Back in April, I saw a tweet from a customer who had been in the bar the night before and visited our fake beach. I thanked her for coming in, and she responded with this:
Whoah, what? I couldn't let that fun fact go by without an investigation. A short conversation (on Twitter, naturally) and a link to another blog later, I had a story. Turns out, Sally's dad supposedly lived in the apartment after Mr. Buffett, and then she took up residence in apartment #223 in 1998.
The short version:
Our favorite beach music maker attended Auburn University for one year in 1964. He lived in the Plainsman Apartments, pledged a fraternity, and learned how to play the guitar so he could win the ladies' attention. Lucky for us, he decided music was more important than school. And the rest is history.
The long version is available here. It's actually quite an interesting story from a blog dedicated to all things Auburn. The author researched the rumors surrounding Buffett's attendance at Auburn, and with the help of a biography called "Jimmy Buffett: The Man from Margaritaville Revealed" by Steve Eng, he had his answers.
Pretty cool that we have a resident among us who lived in Jimmy Buffett's college apartment!
The Free State Social, a social media conference presented by the World Company, was held in Lawrence on Thursday, April 29. A community wide tweetup took place that night downtown, with several bars and restaurants offering specials.
I've mentioned already how busy we were that night and how much fun it was. Now, I've compiled some of our favorite tweets, pictures, and videos from that night into a story on Whrrl, one of my favorite location-based social networking applications. I like Whrrl because it allows you to check in to a location, add pictures, add text, or join other people who are in the same location. Essentially, you can create a digital story of an event.
The story I created is below; click on the image to view it.
We have something fun to announce: you can earn free jukebox credits at The Sandbar (in Lawrence only, for now).
If you use Twitter, you're probably familiar with location-based social networking tools like Foursquare, Gowalla, and Whrrl. The big buzz about these types of networks is the growing ability for merchants to offer freebies and rewards to customers who "check in" with one of these services. Kansas liquor laws don't allow us to give away or discount alcohol, but we can offer merchandise.
You don't have to be a Twitter user to use these apps. Check out their websites for more information about how to use them.
So what are we offering?
The first service we're offering rewards on is Whrrl (because right now it's my favorite). Check in to the Sandbar between 5-9 p.m., any day of the week, and you can earn 5 free jukebox credits. You have to show the offer to the bartender, and he/she will load your credits on to the jukebox.
Here are some screenshots of what you'll see in the Whrrl iPhone app and what you need to do:
1. First, check in on your app. You can see below that I'm "checked in" at The Sandbar. Click on the section circled below in the first picture.
2. A page comes up that shows details about the Sandbar- who else has checked in, and tabs for more information. Click on the Recs/Offers tab (circled in picture 2).
3. Once you've navigated to the Recs/Offers tab, you'll see our Special Offers! You can also see what users have marked the offer as "to do" or "did it." Click on the offer- if we had multiple offers available they would all show up here, but right now we only have one to choose.
4. A new page opens with the offer and a "Redeem Now" button.
Click on the Redeem Offer Now button, and the next page that comes up is what you need to show the bartender.
This page tells you how many times you've checked in to the location, and what your status is in the "society." It also instructs you to show this page to redeem your offer.
I've requested to set up a reward on Foursquare, too, but I haven't heard back from the company about it. However, at least one customer has seen it, so it's out there. Every third check-in on Foursquare earns you five free jukebox credits. I don't have a screenshot from Foursquare yet because I haven't seen the offer.
Please be patient with our staff, and please only redeem one offer per day, per check-in service! These promotions are very new and different for us, and it may take some time for all of our staff to really understand how this works. It's a learning process for all of us!
Last Thursday the Sandbar participated in the Free State Social community tweetup. We were packed that night with social media types from not only Lawrence, but all over Kansas and even from a few other states.
Every night at 10 p.m. (and other times at the bartender's discretion or the paying public's request) we run our Indoor Hurricane extravaganza. It's a cheesy live show full of mermaids, wind, rain, lightning, music, and dancing on the bar. Thursday night was no exception, and several hurricanes blew through the bar that night.
Three of the keynote speakers at Free State Social agreed (were coerced?) to jump on the bar and pretend to be mermaids: Sarah Evans, Chris Brogan, and Shawna Coronado. Thanks to the handy Christmas present Dave got last year (a Kodak zi8) I was able to record the festivities.
This isn't the only video of the night, and it's definitely not the best- there's more to come. I'm working on putting together a type of "digital scrapbook" with pictures, videos, and comments from the Sandbar tweetup. It will be posted here when it's finished.
Nerd alert: this post won't make sense to many of you. But it's an interesting account of the activities at the Sandbar last Thursday night when the Free State Social community tweetup took place.
Foursquare is a location-based social networking site. Users "check in" when they go places, and their friends can see where they are. The game aspect is one appeal of Foursquare- check in's accumulate points, which in turn allow the user to earn different badges. One of these badges is the elusive "Swarm Badge," which can only be earned if 50 or more people are checked into the same place at the same time. It's like a Foursquare flash mob.
Our neighbors in Kansas City have organized several events to try to earn the Swarm Badge, and each time they've fallen short by just a few people. Lots of people thought the Swarm Badge would be earned at the Free State Social conference last week- since many of the attendees use Foursquare and 300 people were at the conference- but it didn't happen.
I never thought we'd earn the Swarm Badge at Thursday night's community tweetup- after all, if we didn't get it at the conference where all the attendees were in the same place at the same time, it didn't seem possible to unlock it at the tweetup, where participants were spread all over downtown Lawrence in a million different places.
However, people kept coming to the Sandbar on Thursday night, and our friend Jacinta sent the first tweet about swarming the Sandbar. More tweets and retweets followed, and more people kept coming to the bar and checking in. Suddenly we had 16 people checked in, then 33, then 45. The Swarm Badge seemed like a real possibility. Even people who don't normally use Foursquare checked in to help with the cause, and at 9:50 p.m. the 50th person checked in and unlocked the Swarm Badge for everyone:
A funny irony- our legal capacity is 49, and 50 people are needed to unlock the badge. There may have been more than 49 people in the bar, but the patio was busier than it's ever been too.
I think we're the first place to unlock the Swarm Badge in Kansas, from what I've heard. This might seem trivial, and perhaps it is. But it was a fun activity on Thursday- it encouraged people to network with new people and gave them something to talk about, and it helped add to the sense of community that was already created by Free State Social.
And, of course, it was great for business on Thursday. I saw several tweets from people who only came to the Sandbar so they could check in and try to get the Swarm Badge- I don't know if they bought anything or not, but at least they were exposed to our crazy little world for a little bit of time. Maybe they'll be back sometime.
If you were there, leave a comment and let us know what you thought. If you want to write a guest post about your experience at the Sandbar, we're up for that too.
If you follow any kind of social media, you've probably heard about "checking in" and location-based social networks. Maybe you've even been teased by your friends about being the "mayor" of a location in town (yes, I speak from experience).
But back in the days when Foursquare was still a playground game with a bouncy red ball, and Yelp was something you did when you hit your funny bone on the desk, people were checking in to The Sandbar in a decidedly old-fashioned way.
Dave and Peach long ago figured out that the way to attract more customers was to first attract the ladies; the men would soon follow. They came up with a game to encourage the girls to come in and stay awhile, and one that would reward them for time well spent.
They set up an old time clock near the door and created time cards for regular female customers; upon arrival, the ladies would punch in at the time clock, and punch out when they left. After accumulating a certain amount of time at the bar, the girls could pick out gift shop merchandise like t-shirts as a prize.
I honestly don't remember this gimmick- so either it was pre-1996, or I wasn't cool enough to have a time card. Dave doesn't remember how long it lasted, but it was fun to hear about an old-school style promotion.
Of course, now Dave and Peach think it would be funny to bring it back, since I've been trying to sell them on the idea of offering incentives to customers who check in or become mayor on a social network like Foursquare, Gowalla, Whrrl, or Yelp.
Thoughts? How many of you use a location-based social network? Or would you rather punch a time clock?
