For the 3^rd year in a row Local Social Summit (LSS) explored the cutting edges of the intersection of local and social media. This is a place where people including consumers, businesses and community collide. Where the use of smart phones and tablets has created the SoLoMo ‘Mandala’…

This year the co-founders of LSS, Dylan Fuller and Simon Baptist, expanded the summit to 2 days. The expansion was based on feedback from last years’ Summit and input from the growing global LSS community. Plus the sheer volume of great topics to cover. Additionally, they wanted to allow sufficient time for networking and space to organise the unique LSS pop-up burger & beer café with Young & Foodish… Probably the best burgers in London were served that night along with some great conversations.

The Summit keynote kick-off was again given by Internet analyst and LSS principle Greg Sterling. Titled: Local Social 2011 – The Paradigm Shift Picks-up Speed, Greg’s talk had 6 major themes:

• Hype-Local: Demand, Awareness Growing
• Mobile Momentum Continues
• Social Media, SMBs and the ‘Now What?’ Problem
• Local Data Tsunami
• Payments and Real-World Analytics
• From Clicks to Transactions

“Social Media, SMBs and the ‘Now What?’ Problem” was probably one of the most challenging themes discussed throughout day 1 and into day 2… If you’re a small business, what do you do in social media after you set up your account? This is what Greg Sterling called the “Now what?” problem in his keynote address on the first day of Local Social Summit 2011. And as he pointed out, SMBs aren’t getting a lot of help solving it.

Instead, many are sorting it out for themselves. When Eric Partaker, co-founder of UK-based burrito chain Chilango was asked in the Super Social Businesses panel whether he would outsource his social media activity, his joking response was “Where do I sign.” But he pointed out that, while he would have outsourced when the business was first starting, because he was scared and didn’t know what to say, he’s now seen how PR professionals have failed to capture the tone of voice he wanted for the business, so he does all his Twitter posts himself, spending up to four hours a week.

He also weighed in on the question of what social media is actually for, arguing that “it’s just a tool that allows you to do the fundamentals more efficiently”. This was an idea expressed earlier in the day by Dennis Yu, CEO of Blitz Local during the Search vs. Social panel. He said that social media isn’t a channel, but an overlay over all other marketing. He also argued that what most people describe as the sales funnel is really an hourglass, with the transaction at the waist. Social media, he said, can play at both ends of the hourglass. It can raise awareness of your products and services at the top, and it can do customer service at the bottom. And, as JoinHere founder Justin Sanger pointed out on day two, social media gives the customers you’re retaining the ability to help you with further acquisition. Or as Tupalo CEO Mike Borras put it, for SMBs, “customer service is the new marketing.”

This view of social media as a customer service and CRM tool also informed the discussion of Groupon and other deals-based models. A number of participants criticised these model for encouraging the “tour bus” approach, by which a group of customers turn up, get a discount and then vanish, leaving the merchant uncertain whether they’ll ever be seen again. Keynote speaker Perry Evans, CEO of Closely, summed it up; “Businesses love the underlying concept of deals – the guaranteed pre-paid transaction. But they hate the business model”. What’s happened, he said, is that the simple concept of the daily deal has been atomised, so that there are now multiple deals available at varying times across different locations, being delivered by multiple channels. The result is a move towards a yield management approach, giving merchants the opportunity to incentivise people to come in at certain times when demand would otherwise be low.

And it’s this sort of business issue that companies who want to serve SMBs need to understand and help with. As Borras admitted, one of the things his company didn’t focus on enough at the start was the customer perspective. That changed, he said, when “we realised we needed feedback from local businesses, because both consumers and local businesses are our customers.”

Greg’s full presentation is imbedded below:

The LSS team will be producing a Summit report that is due out before the end of December. Stay tuned. [Attribution: thanks to Mike Nutley for helping write this majority of this post.]

Eric Freeman will be joining The Changing Landscape of Local Content panel at LSS'11 – which is on Day 1 (the Full Schedule is Here). Eric joins us from sunny Spain.

Eric has worked in the technology industry since 1994, for multinationals in Silicon Valley (Oracle, Intershop Communications, AirWave and others) to entrepreneurial ventures in the US and Europe.

Eric has founded, raised venture capital funding, staffed and managed 2 start-ups and worked with 10 others to launch new products and services. An expert in strategic marketing and in international business development, Eric focuses on building corporate alliances that build strategic value while driving revenue. He understands the challenges that start-up companies face and the need for organizational infrastructure to support rapid growth.

Following 11 years in San Francisco, CA, Eric relocated to Madrid in 2006. Representing Schober Group, Eric travels frequently throughout Europe, working with mobile application developers, digital cartography companies, 118XY service providers, yellow page directories and leading online search companies to deliver quality geo-coded business listings and POIs.

Academic Background: Eric has a BA in History from Trinity College, Hartford Connecticut, an MA in Hispanic Civilization from New York University and an MBA from the Anderson School UCLA in Los Angeles, CA. Since 2008, Eric has served as an Associate Professor at Instituto de Empresa in Madrid where he teaches Entrepreneurship to international graduate students.

Infographic by MDG Advertising

This year at the 3rd annual Local Social Summit we will be hosting a pop-up burger night as our main networking event on the evening of November 9th. This is going to be a very unique, fun and of course tasty dinner plus networking. We are very excited to be working with Young & Foodish (which is run by Daniel Young who will also speak on the Super Social Business Panel at LSS) to bring you a Y&F social event with real local flavour.

What’s the concept?

Well you have lots of humble or mediocre burgers in fancy venues, so Daniel has flipped this one and instead we have a humble British cafe and a gourmet burger (plus popcorn and craft beer for our event). Daniel’s innovation sounds simple enough but to make it happen takes planning, care and dedication. Tom of Honest Burgers in Brixton will be our man on the griddle this time. The cheeseubrgers will be made with a special Y&F blend of meat and a designer cheese.  Menu Summary: snacks will be old school pop-corn popping, killer cheeseburgers & chips plus craft beer from The Kernel Brewery of London.

We did an event with Y&F back in February as part of Social Media Week in London which was awesome. You can read the feedback and recap of the SMWldn event here. To get a preview of the pop-up concept watch this Y&F video:

To attend the Young & Foodish Burger Pop-up at LSS’11 you need to purchase the Altitude Ticket which is a bargain at £349 (you get 2 days at the Summit, 2x breakfest, 2x lunch, 1x Popup and 2x networking drinks). Please sign-up soon as these early bird prices will be going up on 21st of October. The Pop-up will be a great chance to network and socialise in a relaxed atmosphere while keeping local and eating great food.

We are delighted to have InnerBalloons back on-board as a Silver Sponsor of Local Social Summit for the 2nd year in row. This is an innovative company that was an early spotter of the impact social media is having on local. The company is based in The Netherlands and does work across Europe.

InnerBalloons Consulting helps traditional publishing businesses innovate into vertical and local search players and help these niche sites drive greater revenues and profitability. Combining strategy with deep go-to-market experience with profitable products for small-to-medium businesses (SMBs) and excellence in roll-our-sleeves-up execution, we help our clients move from pay-for-inclusion to pay-for-performance. We leverage our background in crawling and natural language processing to deliver intelligent aggregation plays.

InnerBalloons is also the masterminds behind a new service called Goldenlistings:

InnerBalloons powers GoldenListing.nl. With powerful presence management and social media monitoring features, GoldenListing delivers a central place for reviewing and updating listings across all directories and verticals. Live in the Netherlands and rolling out across Europe.

Robin Allenson, the Co-Founder & CEO of InnerBalloons, will be joining our panel on The Changing Landscape of Local Data. Although, the title might sound a bit “techie” trust us this will not be technical, and is sure to be an interesting exploration of the many new sources of rich local data (addresses, reviews, opening times, deals , maps, photos, etc etc) and emergence of the local APIs space.

We can also share with you the draft agenda and can confirm speakers will again include Greg Sterling, Seb Provencher, Perry Evans and many more. We also will have a fresh panel of Super Social SMBs who are crushing it, asking our favourite Super SMB alumni back and are panning a new academic keynote speech – that will bring some fresh and thought provoking insights.

As always, we would be happy to hear from anyone with suggestions for topics, proposals to speak and who may be interested in sponsoring what is destined to be another ground breaking event. We encourage people to just get in contact with us (Dylan or Simon).

Tickets will go on sale during the week of 22nd August and we will let people know via email, social media and this microsite once they are available.

LSS ’11 – Programme

We are in the midst of a dramatic Local transformation, enabled by Mobile and Social Media. This shift is changing the way we communicate and connect with each other and Local businesses. For the 3rd year running, Local Social Summit stands boldly at this intersection bringing together thought leaders to understand this shift and realise the opportunity it brings.

Here is a preview of key themes we will explore:

• Search vs. Social
• How do you use Facebook at Scale?
• The Daily Deals Space
• Real Time Web
• Super Social – Local SMB Case Studies 2011
• Can Social Media Be Outsourced?
• The Local Data Storm
• Innovation in Mobile Payments
• Big Brands Going Local Social

Please join us at Local Social Summit ’11 as we once again explore the intersection of Local and Social media.

Dates: 9-10 November 2011 (Wed and Thu)
Venue: Wallacespace St. Pancras, 22 Duke’s Road, WC1H 9PN London
Agenda: draft Agenda is here.

Below is the deck we presented.

Another year and another Social Media Week. This year we did a cutting edge pop-up restaurant plus a seminar around a local social case study – Two Sides to Every Story. This was a collaboration with Young & Foodish and CowPR. Not to blow our own horn but this was a great event! Perhaps our best event to date.

We learned about one man brands intersecting with global brands to create “magic moments” that last beyond the initial connection. This intersection of the global with the local creates both long lasting value and powerful meaning for the people involved. A theme we will be sure to explore later this year at our 2-day 2011 Local Social Summit in November. Note: we are looking for a few good sponsors iIf interested please get touch).

STEPHANIE WOLLENBERG from RPM said it better than we could (read her complete post here with great photos):

As Daniel and Jack discussed the event in unison last night, what was interesting was the collaboration between them on such a small happening and it was nice to see corporates like Burger King taking an active interest in Social Media, and therefore Daniel’s invasion. Jack jokingly touched on his reservation to come down to Burger King that day without pre-warning Daniel. Neither of them knew much about the other, and it was like two strangers meeting with secret agendas, which thankfully for Daniel, worked out perfectly.

Stephanie’s post is also here on SMW site.

For some pre-weekend fun here is a short low quality 1 minute iPhone video from the event:




In 3 days time its Social Media Week in London. We will kick off the week with our event – Two Sides to Every Story – A Local Social Case Study - at 6.30 on Monday Feb 7th in central London. As of today there are only 4 spots left for this unique event – if you want to attend please book here TODAY!

So, what do we have lined up. First off we have an amazing menu on deck for our attendees and some solid beers on tap (well in bottles to be honest)… For nibbles we have Feta-shized popcorn by Young & Foodish. It’s popcorn sprinkled with French Basque chilli pepper powder and crumbed Feta cheese. Beers from Meantime (London Larger and London Pale to be exact in designer long neck bottles) and a special selection for The Kernel (rare but worth hunt).

For this special occasion, butcher Darragh O’Shea will not be entrusting his prized beef to a chef. The meat man behind London’s acclaimed O’Shea’s Butchers of Knightsbridge will take over the griddle himself, flipping burgers for the LSS@SMW pop-up.  Darragh will make his burgers from a freshly ground custom blend of his finest 100% Perthshire Black Angus beef and then top them with melted Ogle Shield, made by award-winning cheese maker James Montgomery and arguably the best burger cheese in the world. The prestigiously bred cheeseburgers will be accompanied by hand-cut chips.

Once we’ve finished filling our bellies with great food it will be time for the seminar. This will have 2 parts. First I will lead a panel discussion with CowPR/Burger King and Daniel from Young & Foodish to discuss the first  #BurgerMondaySwarm event that took place On Monday 15th November 2010… Then will we have Dr. Bernie Hogan presenting a Social Network Analysis of the burger swarm. This is sure to be both educational and mega interesting.

To help get you in the weekend mood, below is a sweet video from the burger swarm to watch. Technology permitting it will be on the wall via pico project on Monday night as well.