It almost acts as a virtual neighborhood watch program where residents can organize a barbecue, find someone to babysit the kids, locate a lost dog, or just chat.  Naturally, each user is restricted to interacting only with those in their defined neighborhood, which is designated by the first neighborhood resident to sign up.

Nextdoor first got its start in 2011, but only in website form.  In its first year it had residents in 176 neighborhoods across 26 states.  Now there are more than 12,600 participating neighborhoods in all 50 states with the 5 most popular cities being San Francisco, Denver, Seattle, Dallas, and San Diego.

With the launching of their new app for iPhones, Nextdoor allows for a better user experience in the form of notifications and real-time alerts.  These are particularly useful in terms of emergencies, advisories, or just important information.  When a notification is sent, an SMS is also sent, ensuring the user gets the message.  The app can also be linked with cities’ police and fire departments so residents will always be in the know.

With such a dramatic increase in users over the first couple years, Nextdoor’s future remains bright.  In addition to the iOS app, they also plan to release a version for Android.  The company is also looking at expanding internationally, targeting English speaking countries Canada, United Kingdom, and South Africa.

So if you want to become more involved in your neighborhood community, give Nextdoor a try.  Who knows, you might even make a new friend out of it.

The latest feature is called “rich pins.”  Pins are traditionally just an image and a description, however with rich pins users will see much more info, making it more useful.  To start, Pinterest is allowing rich pins for 3 broad categories – products, movies, and recipes.

While users can certainly benefit from the use of rich pins, it is brands that are loving the new feature.  Here’s a look at how companies can use them to their advantage.

• Products:
  • Sharing interesting products is one of the backbones of Pinterest.  Now when looking at a pin, pinners will be able to not only see the product, they’ll be able to see pricing, availability, and where to buy it. Many retailers are already working with Pinterest and seeing the benefits.
• Movies:
  • Popular movie sites Netflix, Rotten Tomatoes, and Flixter have already begun using rich pins, which gives users everything from a movie’s cast members to it’s overall rating.
• Recipes:
  • Another huge part of Pinterest are the recipes.  Before, a pinned recipe was just a picture and a title that linked to a website.  Now pinned recipes display all the cooking info right there.  This is immensely helpful if users are searching for a particular ingredient or specific cook time.

Receiving access to use these rich pins takes a bit of work, however.  Those businesses which are interested need to apply some meta tags to their website and then apply for approval.  Once approved, Pinterest automatically scans and pulls relevant data from your site.

If your business is looking to increase traffic and sales through social engagement, consider taking advantage of rich pins.  It doesn’t cost anything and can really help enrich the consumer experience.

New York based Seamless has been around since 1999 and has dominated the New York City food delivery scene, as well as the west coast scene, since.  GrubHub was founded in Chicago in 2004 and has found equally great success in the Midwest.  Together, the two companies will cover over 500 cities and work with over 20,000 restaurants.  The deal also allows the two services to share their technology, including Seamless’ mobile apps and GrubHub’s real-time food tracker.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed but neither company is paying the other to acquire it, making it strictly a merger.  GrubHub’s Matt Maloney will serve as chief executive officer while Johnathan Zabusky of Seamless will serve as president.

The new company, which has yet to be named, will now have a firm grip on the delivery market.  The merger is going to make it difficult for the smaller delivery services like ChowNow or HealthyOut to succeed, especially considering GrubHub and Seamless jointly generated over $100 million in revenue in 2012.

With every corner of the US covered, a plus for users will be that they won’t have to use a different service or website for a particular restaurant anymore.  Furthermore, the merger allows the two services to also share their technology, including Seamless’ mobile apps and GrubHub’s real-time food tracker.

Though the name may not be known, it’s hard to think this merger does anything but further streamline the increasingly popular delivery business.  “This merger is an opportunity to glean the best from each platform,” Zabusky said in the press release.

The animated, cheery ad helps tell a story of how “bad” characters like the Big Bad Wolf and a vampire would turn good if given an Oreo.  The ad is backed by a catchy jingle performed by indie band Owl City’s lead singer, Adam Young.

The campaign is targeting an adult audience to instill a little more sense of wonder, something that a child certainly doesn’t lack, knowing that it will resonate differently with each person.  Of course it also doesn’t hurt to have a young, popular musician acting a bit as a brand ambassador.

As part of the campaign’s launch, Oreo brought 500 a cappella singers to New York City to serenade morning commuters at various subway stops with their own rendition of the catchy jingle.

The launch was capped off with a massive sing-a-long in Union Square with Owl City.  Oreo, always savvy with social media, kept the engagement going online by posting several Vine clips of the event.  Oreo and their musical crew will also be launching similar events in both Chicago and Los Angeles in the near future.

This approach by Oreo is a bit different from what we’ve seen from them in the past.  The campaign is more about Oreo as a brand and less as a cookie, as they attempt to vault themselves into a larger, more iconic brand presence.

We love seeing experiential events really come together.  It is a 100-year old brand, so keeping things fresh and relevant isn’t always easy, but Oreo hit the nail on the head with this latest campaign.

-       Have a catchy headline

• It’s the first thing employers see.  Use it as a short selling point.  Merely mentioning a profession isn’t enough, having a variety of more specific terms is much more likely to lure prospective employers in.

-       No picture, no views

• Aside from proving that you’re a real person, having a photo helps an employer trust you a bit more.  Just remember, it should be a good representation of yourself.  No group shots, keep those for Facebook.

-       Add endorsements and recommendations

• Nothing adds more credibility to your profile than having other people vouch for your work.  They act as mini testimonials, and employers absolutely pay attention to them.  If nobody has given any recommendations for you, you can request them.

-       Fill your profile with information

• Your profile doesn’t have to be a standard resume.  Linkedin allows you to attach many different documents.  Consider showcasing real-life experience with photos, videos, a portfolio, writing samples, or anything else you deem relevant.  It’s up to you.

-       The more contacts the better

• The more contacts you have, the more likely you are to show up in search results.  The most influential contacts show up at the top of searches.  These are the kinds of connections you want.

-       Don’t forget to update regularly

• This is social media after all, engagement is crucial for success.  Regularly updating your status with content will not only keep you relevant, it will increase engagement across the board.  Feel free to post anything from blog posts to news articles to updates about yourself.

Now that you’re all set up for success, go out there and explore!  Don’t be afraid to connect with people from the past or people you haven’t formally met.  You never know, it just might turn into a great business opportunity.

The service is called Cartwheel and its main ingredient is Facebook.  Shoppers log in with their Facebook account either online or through their smartphone.  They select the deals they want online, then bring the barcode via smartphone or paper to their local store to redeem the discounts.  The service also allows users to see what their Facebook friends have redeemed and also gives shoppers the ability to earn more offers through referrals.

“We know our guests love a great value, and Cartwheel offers another fun and easy way to save money at Target,” Said Casey Carl, president of multichannel at Target, in the launch announcement. “Cartwheel bridges the in-store experience with social technology to help our guests discover and share personalized deals and inspiration with their friends.”

Traditional retailers of all sizes are constantly thinking of new ways to increase foot traffic in their stores.  For larger chains like Target, which built its success being a one-stop shop, it is important to not try and compete online with the likes of Amazon or eBay.  Rather, it is more important to bridge the gap between digital and brick-and-mortar.

Shoppers can choose from hundreds of items from candy to televisions.  The deals themselves range from 5% to 40%.  Holders of Target’s REDcard credit card can receive these deals on top of their existing 5% discount.

Cartwheel is currently in beta but already has more than 10,000 users.  Target is encouraging their shoppers to provide feedback in order to fix any issues and optimize the experience to get more shoppers in the stores.  For now, Target has no plans to expand Cartwheel to other platforms like Pinterest, but it will be interesting to see how successful Cartwheel is once it is officially launched.

American Airlines has teamed up with Klout, a service that measures a users online influence through social platforms, to give those with a high Klout score all-access to their Admirals Club.

By logging into the American Airlines website with Klout, users can enter to win an annual pass to the club.  Those with a Klout score over 55 are considered influential enough to receive a free one-day pass usable in nearly 40 airports worldwide.  For reference, Barack Obama has a score of 98 and Lebron James has a score of 91 out of a possible 100.

The partnership is a smart move and truly shows how far social media has come.  By satisfying travelers with a large influence who are well respected online, it sets the airline up perfectly for spreading word-of-mouth and attracting an audience who might have otherwise never looked their way.  What also helps the airline is that fliers don’t even need to book with American Airlines to get the club’s pass.

Though brand new, the promotion is already being met with high praise from bloggers and tweeters world wide – both from those with a large influence and those who are now looking to improve their Klout score to gain access.

So what does the one-day pass entail?  Free WiFi, free wine and beer, all the snacks imaginable, and of course a much more comfortable waiting area.

The promotion comes at a perfect time.  American Airlines just recently did a small rebranding, complete with fresh paint jobs on all of their planes.  What better way to spread the word than by letting influential online presences do it for them?

Perhaps this will be the first domino to fall before other airlines and services start adopting a similar promotion, but until then, those exclusive lounges just got a little more social.

Every time a new social media platform comes out, businesses rush to see how it can be used to leverage consumers, generate hype, or add another layer to their social interaction.

In that respect, Vine is no different.  But it’s the app’s uniqueness that is both troublesome and promising for businesses.  Creating a Vine is simple.  Creating a good Vine is another story.

While the short .gif-like loops certainly won’t replace photos as a user’s main means of capturing that one single moment, and they won’t replace full videos, there’s a certain place for Vine.  Companies have already begun experimenting, attempting to harness the content of a commercial and squeeze it into a six second clip.  Some ways that brands are using Vine include:

• Displaying work for a client
• Engaging followers in conversation
• Giving viewers a behind the scenes look at the company
• Showcasing new products

If optimized correctly, it is a smart strategy to connect with consumers with Vine.  Not only are the video clips easy to share through Twitter, they save time and have a huge potential of going viral.

In a world where everyone is pressed for time, even a thirty second commercial is starting to feel like forever.  If a brand is able to intuitively and creatively advertise in six seconds, who knows, we may just be looking at the new standard for video ads.

So this all begs the question, can real-time marketing really work?  Is it practical?  Given the instantaneous demand from consumers in today’s social era it’s clear that the pull for real-time marketing is very much alive.  In a study done by emarketer.com, behavior of US consumers before and after exposure to real-time marketing shows that not only do consumers want it, they are more likely to buy it as well.

Looking back at the Oreo situation, it was a perfect storm of sorts because Oreo already bought a Super Bowl ad of their own and was expecting feedback through Twitter.

The realistic future for real-time marketing remains to be seen.  Not every business has the social media resources Oreo does.  And how many times will we see such a large-scale disruption on one of the biggest stages in television?  Not many.

There is also no telling what the criteria of this guerrilla marketing will be in the future.  While businesses should strive for immediate consumer interaction, having multiple businesses trying to gain an audience’s attention from a particular event could end up being counterproductive.

At the same time, it’s the flexibility and reliance on real-time marketing that encourages creative expression while remaining true to the brand.

Oreo showed how powerful real-time marketing can be when executed timely, but the important take away for the future of RTM is that it’s not necessarily about developing creative in real-time.  It’s about having a creative approach that allows you to operate in real time.

The main reason for this transition is due to the massive growth of the technology industry due to the Apple iPhone and Android devices.  With essentially a mini computer in their pocket, users are starting to opt for their phone instead of a traditional computer when it comes to platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

Their big recent splash into mobile has been the introduction of Facebook Home last month, an app that transforms users’ Android devices into an easy to access Facebook layout.  The app was met with mixed reviews.

Facebook also launched new advertising products including Lookalike Audiences, Managed Custom Audiences, and Partner Categories, which will help marketers have more success targeting audiences on Facebook.

This shift to smartphones is also the reason why mobile ad revenue and spending is becoming so crucial in consumer metrics.  According to research firm Bloomberg, Facebook is expected to account for 13% of all US mobile ad spending this year, up from 9.5% last year.

According to a Nielsen report, Facebook has actually lost 10 million users in the US and has seen no growth among users in the UK in the past year.  However, despite the loss Facebook reports that 1.11 billion users logged on every month, up 23% from last year.

This latest report of revenue growth comes as a welcome sight to investors, given the infamous IPO last year which left many less than impressed.  While Facebook is still has a lot of growth left in order to get its stock price up to par, it’s clear that for now the company’s strategy and future lies in mobile advertising.