This is a guest post from Rae Catanese. I first met her at the American Optometrist Association meeting in Orlando. She was doing an excellent job providing social media exposure for an optical equipment supplier. Since then I have seen her several times at Tampa social media events, including BarCamp Tampa Bay. When she offered to write a guest post about BarCamp, I jumped at the chance! Enjoy! - Dr. Nate
What is Barcamp?
Barcamp Tampa started 3 years ago and has evolved into a community in itself. Barcamp isn't what it sounds like. No beer, at least not until after the conference. Barcamp is a grass roots movement created to change the way the world interacts with people. It's a like-minded community of social media, savvy internet marketing professionals and geeks, coming together to share information. This isn't your typical conference, it's an “unconference," which means that there are presentations throughout the day but they are done by willing attendees instead of invited speakers.
How one idea spread throughout the World using Foursquare...
What is Foursquare? Foursquare is a location based application used as a check-in tool at businesses utilizing GPS technology on your cell phone.
One of most recognized Optometrists in Tampa Bay, Nathan Bonilla-Warford, or just "Dr. Nate" as we call him, founded Foursquare Day. Dr. Nate was joined by several other savvy internet marketing colleagues, who didn't know when they started the effort that it would have such an explosive impact viral marketing effect..
Foursquare Day was an idea to encourage the use of the application and to also promote local businesses. What happened in Tampa Bay didn't stay in Tampa Bay. The grass roots effort spread virally throughout the world to 35 countries using social media tools like Facebook and twitter. McDonald's caught on and joined the effort; the company reported that the Foursquare Day Campaign brought in 33% more foot traffic.
Dr. Nate is truly a pioneer in the eye care industry for strategic social media marketing and branding. He uses the technology in his own practice to increase awareness and promote sales events. If you don't know what Foursquare is you can check out the application here http://foursquare.com/. It's a great viral word of mouth marketing tool for restaurants and retail establishments.
Read more about how Foursquare Day got started http://blog.4sqday.com/about/. You can also follow Nate on his Facebook Page if you'd like.
By Rae Catanese
Social Media Marketing Strategist
http://Twitter.com/realtyrae
http://facebook.com/tamparealestateinsider
We love guest posts that are relevant to our audience. If you are interested, please let us know!
Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.
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