. The aim of this keynote was to introduce the key trends that are driving
change within the local and social media space. This talk set-up the overall themes for
discussion during the two days at LSS’11 and introduced the SoLoMo ‘Mandala’ into the
conversation.

[Note: Greg’s Presentation has 44 slides: download the complete deck on Slidehshare. We’ve include a
selection of key slides within and at the end of this summary.]

Keynote Summary:
“Everyone is interested in local, but there’s a gap between intentions and the skills
required to deliver on those intentions.” This comment from Greg near the beginning of
his presentation neatly summed up his opening keynote, and set the tone for the two
days of the Local Social Summit.

Six Big Themes
 Greg then set out six “Big Themes” [Slide 3]: “Everyone is
1. ‘Hype’ local interested in local,
2. Mobile momentum continues but there’s a gap
3. Social media, SMBs and the “Now What?” between intentions
problem and the skills
4. Local data tsunami required to deliver on
5. Payments and real-world analytics those intentions.”
6. From clicks to transactions –Greg Sterling

Page | 5

‘Hype’-Local - Resent Historical Perspective:
 Between 2000 and 2007, local was relegated to small businesses. Now everyone is
interested. The essential point about local is the connections between offline and
online.
 Rough Timeline [Slide 5]
 Before 2000: Local was hot as part of internet-everything bubble
 Before 2000 – 2007: Local misunderstood, underappreciated
 After 2009: Mobile helps make local transparent and sexy
 Premium product: Local impressions/calls/clicks pay/command a premium (e.g.,
Nexage, xAD, AT&Ti, etc.)
 Not just for SMBs anymore:
“86 percent of national marketers surveyed intend to look for ways to better
modify, adapt, and localize their marketing content, messaging, and prospect
engagement practices. Clearly, localized marketing is becoming a critical area of
strategic focus and competitive advantage for brands.”
(Source: CMO Council study of brands/agencies October, 2011)

LSS Insight: Not specifically called out by Greg but implied by this section is the
emerging trend of what we call “Big Brand Local” – this is an emerging challenge for
regional/national/global brands that need to engage with consumers at a local level.
This topic was explored on Day 2 as part of a dedicated panel on the subject.

Mobile Momentum:
 Key points [Slide 9]:
 By 2015 more mobile/wireless internet users than “Smartphone
fixed-line users – multiple predictions growth is the
 Between 30% and 40% (or so) of “EU5” have most profound
smartphones change I’m
 UK smartphone penetration 40% (50% by Q1 2012) talking about
 US smartphone penetration: 43% today.”
 In US and UK roughly 7% of Internet traffic coming –Greg Sterling
from non-PC devices
 US mobile internet audience now 100M users
 The aggregate numbers don’t necessarily describe the uptake of smartphones by the
most desirable consumers. [Slide 11]

Mobile Web/Apps Huge (“Death of the Web?”):
 Flurry recently contended that people spend more time on mobile than they do on
the desktop web. [Slide 12]
 The most time is concentrated in the top 10 apps, with more time being spent in apps
than on the mobile web. [Slide 13, 14]

The Fourth Screen:
 The tablet meanwhile is a fourth screen – a mobile/PC hybrid. [Slide 16]
 It’s also a supercharged ecommerce platform; it’s much more commerce-friendly
than mobile.
 And tablets are cannibalising PC usage.

Page | 6

 We will see more and more primary internet access via mobile, but often from the
bottom of the demographic curve (by younger and more urban consumers). [Slide
18]

Voice “The New Touch” – Enables a Star Trek Future:
 Apple’s Siri has taken the voice interface mainstream. “Voice is the new
[Slide 19] touch”
 As either Simon or Dylan said: “Voice is the new touch” –Simon Baptist
[Note: credit for this quote goes to Simon Baptist]
 Both Google and Microsoft will be compelled to respond.

LSS Insight: The combination of mobile and viable 4th screen (tablets/iPad) along
with apps, app stores and true voice interaction will only increase the adoption of
local and social service via mobile devices. We also see these accelerating the
“death of the web” and empowering the connected consumer.

Mobile Deals:
 Deals and offers are the preferred form of mobile advertising for consumers; they
don’t want the other forms of ads on their mobiles. [Slide 20]

What is social media:
 Social media is much broader than just Facebook and Twitter. [Slide 23]
 Social media is:
 Consumers talking to each other online
 Consumers talking about companies, products and brands
 User-generated content

Page | 7

 Online word of mouth
 Mobile is inherently social, and not just because people are accessing Facebook on
their phones. [Slide 23]
 Facebook has 350 million active mobile users globally
 Twitter has 100 million active mobile users and “46% of active users make
mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience”
 Overall comScore says US mobile-social networking audience just over 70
million
 40 million US mobile users access social networks (including blogs) daily.

The “Now What” Problem:
 The compressed timescale in which SMBs have adopted
Facebook is very surprising, but it’s been a mixed “If you’re a small
experience. [Slides 26, 27, 29] business, what do you
 It’s the ‘Now what?’ problem do in social media after
 And there’s not much help out there for these people. you set up your
 Business owners or surrogates set up accounts account?”
 They often don’t know what to do after that -Greg Sterling
 How to measure ROI, how to think about social
 They lack education, best practices advice
 Range of third parties now trying to help
 But how much of social media can be outsourced?

Life and Like:
 The dominant reason people like a brand is to get a deal. According to Nielsen, only
nine per cent of people who liked a brand wanted news from that brand. [Slide 31]
 “So brands are bribing people to become their fans.”

Local Data Tsunami:
 Local data is being crowd-sourced and created by merchants, and it’s being sent
everywhere by APIs. It enables publishers to do many more things than ever before.
[Slide 32]

Mobile Payments & ‘Real-World’ Analytics:
 The era of mobile payments has begun and eventually online ads and offline
purchases will be connected in a closed loop at the point of sale. Of course there are
lots of privacy issues, which will be more important in Europe than in the US. [Slide
34]
 Companies are starting to use mobile phones for ‘real-world’ analytics, ie collecting
traffic data for physical stores. The problem was that people would disappear
between online and offline interactions. Now we’re able to start linking these things
up. [Slide 35]
 Many companies trying to connect online and offline data/purchase behaviour
 Check-ins and other methods being used by Euclid to track in-store presence
 Lots of mobile promotional efforts (i.e, offers) to get people into stores
 Eventually much closer visibility on which ads delivered in-store visits, even
purchases

Page | 8

Deals – From Clicks to Transactions:
 Deals are introducing a transactional focus to local. They’re much more tangible for
SMBs than paying for clicks. [Slide 37]
 But companies are split on whether they’d do a ‘deal’ again – there’s only a 50%
repeat rate. [Slide 39]
 There’s some diversion of ad spending from traditional marketing to deals; we’re not
going to see SMBs pulling out of advertising wholesale, but the money is moving.
[Slide 40]
 The change is impacting on the traditional media that SMBs have always used.
[Slide 41]
 The criticism of the whole ‘deal’ approach is that when you get into it, you condition
customers to expect a discount.

LSS Insights from the Opening Keynote:
 Local is global – not just SMBs but also big brands.
 Mobile is the big driver – both smartphones and the 4th screen (tablets).
 The big hits are winning - the “head” is winning vs. the “long tail” in apps and
consumer attention.
 SMBs need help – opportunity here for third parties outside of Facebook and
Google.
 Local data – lots of it, good and bad challenges; social media and apps
change how user consume, edit and trust data.
 Closing the loop via offline and online linking – using smart analytics,
payments and other physical techniques. This will help the commercial value
of local plus social to be realised and measured like never before.
 SoLoMo drives new transactions – we move further into a post click era.
 Apps continue to dominate access, thus death of the Web is a real shift.

Page | 9

Selected Slides from Opening Keynote (Slides 12, 25 & 38):

 For the complete slide deck go here on Slideshare.

Page | 10

Panel 1: Search vs. Social
Moderator: Greg Sterling
Panellists:
 Dennis Yu, CEO Blitz Local
 Kelvin Newman, Creative Director SiteVisibility
 Grant Muckle, Managing Director Upcast Social

Background: The idea for this panel was a celebrity death match style debate on
search vs. social. No holding back.
 By search we mean search engines, we could just say Google, but we wanted to
give the other search engines a chance and there is vertical and product and local
/IYP search options for consumers.
 By social we could just say Facebook, but there is Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare,
Tumblr etc, plus a myriad of new social services and social enabled mobile apps.
As the chart below illustrates Facebook has grown very quickly in terms of overall traffic
size online. This adds some data context to our interest in the search vs. social or
Facebook vs. Google debate.

Chart Source: Silicon Alley Insider - http://www.businessinsider.com/sai

The place where we wanted to start our exploration was from the perspective of a small
or medium sized business (SMBs/SMEs) or a local business. Many local and small
businesses are investing in social in a big way. Why?
 As a business which of these two channels should you invest your limited time
and effort into developing?
 Which will benefit your business the most?

Page | 11

 Which works better search or social?
 Does social offer advantages compared to search?
 Search or social which would you choose if you could only focus on one?
 Does social trump search?

Panel Summary:
How do you define social media?
This was Greg Sterling’s opening question for the panellists in a session intended to dig
into the nuances of how search and social differ, in terms of execution and effort
required, and in terms of what equals results.

Dennis Yu, CEO of Blitz Local, was the first to respond, defining social media as word-of
mouth marketing where you can see how much influence people have. But he was keen
to challenge the view that social media is “just another channel”. “It’s not,” he said, “it’s
an overlay over everything else.”

And he also introduced one of the key themes of the
entire conference, that of customer acquisition versus “Social media is a return
retention. Most fans of a brand on Facebook, he pointed to the way commerce
out, are existing customers. used to work in the
past…”
Kelvin Newman, creative director of Site Visibility, then -Kelvin Newman
took on the task of defining social media. Social media
is a return to the way commerce used to work in the past [i.e., word of mouth], with the
most important change being the complexity we see now compared to the old days.
This, he said, was what was creating the need to fall back on platforms.

Grant Muckle, MD of Upcast Social, agreed with Yu that social media is not just about
marketing. The fact that social media lets people share things online means it appeals to
marketers, but is also the reason why they have struggled to make it work for them. The
fact that it’s also a powerful customer service tool creates huge conflict in how brands
manage their use of social media.

Yu gave the example of Korea Telecom. “They think social media is marketing,” he said.
“They want to shift calls to their call centres onto Facebook. But they’ve found it
increases the interaction time, and therefore increases cost.”

So is social media a marketing tool or a customer service tool?
Newman said that if he had to pick one, it would be CRM. But he also said that the
products with the best word-of-mouth tend to be the best products.

Grant Muckle pointed out that social media can drive
sales quite successfully. “A lot of people make “If you strip out the
comparisons of results from social media with search brand effects, the
conversion rates,” he said, “but a lot of the effectiveness conversion rates for
of search is due to brand activity further up the funnel. If social and search are
you strip out the brand effects, the conversion rates for similar.”
social and search are similar.” -Grant Muckle

Page | 12

A member of the audience made the point that part of the importance of search is as a
back-up to other marketing activity, so that once you’ve alerted customers to what you
do, they can find you. The flipside of that is that if they can’t find you on search, people
think there’s something wrong. What’s happening in social media now, he suggested, is
the same thing. If you don’t have a social presence, people think there’s something
wrong.

Yu returned to the balance between acquisition and retention. “We talk about the
customer funnel, but it’s really an hourglass, with the waist being the transaction” [and
the bottom customer loyalty]. “What’s been missing is the bottom part of that hourglass,
but social can play at the top and bottom. We’re looking at the ways social can be used
to drive loyalty and repeat business. What’s important is to align all the different
channels in the hourglass, but what we’re finding is that the bigger a company is, the
worse they’re doing this stuff, because of the silos in their operation.” Yu also highlighted
the issue of critical mass in how social media and search can work together. “We’ve
found the base level is 250,000 fans in the US. At that level, there’s an 80% chance that,
when you show an ad, people will see that a friend likes it. And we’ve found that that
doubles click-through rate and cuts the cost of PPC (pay-per-click).”

Search or social which would you choose if you could only focus on one?
Sterling acknowledged that, although the panel had been intended as a battle between
search and social, the answer to which you should use was clearly “both”. So he asked
what the optimal way was for companies to leverage their use of search and social on a
limited budget.

Newman’s answer was not to spread the budget too thinly by doing too much. Rather,
he said, do one big experiment. And be pragmatic; concentrate on one platform where
you can be confident of the results. He also pointed out the huge value in understanding
the algorithms of social media – testing to find what works best and understanding how
best to communicate with your audience.

Dennis Yu agreed that companies shouldn’t just jump into social media. His view is that
what makes social work for a company is the content it has. “You’ve got to have good
content – testimonials, reviews, whatever. It’s not about the ad budget, it’s about the
content.” And he highlighted the key difference between search and social.

“In social media, you know who the consumer is, but not what they’re
going to buy. In search, you know what people want to buy, but not who
they are. So you need different strategies for both.”
-Dennis Yu

Google+:
In response to a question about the future of Google+, Newman said he thought where it
might succeed was by being more business-friendly than any other social network. As he
pointed out, “they already have your credit-card details from Adwords”.

Page | 13

But Muckle was sceptical. “When Google search became successful, it was because the
world needed a great search engine. I don’t think the world needs a great social network
now.”

The final word went to Dennis Yu. “Social media is not a tech play,” he said. “The key
with social media is amplifying what your fans are saying about you.”

LSS Insights from Panel 1:
 Social media is:
1. about word of mouth marketing;
2. an overlay for everything else;
3. an important customer acquisition and retention tool.
 If a business doesn’t have a social presence then people will think there is a
problem.
 It’s not a customer funnel but an hourglass:
o acquisition  transaction  retention  customer lifetime value.
 To make social work you need great content.
 Panel agreed businesses should use both social and search channels, but
that each required a different strategy.

Page | 14

Panel 2: Finding Locals – The View from Europe
Moderator: Simon Greenman, MD Online European Directories
Panellists:
 Michael Oschmann, digital industrialist and CEO Mueller-Medien
 John Lervik CEO cXense and former Corp VP at Microsoft
 Miriam Warren, VP Europe at Yelp

Background: The aim of this panel was to discuss the local search space from the
perspective of three stakeholders - 1) users/consumers; 2) media owners/publishers;
and 3) the SMBs/local business. We also wanted explore the two big disruptions in local
search - which we define as social media and mobile access (ie, smartphones with
apps).

Panel Summary:

The key themes that emerged were:
 The challenges posed to businesses by the proliferation of competing eco-systems
around the major platforms;
 The need for service providers’ sales teams to fully understand what they’re selling;
 And the dangers of being an innovator.

The session also covered one of the topics that ran through the entire conference:
 The importance of accuracy in local data.

The audience also took the opportunity to quiz Warren about Yelp’s current performance
and future plans.

“… the next wave of online business is going to be about mobile,
local and social, with huge room for growth in the space where the
three meet.”
-Simon Greenman

SoLoMo:
Simon Greenman opened the session by stating that the next wave of online business
is going to be about mobile, local and social, with huge room for growth in the space
where the three meet. He predicted the pace of change of the past five years would
continue “and probably grow”.

Yellowpages Not Dead Yet:
So he began by asking what’s going to happen to Yellow Pages businesses. The
response from Michael Oschmann was that, as everybody has spent the past five years
saying Yellow Pages is dead but they’re still here, he thinks they’ll survive. More
seriously, he pointed out the advantages his company has as a family business, being
able to take a long view. “My most important task is to keep my team enthusiastic about
the future,” he said. “If I can do that I have no doubt we’ll survive.”

There were differing responses to Greenman’s question about who the winners and
losers would be over the next five years. Warren highlighted the importance of content

Page | 15

and the lack of brand loyalty in the space, while Lervik talked about the importance of
partnership, saying that the winners would be companies that could partner with
publishers to get more traffic and wider distribution.

Online Ecosystems:
The theme of competing platforms and ecosystems “We can’t produce
emerged when Greenman asked whether companies ecosystems for ourselves.
should be more worried about Google or Facebook. We have to adapt to the
Lervik replied that Google has always been the rules of each different
enemy, while Facebook’s plans for the local space are ecosystem to get reach.
still unclear. But he noted that Facebook could be And there are more
leveraged as a partner in this area more than Google emerging. Is Foursquare an
can. ecosystem? If it is, we’ve
got to adapt to it.”
Miriam Warren added that Facebook is a great way - Michael Oschmann
to distribute content, for example in the way that it
allows people to share reviews with their social circle.

Michael Oschmann meanwhile highlighted the growing complexity and competition in
the space as ecosystems develop around the competing platforms, and the challenge
that presents to Yellow Pages-type businesses.

Oschmann continued to say “we can’t produce ecosystems for ourselves. We have to
adapt to the rules of each different ecosystem to get reach. And there are more
emerging. Is Foursquare an ecosystem? If it is, we’ve got to adapt to it.”

One audience member picked up on this, asking whether, if the trend is towards
platforms and ecosystems, a local ecosystem can be built. Warren responded by saying
Yelp is building a local ecosystem which they want people to use through the API. “We
know we need to get that data, and that we need to pay for it,” she said.

Small Business (SMBs):
Next, Greenman turned the focus on the small businesses
themselves. They’re confused by this new world, so what
should publishers be offering them? “Publishers need to
regain power in their
In reply, Oschmann explained his own company’s struggle against Google
approach. “We define ourselves as a sales force more by understanding more
than as a product,” he said. “Our challenge is that our about their users.”
sales force needs to understand what they’re selling, as -John Lervik
well as getting the SMBs to understand. We have to get
what we’re selling in front of our sales force and get them
enthused.”

John Lervik too sees this as crucial. “The challenge is to create products that are so
simple the sales force can understand them,” he said. “What’s critical is to take complex
technology and put it in simple terms for the advertiser and the sales force. Then we
have to distribute the ads more widely, so we need more partners in order to get more
reach. But we also need more performance-based models to get more reach too.”

Page | 16

Warren also used her own company as an example. “People come to Yelp searching for
a plumber because they need one,” she said. “So as an SMB, you need to be there so
people can find you. Our tools are all about connecting SMBs with their customers.”
Quizzed by Greenman she agreed that signing up SMBs is about more than direct sales
channels, explaining that the company really benefits from people going into a business
and telling them they found them on Yelp.

Information and Data Accuracy:
Accuracy of information was a theme that occurred throughout the two days of the
summit, and it was raised here by a question about whether customers are looking for
accurate and complete reviews on local businesses. Warren’s response was that Yelp
employs local people in every city it operates in to make sure its content is accurate.
“Accuracy is super-important,” she said. “You’ve got to have people on the ground
looking for inaccuracies, and there’s no silver bullet other than more people.”

This idea of adding more eyeballs to reduce inaccuracies prompted a question about
whether widespread adoption of mobile would help. Oschmann argued that sometimes,
rather than producing your own reviews, it’s easier to adapt to an ecosystem that already
has them.

So what’s the benefit to me, as a consumer, in producing content for you, the panel was
then asked. “Some people like to help other people; some like to be famous,” Warren
explained. “Some just want to remember where they’re been and the experience they
had. There’s no financial incentive from us.”

The Yellow Pages Brand:
Another question concerned the Yellow Pages brand and whether, with its diminishing
relevance to consumers, Yellow Pages publishers should rebrand. Lervik’s answer went
back to the question of partnerships. He argued that the brand is still a strength when
talking to merchants, but that in order to reach more customers, Yellow Pages
businesses need more partnerships with publishers.

Someone else in the audience raised the issue of the industry creating products in a
horizontal way, and asked whether verticalising them might be a better approach.
Lervik’s response was that this is partly a technical issue. “There’s a lot of technology
that can help you repurpose content,” he said. “We believe that by understanding the
context of the user, we can personalise of contextualise the content. Publishers need to
regain power in their struggle against Google by understanding more about their users.”

On Innovation:
Innovation was the next subject to come under discussion, with a question about why
regional Yellow Pages struggle to come up with new products to compete with the likes
of Yelp and Groupon. Oschmann’s response was that it’s hard for established
companies to countenance failure. “It’s always harder if you’re losing something than if
you’re winning something,” he said. “It’s hard to create an organisation that risks failure;
it’s much easier for small start-ups to fail. That’s why we have a hybrid approach.”

Lervik agreed. “It’s very hard to reinvent yourself if you’re not in a crisis,” he said. “The
best way to do so is in separate companies or start-ups, because there’s no incentive to

Page | 17

disrupt a successful business; look at Microsoft. Apple is very different, because it has
created a culture of reinvention.”

Oschmann also pointed out that you don’t need to be an innovator to succeed. As he
said, there are loads of people by the roadside who failed while trying to innovate.”

Yelp and Web 2.0 Matures:
This led Greenman to ask Warren about how Yelp sees itself as it moves from being a
disruptor to more mature, established business. Warren’s response was that while in the
US Yelp is “The Man”, in Europe it’s barely a toddler. “We’re figuring out how to do what
worked really well in the US and take that to ten different countries and cultures,” she
said. “Vienna now looks like New York four years ago. It’s a big challenge for a company
that’s been very successful in a big market. We never feel like everyone in Europe
knows who we are. For the team in Europe, the challenge is to make Yelp work in all
these different markets, and it’s going to be a long road.”

Warren was then asked whether Yelp has the resources to change its model in Europe
to respond to the problems that it’s seen in San Francisco. Her reply was that the
company has to be in a location first in order to see what works and what doesn’t (“We
need to make tweaks to show we know Austria isn’t Germany”), but she said Yelp isn’t
currently seeing any problems with its business model. She cited growth in London that
is faster than expected, and then went on to praise European entrepreneurs. “They have
to think about multiple countries, cultures and currencies from the start; in the US we
don’t have to do that so I really admire people like that.”

What kind of companies in this space would the panellists invest in?

Miriam Warren said that she was really interested in
companies encouraging community sharing: “we don’t all
have to buy a shovel, we can share.” [On] community
sharing: “we don’t all
“I’m interested in companies that can take away the have to buy a shovel,
technological pain,” Lervik said. we can share.”
- Miriam Warren
Oschmann offered: “Companies that can simplify the
customer experience or make it more relevant.”

 The Yellow Pages:
o Are not dead yet.
o Is still a strong brand with merchants (SMBs/SMEs).
 Producing simple products for SMBs is one of the biggest challenges and lies
at the centre of sales success.
 Local data accuracy is very important and this remains a challenge.
 Facebook can be leveraged much more as a partner in local than Google.
 Yelp growth in Europe continues and is an important channel for many SMBs
(another potential “problem” area if users can’t find the business on Yelp).

Page | 18

Afternoon Keynote: The Timely Death of the Daily Deal [and the
Birth of Everyday, Everywhere, Every Way Deals] - A Daily Deal
Insider Speaks
Speaker: Perry Evans, CEO Closely

Background: The industry surrounding Daily Deals is rapidly morphing from one-deal-
per-day delivered via featured email campaigns into offer exchange networks and live
mobile commerce plus loyalty promotion. This keynote profiled the main changes, and
highlighted the challenges to merchants, media publishers and consumers within an
industry in rapid reconstruction. The slide deck from this keynote is available on
slideshare here and has 18 slides.

Keynote Summary:
Individual deals have gone, to be replaced by a more complex approach that offers
merchants better segmentation, better targeting, and the possibility of moving to a yield
management model. That was the message from the second keynote presentation of
LSS ’11, delivered by Perry Evans.

Daily Deals Started as a Simple Concept
“The daily deal was a very simple concept in creation and execution,” he started by
saying. “One deal per day, per metro area, emailed to you, with a group tipping point.

Now, a year later, there are many deals at variable times and of variable value, available
across locations via email and mobile, and the tipping point for individual deals has gone
(slide 3). The concept has been atomised.

“So is this a flash in the pan. We have to balance the SMB’s reaction to the first version
of the deals product – which was indifference (slide 4) – against the need to address this
new audience, the mobile social consumer, in a new way (slide 5).

Slide 6

Direct Marketing Finally Falls to the Internet Revolution
“Meanwhile, DM has been the last pillar of marketing to fall to the internet revolution. The
daily deal has introduced concepts that have brought about that collapse. What’s more
interesting is that it will enable the match of supply and demand in ways never before
possible.
.

Page | 19

“Businesses meanwhile love the underlying concept of the daily deal – the guaranteed
pre-paid transaction – but they hate the business model and they hate the lack of control
(slide 7).

“So there are some shifts going on in the
industry around product patterns, “Then daily deal means that
distribution, the merchant experience and price is now being pushed to
consumer targeting (slide 8). The first is consumers. Also, consumers
around product patterns. Groupon Now have to be re-acquired more and
was an early product failure from a more. The idea of a loyal
customer perspective, but they’re shifting customer is a fallacy; people are
the business to real-time promotion. Trials continually being offered
show that businesses are very positive different choices and they need
about the proposition ‘what if you had a to be re-acquired. And it’s very
promotion that could be turned on and off’. hard to turn the clock back.”
But it’s still a nascent product. - Perry Evans
“We’re also seeing the segmenting of
deals by different product types.

“Then there’s the question of return visits and loyalty (slide 9). The problem with daily
deals is the number of people who then come back. At Closely we came up with
personal deals to encourage repeats, and Foursquare is doing similar targeted
promotion types. We’re also seeing time-based bonus deals, which incentivise people to
come in to the business at certain times in a move towards yield management.

“And all these approaches are solving the problems of the merchant’s business in a
more sophisticated way.

Distribution of Deals Changing Rapidly
“The distribution of deals is also in rapid transition (slide 10). There’s currently a poor
match in the supply and demand of deals. Networks like Google Offers will act as a new
ad marketplace for deals, so the food chain is in formation, going beyond the silos
created by the likes of Groupon and Living Social. And they mean that businesses that
have failed to capture a list of their customers’ email addresses can still take advantage
of the deal mechanism.

“There’s also an expansion in the placement of offers, with ways for commerce to
happen being embedded in the ads. Coupon distribution and ads are merging; that’s
why Google is in this space.

“As for the merchant experience (slide 11), SMBs are currently being overwhelmed by
sales calls from deal providers. That means they’re retreating to trusted brands and
relationships, and it makes it hard for companies that are just coming into the market to
compete on price.

New Tools for Businesses
“Tools are also evolving quickly – businesses are being equipped with better tools.
Bloomspot for example is capturing data around patterns of purchase and promotions.

Page | 20

“In customer targeting, Google Offers is pretty clever in terms of personalisation, for
example in creating hangouts. Filtering is critical, as is verticalisation, and people have to
be able to search by the availability of deals.

“This is all leading to an industry shakeout (slide 13). We’re seeing the collapse of the
‘just like Groupon’ plays, and the companies that are still there are finding it’s not as
easy as it seemed. The cost of creating an email list has tripled in the last year and click-
through rates are dropping. Plus there’s a lack of loyalty among merchants to deal
providers.

“Also, it’s not about selling the same stuff over and over, it’s about getting into the wallet
of the consumer and creating a bias towards action in your favour.

“This has implications for local media. If you look at the hotel industry (slide 15), when
you bring price into the equation and you have tools to create demand in interesting
ways, that causes change and people have to pay attention.

Redrawing Promotion Distribution from the Ground Up?
“I think this is heading towards media being a layer above what businesses do with their
existing customers.”

Evans was then asked whether the revenue forward model is the best way.
“There is a range of types of promotions,” he replied. “The big thing businesses don’t
understand yet is that when you understand and own the transaction, you can do
something much more interesting. You can take the information, add more and do
something more targeted. For example, you can target people who come in on a
Monday or Tuesday to get them to come in more regularly. Your customer list becomes
a living thing.

Data is Key to Long Term Value in Deals
“And that data is the reason you want to move from offers to deals. You want to collect
the transactional data. A lot of local media companies went into the deal space, failed,
and got out again. Instead they need to think about commerce-driven offers.”

Page | 21

The final question was about the ‘tour bus effect’ – the problem of merchants offering
deals to entice in customers who never come back, but just continue looking for the next
deal.

Groupon as a Media Company
“Groupon is a media company,” Evans said. “Their job is to get people back on the bus
for the next offer. Also, research has shown that after doing a Groupon deal, the
merchant’s Yelp rating falls by half a point, mainly due to them not being prepared for
the demand generated. And there’s only so much you can do to help a business take
advantage of a deal in terms of customer service. But there are also lots of tools around
that allow you to pick the people you want from that tour bus and get them to come back
to you again. It’s part of the process of re-acquiring customers.

“I think that deal provision will be more of a serviced model than self-service; a service
network model rather than a sales network model.”

LSS Insights from Afternoon Keynote:
 Daily deals started as a simple concept, but has become complex for
merchants.
 Direct marketing finally falls to the Internet revolution.
 The distribution channel of deals is in flux and changing rapidly.
 Tools for local business around daily deals is evolving quickly.
 We need to think about redrawing promotion distribution from the ground up.
 Data is key to long term value in deals.
 Groupon is a media company.

Page | 22

Panel 3: The Right Place at the Right Time – How the Real-Time
World Influences the Local Web
Leader: Seb Provencher, Co-Founder Needium
Panelists:
 Ryan Mac Jones, Founder We&Co
 David Ambrose, Mobile Lead Travelzoo
 Phil Leggetter, Developer Evangelist Pusher
 Stefano Diemmi, Proximitips/Buongiorn

Background:
The rise of the real-time Web is well documented. Propelled by both the social
networking revolution and mobile device ubiquitousness, we’re seeing the birth of new
user services and business opportunities.

Panel Summary:
This panel set out to explore the time element in the local/social web; to try to discover
what kind of content works well in real time, what the benefits are for consumers and
what kind of business models can be developed to leverage the time dimension.

What is the Real Time Web?
Once again, the session began with definitions, with Seb Provencher asking the
panellists to define the real-time web, and then asking them how important the time
dimension is.

Stefano Diemmi answered that time is most important for short pieces of information
and in sharing social interactions. Leggetter built on that by adding that real time tends to
mean data still has relevance once it’s published. He described the difference as being
like registering for a subscription to information compared to looking for historical
information.

Ryan Mac Jones was more metaphorical, [the real time web is like] “a
likening real time to “a giant trampoline with giant trampoline with
information bouncing around”. But he also information bouncing around”
pointed out that one of the problems around - Ryan Mac Jones
real-time content is the lack of context.

“At We&Co we’re trying to add a people layer onto a places layer. We’re asking
customers to thank an individual for a piece of service,” he explained. “We want to
quantify that and use it to help push service businesses forward.”

Phil Leggetter and Diemmi agreed that one of the advantages of real-time is to make
web sites richer through the use of dynamic content, something that Leggetter regards
as the next step for the online experience.

Page | 23

“Adding real-time interaction makes shops more relevant and more interesting for the
user,” Diemmi added. “It means for example they can have a real-time Q&A function that
allows people to ask questions of other customers.”

He also pointed to the reappearance of reverse “Adding real-time interaction
auctions – a long-promised web business model – makes shops more relevant
as another example of the effect of real time and more interesting for the
information, a development which Provencher, user”
David Ambrose and Jones all confirmed. - Stefano Diemmi

“Reverse auctions are cutting across everything,” Jones said. “A lot of big brands are
going to have trading desks for this. P&G has already stated that it’s planning to operate
in real-time mode, using point-of-sale information coming in live. And it’s already
happening on the marketing and PR side where brands are monitoring the news to see
how they can take advantage of events, the way Oakley did in giving sunglasses to the
Chilean miners before they emerged from underground.”

Moving on from this, Provencher asked the panel whether they thought there were
longer-term benefits to customers of the move towards real-time information. There was
some head-shaking, with Jones pointing out that customer convenience was behind all
the moves to adopt a real-time approach. But while Jones agreed that the driving force
was the ability to meet an immediate customer need, he also pointed out that seeing
your friends checking in to a location creates a “wish-list” in your head for future action.
And he highlighted the longer-term benefit in building brand equity for companies that
are seen to respond in real-time.

Provencher also saw the move towards demand forecasting and yield management
implicit in capturing real-time data, a key theme throughout the event. As he said, brands
can use this data to spot trends and then manage their resources to meet them. With
this in mind, he asked what the benefits of real-time are to the merchants, and what kind
of mindset they would need to take advantage of it.

Jones’s response was that they need to be agile, while Ambrose referred back to
comments that Closely CEO Perry Evans made in his earlier Deals session about the
hotel industry.

“Hotels have revenue managers who predict demand and use variable pricing to fill
empty slots. They work with online travel agents and it becomes quite complex,” he said.
“Lots of other sectors aren’t that sophisticated yet.”

At a more basic level, Leggetter re-iterated the opportunity companies have to
differentiate themselves from their competition by responding to customers’ questions
and complaints, while Provencher mentioned the importance of listening to customers as
part of delivering service and Diemmi talked about the opportunity real-time creates for
merchants to have a dialogue with people who are not in their shop to try and entice
them in.

A delegate then asked how a real-time approach plays into customer service, to which
Ambrose replied that it puts a lot more emphasis on interface design and the need to
make that interface more responsive.

Page | 24

This was followed up with a question about how customers value speed of response
compared to engagement with, and trust in, a brand. Jones replied by talking about the
size a company has to be before a real-time response is possible.

“How big do you have to be before you can chase those one-off Tweets?” he asked.
Provencher suggested setting categories of response time depending on the type of
business; as he said, you want a quicker response from a restaurant if you’re hungry
than from a car dealer when you’re buying a car.

Another delegate said that this whole world of real-time communication sounds like a
nightmare for a small business owner who just wants to run his coffee shop.
“Won’t they be swept away when Starbucks starts doing all this stuff?” he asked. “What
can we do to empower those small merchants?”

Diemmi’s reply was that they’ll have to find different ways to compete, different
marketing and promotional efforts.

Finally, the panel were asked who they thoughtwere offering the best customer
experiences around real-time data.
 Diemmi: “services that deliver information about what’s on and where to go. From
a business perspective, those delivering vouchers.”
 Ambrose: “Yelp, although they’re not pushing their real-time content yet.”
 Leggetter: “Foursquare, although people aren’t using its real-time elements much
yet either.”

LSS Insights from the Real-Time Web Panel:
 The problem around real-time content is the lack of context.
 The real-time web is a challenge for SMBs, especially when it comes to
speed of response and CRM types of interactions.
 The growth of reverse auctions is a trend to watch in 2012.
 Forecasting and yield management will continue to evolve and become part
of the wider retail and FMCG business landscape.
 Using the real-time web will become a competitive advantage for many
businesses, both to acquire customers but also as a CRM tool.
 In 2012:
o Will there be a check-in battle between the likes of Yelp, Foursquare,
Facebook and new local vertical apps?
o Will we finally start to see the promise of deals linked to check-ins for
local merchants?

Page | 25

Panel 4: The Changing Landscape of Local/Mobile Content
Leader: Greg Sterling, Sterling Market Intelligence
Panelists:
 Niels Borgers, Lead Business Development Infohubble
 Robin Allenson, Founder InnerBalloons
 Eric Freeman, Director of New Product Development at Schober PDM Iberia
 Steve Ricketts, European MD JiWire

Panel Summary:
This panel aimed to answer the question “when data is so available, how do you create
value and differentiation?” But it quickly turned into a session about why most data about
local businesses is so poor, and what can be done about this.
.
Local Data Quality
Robin Allenson started the discussion by pointing out that a lot of the data out there is
junk, which means that data validation is hugely important. And he highlighted the
problem faced by SMEs, which is how to keep track of all the information about
themselves out there and make sure it’s accurate.

Eric Freeman picked up on this point, agreeing that not all
“Data quality rises to the
data is equal but going on to say that perfect data is
needs of the most
impossible. The trick, he said, is to know what your users
demanding users”
are doing with the information so that you can align your
- Eric Freeman
data with what your users want. This approach does hold
out some hope for improving data quality.

“Data quality rises to the needs of the most demanding users,” he said. “It’s also a great
opportunity to ask your users what they want from you.”

Steve Ricketts agreed that data quality is crucial, but he also stressed the importance of
context. “If I’m in a shop and log in to that shop’s website, I should get a different
experience to the one I’d get if I visited their site while I was in their competitor’s store,”
he said.

Highlighting the problems of data quality, Neils Borgers
noted that there are 35 Foursquare check-in points at “There are 35 Foursquare
Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport. But Allenson challenged this check-in points at
view, arguing that it’s the wrong way to think about Amsterdam’s Schipol
Foursquare. “Their data is good enough for their users,” Airport”
he said. “You’ve got to look at all the sources of data and - Neils Borgers
understand their respective strengths.”

This led Ricketts to raise the point that it’s a company’s business model that determines
how much they can spend on data, and how much that data is worth to them, with
Freeman noting that data cost is not an item that appears on most companies’ budgets.
“The belief is that data is free,” he said.

Page | 26

Consumer Response to Local Content Quality
Sterling then tossed out a statement for the panellists to either agree or disagree with; if
you’re a well-known directory, you can get away with sloppier data than a start-up could.
In other words, he said, customers are not punishing low-quality data sets.

Ricketts disagreed with the point about customers, arguing that some customers are, but
so infrequently that it’s invisible. But he agreed that start-ups need better data than their
established competition, in the same way that they also need to offer better services and
performance.

Allenson said he would expect data quality to go up as it becomes more widely used.
“There’s a huge amount of frustration around the poor quality of data on mobiles,” he
said. “So we’re starting to see crowd sourced businesses emerge for data collection and
verification. Foursquare gets round the frustrations of bad data by allowing people to
change it.”

Data Needs Vary By Vertical
Sterling then argued that the quality of the data need
depends on the business sector in question. Events “Data quality is
and movies need very clean data, he said, while a appallingly low
plumber just needs his phone number to be right. He because the resource
then asked whether the data quality problem is due, at required to keep it
least in part, to fragmentation, to the huge proliferation updated is too great.
of places where this data can be found. The reason Yelp is so
great is because they
Allenson agreed, but also pointed out that the other part go from city to city,
of the reason is a lack of resource. “Data quality is verifying as they go.”
appallingly low because the resource required to keep it - Robin Allenson
updated is too great. The reason Yelp is so great is
because they go from city to city, verifying as they go.”

Consumer Services Built on Local Data
The discussion then moved on to what services can be built on top of data that
customers might value. Ricketts highlighted an interesting difference between the
requirements of US and UK customers. “People looking for a local shop online in the US
want to know about the sales promotions it’s offering,” he said. “In the UK, it’s reviews.
Distance makes a difference too; the importance people attach to product availability
information increases with the distance they have to travel.” And he pointed out that a
fifth of smartphone users have changed their behaviour in-store as a result of information
they’ve got through their phone.

How Should IYPs Differentiate?
Finally Sterling brought the session back to its original premise. “You’re advising small
Yellow Pages publishers on how to differentiate themselves, based on content and
data,” he said to the panel. “What do you tell them?”

Allenson’s response was that they shouldn’t claim to be unique, the best or complete
sources, because the merchants they’re talking to know this isn’t true. His advice? Offer
clients a joined-up view, and start small.

Page | 27

Freeman’s answer was even more fundamental; understand what your customers are
looking for.

And Ricketts returned to an earlier point: “Differentiate yourself through high-quality data,
but surface it according to how people want to use it.”

 Data quality is super important.
 Accuracy and quality of local data is a problem that still needs to be solved.
 Needs vary by vertical.
 Users are still frustrated.
 Opportunity exists for building great consumer services on local data.
 The model Yelp and others like Foursquare are using is pretty impressive,
and generally good enough based on most user context.
 User experience is the key to using local date effectively.

Page | 28

Panel 5: Super Social Business – Field Studies
Leader: Dylan Fuller, Co-Founder Local Social Summit
Panellists:
 Eric Partaker, Co-Founder Chilango
 Ben Hopkins, Co-Founder Naked Wines
 Stephen Leighton, Owner Has Bean Coffee
 Daniel Young, Founder Young & Foodish

Background:
The Super Social Business panel brought together four entrepreneurs who are using
social media to power the growth of their businesses. The aim of this panel was to
highlight real case studies from business owners using social media that all have some
link to local. These businesses are probably all outliers, they are innovating and pushing
the boundaries of what is possible. These are super social businesses. Two of the
speaker (Stephen Leighton & Daniel Young) were alumni who had spoken on similar
panel at LSS in 2010.

Panel Summary:
The discussion started with introductions to each business and speaker to set the scene,
first by Dylan Fuller and then each entrepreneur spoke,

Stephen Leighton, Owner Has Bean Coffee:
“In the past we focused very much on educating our
customers through social media,” he said. “When “People buy from people,
someone buys coffee from us, we send out a video and that’s what builds a
of me talking about the coffee so we’re tasting it brand on Twitter,”
together. We’re now taking our business into cafés, - Stephen Leighton
so we’ve made a couple of videos explaining to Has Bean Coffee
café owners what we offer and have shared those
via social media.”

Daniel Young, Founder Young & Foodish:
Young explained that he had been a New York-based author writing cookery books
before he realised how competitive that was. He relocated to London and launched a
pop-up restaurant business. He looks for “greasy spoon” cafes to take over for an
evening, then brings in top chefs to cook one café-style dish for each event, recruiting
the audience via social media.

Ben Hopkins, Co-Founder Naked Wines:
Hopkins was originally one of the founders of Virgin Wines. “That’s where we made all
our mistakes,” he joked. He described Naked Wines as “a farmers’ market for wine”. “It’s
a community of wine lovers and wine makers. We recruit customers via partnerships with
other online businesses, either through vouchering, paying commission or paying
advertising fees, and we also promote like-minded businesses to our customers. “We’re
trying to cut the 33% sales and marketing cost on a bottle of wine and give that back to
the customer, and we do that via an investment model. So we have “angels” who are our
regular customers and their money is invested in allowing winemakers to make the wine
they want to make.”

Page | 29

Eric Partaker, Co-Founder Chilango:
Finally Partaker explained how he had been inspired to launch Chilango by working at
Skype. “There’s nothing revolutionary about what I’m doing, and that was what struck me
about Skype. VoIP had been around for a while, but Skype just did it better than anyone
else. “We use feedback via social media to
improve the business,” he said. “I do all the
Twitter management myself. I used to worry about “We use feedback via
what I should say, but then I decided I should just social media to improve
talk.” Everyone on the panel agreed this was a the business”
crucial point. - Eric Partaker, Chilango

Authenticity is Key:
“People buy from people, and that’s what builds a brand on Twitter,” Leighton said.
“Having your own voice is super-important. I’ve done 156 video podcasts now; I edit
them myself and people know that I edit them myself, they know it’s me talking.”

Building Businesses Around Community:
Young pointed out that the link between all the businesses represented on the panel
raised the issue discussed earlier in the day, that each is built around a community. “It’s
about interaction and engagement,” Partaker said. “There’s so much choice that loyalty
happens through the restaurant experience, and through keeping a relationship with
customers afterwards.”

A delegate asked what the panellists thought of Groupon:
Hopkins replied that, while it’s the same model as Naked Wine, it’s not an audience he
wants to promote to. “I think Groupon’s got a limited life,” he said.

Partaker too was unimpressed. “I don’t think they’re local enough; people walk five
minutes to our restaurants,” he said. “The type of people Groupon attracts are just
looking for the next deal, so it’s not attractive to me to sell them food at a 60% discount.”

The rest of the session focused on how the panellists balance the time they spend
on social media with the other aspects of running their businesses:
Partaker picked up on a point made earlier in the day by Dennis Yu. “It’s a huge trap to
make social media justify itself,” he said. “It’s just a tool that allows you to do the
fundamentals of business more effectively. In terms of ROI, it’s hard in the restaurant
space, which is a cash business, when you give people a voucher. Are they going to
come back?”

Hopkins reinforced another view from a previous “… social media is also
session, that people think there’s something strange starting to look like CRM.
going on if they can’t find you on social media. We’re finding our customers
“We don’t sell through Facebook or Twitter; it’s more defending us against
about them being another channel,” he said. “Also criticism online.”
people would question why if we weren’t there. But
social media is also starting to look like CRM. We’re - Ben Hopkins, Naked Wines
finding our customers defending us against criticism
online.”

Page | 30

The extension of the question about balance is whether social media can be outsourced.
One delegate asked if the panellists would have outsourced their social media activities
from the beginning, if they could. Partaker replied that he would have done, because he
was scared of what to say in what was new medium for him. “Now we’ve tried PR people
doing social for us, and the tone-of-voice they used was off, and our followers noticed I,
so I do it all myself.”

Young admitted he’d made loads of mistakes in
social media, but he argued the same mistakes [businesses] “have to figure it
would have been made even if he’d outsourced, out” [it = social media]
because he’d have told his agency to do the same -Daniel Young
things he did. And he learned from his mistakes. Young & Foodish
“People have to figure it out,” he said.

Hopkins too rejected outsourcing for similar reasons. “It’s really important to do social
media in-house,” he said. “That’s the way you get the skills to run your business.
Absolutely get advice, but at the end of the day it has be your voice.”

And Leighton echoed the point. “Social media has nearly killed me,” he said. “If I could
outsource it I would, but there’s no PR company or social media agency out there that
knows as much about coffee, about the effect of altitude, about the different varietals,
about the roasting process. “What we’ve done rather than outsource is add more people
in house to help me with the social media workload.”

LSS Insights from Super Social Business:
 Social media can help with both B2C and B2B business.
 Authenticity is Key. People buy from people.
 Building a business around a community is good for revenue, for loyalty, for
the consumer and the business owner.
 Business owners already successful with social media do not like the
Groupon model.
 Social is not just about ROI, it’s about doing the fundamentals of business
and about engaging with customers.
 Social is already about CRM and being on the right channel, not just selling
products.

Page | 31

Super Social Business Profiles

Chilango
Category: Restaurant, Mexican
Location: London
Size: Small, 3 locations
Web: http://www.chilango.co.uk/
Blog: None
Facebook (2594 likes): http://www.facebook.com/ChilangoUK
Twitter (1325 followers): @chilango_uk
Example Use of Social:
 Launching the Chancery Lane restaurant with heavy use of
social media. Great authentic voice on Twitter.
Local Part: Local restaurant, that’s 100% local

Naked Wines
Category: Mail Order/e-commerce, Wine
Location: Norfolk
Size: Medium; 68,000+ wine angle customer who spend £20 or
more per month
Web: http://www.nakedwines.com/
Blog: None but website is a wine social network for consumers
and wine makers; which means lots of daily updates and dynamic
content
Facebook (14,733 likes): http:// www.facebook.com/nakedwines
Twitter (5164 followers): @NakedWines
 Wine community, Facebook contests, online wine tasting that
sold £80k worth of wine in 24 hours.
Local Part: Buys wine direct from buyers, organizes local events,
delivers direct to your door

Page | 32

Has Bean Coffee
Category: Mail Order/e-commerce, also sells to coffee shops
Location: Staffordshire
Size: Small
Web: http://www.hasbean.co.uk/
Blog (at least 4): http://www.inmymug.com/
Facebook (2086 likes): http://www.facebook.com/hasbeancoffee
Twitter (5897 followers): @Hasbean
 In My Mug videos, Twitter personality, B2B videos, is on most
social channels (audio boo as well)
Local Part: Buys beans direct from the growers, local coffee
shops stock it, delivers direct to your door

Young & Foodish
Category: Food critic and pop-up event leader.
Location: London
Size: One Man Brand
Web: http://youngandfoodish.com/
Blog: http://youngandfoodish.com/blog/
Facebook (1465 likes):
https://www.facebook.com/youngandfoodish
Twitter (1789 followers): @youngandfoodish
 Twitter, video, burger swarm, iPhone app, Eventbrite
Local Part: Events are 100% local

Page | 33

About Local Social Summit & this Report
"The event attracted the real thought leaders in the industry alongside traditional
media companies that are negotiating their way in social from a local
perspective.”
- Ben Barney, CEO, Akesios

“Great job, again."
- Perry Evans, CEO Closey

"Best conference of 2011."
- Dennis Yu, CEO Blitzlocal

"LSS'10 and LSS'11 were both a great success."
- Greg Sterling, Search Engine
Land/Industry Analyst

Local Social Summit is an independent event for knowledge sharing and networking
that explores the intersection of Local and Social Media. We strive to educate and
inspire with a focus on the cutting edge by showcasing emerging trends at the
intersection of Local, Social and Mobile. LSS is designed for a wide spectrum of Local
Media stakeholders, including publishers, advertisers, start-ups and investors.

LSS has grown from a pioneering invite-only event series called Local Search Summit.
It was during the winter 2008 event in Dublin hosted by the Irish Times, where the
participants began to talk about the profound disruption Social was already having on
Local. Shortly afterwards, the decision was made to widen the audience for the event
and the first LSS was held in London in 2009.

The co-founders would like acknowledge and thank the LSS advisory board for all their
important contributions and time invested in helping make LSS the industry leading
event for local social. As one 2011 participant who goes to more than 20 events in a
year globally said: “LSS was the best conference I attended in 2011, thanks!”

The LSS 2011 Advisory Board Included:
 Greg Sterling – Analyst and contributing Editor for Search Engine Land.
 Seb Provencher - Web entrepreneur and Co-founder Needium.
 Perry Evans – CEO at Closey. Serial entrepreneur.
 Jonathan Ewert – CEO at Codero, proven c-level executive.
 Mike Abeyta - Co-Founder and Director, Akesios Search Analytics.

Thank you advisors!

Local Social Summit can be found on the Internet at the following locations:
 Slide Presentations – slideshare.net/LocalSocialSummit
 Facebook – facebook.com/localsocialsummit
 Twitter – @locsocsummit
 Tumblr - localsocialsummit.tumblr.com/
 YouTube - youtube.com/user/localsocialsummit

Page | 34

This Report & Contributors
This report was edited by Dylan Fuller, Local Social Summit. You can follow him on
Twitter @afullerview.

Mike Nutley wrote the bulk of the session summaries. You can find him here on
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/michaelnutley

Thanks again to all our speakers, panellist, moderators and attendees.

Local Social Summit (LSS) was co-founded by Dylan Fuller and Simon Baptist.

Contact details:
 dylan@localsocialsumimit.com
 simon@localsocialsummit.com

Page | 35

LSS’11 Sponsors
We want to thank our sponsors for their support, input and for being forward thinking.
Without sponsors Local Social Summit would not be possible.

BlitzLocal serves retail and and franchised
companies that need local presence.
http://www.blitzlocal.com/

deCarta is the leading provider of advanced and
comprehensive geospatial software platforms for
today’s cutting-edge Internet, mobile, personal
navigation and enterprise location-based service
(LBS) applications. http://www.decarta.com/
InnerBalloons helps traditional publishing
businesses innovate into vertical and local search
players and help these niche sites drive greater
revenues and profitability.
http://www.innerballoons.com/
JoinHere provides a social engagement platform
that enables businesses to consolidate and
organize their social network.
http://www.facebook.com/JoinHere

Needium is a social lead generation tool for SMBs.
http://needium.com/

Social Media Research Foundation: We are
social media researchers who want to create open
tools, generate and host open data, and support
open scholarship related to social media.
http://www.smrfoundation.org/

If you are interested in sponsoring Local Social Summit 2012 in November please
contact us on email: info@localsocialsumit.com

Page | 36

Local Social Summit 2012: Dates & Information

Local Social Summit 2012 (LSS’12): is scheduled for 14-15 November 2012 in
London. We are confident that LSS’12 will exceed all previous LSS events in terms of
content, engagement, insights, learning and networking opportunities. We are also
working on plans to offer LSS attendees and sponsors additional benefits, so please
stay tuned.

Additionally, London is hosting the Olympics this year, the first truly 100% digital
Olympics. We will be on the front line of this exciting global event and we are sure that
this will be a major topic for LSS ’12.

Topics for 2012 will include:
 SoLoMo Picks up Speed
 Social Travel
 The Connected Consumer
 Insights from London 2012: The 1st Digital Olympics
 Big Brands Local
 Super Social Business - New Case Studies
 Innovation in Local Social Vertical Apps
 Social Network Analysis
 The Local Facebook Opportunity

Attending LSS’12:
If you are planning to attend LSS’12 the Early Bird tickets are now available here -
http://lss2012.eventbrite.com/

Page | 37

Sponsorship Opportunities for Local Social Summit 2012
“Sponsoring this event gave Akesios considerable exposure and networking
opportunities to both the market influencers and to prospective clients.”
- Ben Barney, CEO, Akesios

LSS is funded by our proud and forward-thinking sponsors who receive visibility as
thought leaders at exhibition/breakout sessions (workshops, labs, the demo zone etc),
networking and other benefits according to their sponsorship level. Sponsors are
selected based upon their ability and desire to contribute to the dialog of the conference,
and to provide the highest value content to the attendees.

Past attendees include people from companies including: BBC, Burger King,
Deutsche Telekom, eBay, Eniro, Facebook, Foursquare, European Directories, Google,
ITV, Lyris, Microsoft, NDS, Northcliffe Media, Nokia, Nomura, Ogilvy Interactive,
Schibsted, Seat Pagine Gialle, Sky, Swisscom, The Toronto Star, Travelzoo, We Are
Social, Yell and Yelp.

Over 60% of the participants are at board or executive decision making level with titles
like: CEO, CTO, CxO, Managing Director, General Manager, Senior Vice President
and Founder.

For more information on speaking and sponsorship opportunities for LSS 2012
please contact us on email: info@localsocialsumit.com

Page | 38

Local Social Summit 2011 Conference Report Day 1

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Was ist angesagt?

Was ist angesagt? (19)

Andere mochten auch

Andere mochten auch (6)

Ähnlich wie Local Social Summit 2011 Conference Report Day 1

Ähnlich wie Local Social Summit 2011 Conference Report Day 1 (20)

Mehr von Local Social Summit

Mehr von Local Social Summit (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Local Social Summit 2011 Conference Report Day 1