MyEventApps gets picked up all over

We work closely with customers, get to understand their business and develop solutions they love. The service has been the marketing and it has worked very well. The customers all come back and we grow together. We love it and they love it.

However, we were missing a great deal of the market that can't afford custom mobile solutions. Most solutions are too expensive and complex. After hearing this from many potential customers we decided to do something about it and developed MyEventApps. It allows event based organizations to get their own true native iPhone and Android apps for $750/year! We think this changes the game.

See what the Ottawa Citizen had to say this about this revolutionary product. The story got picked up all over the web including blogs and other papers like the Vancouver Sun. Our phone was ringing off the hook on Friday with interest from spas to malls and cleaning services. Things are going to get interesting.

If you wish to keep up with our story, please enter your email to the right and you'll get updates in your email when we have something interesting to share.

Ottawa Citizen, November 30, 2011

OTTAWA — An Ottawa startup is looking to democratize the business of building applications.

FaveQuest and its founder Allan Isfan has released its web-based MyEventApps program, which allows smaller businesses to create iPhone and Android apps in seconds.

To create an app for both Android and iPhone, a business needs to pay FaveQuest an annual fee of $750 …. click to read more

Happy Customer = Good, More Social Media ROI thoughts

Holy huge crowd batman

“Have you noticed how happy people are here”?

My business partner said this to me several times as we would stroll through huge crowds at the Ottawa Bluesfest this year. He was so right … people were there, many with their friends or families, really soaking it all in with a smile on their face. They looked genuinely happy.

It is easy to get lost in web tools, numbers and ROI equations and miss the real point. Live events are ultimately about bringing small and large communities together around a common joy, in our case live music. The pleasure comes just as much from being with friends and family in a lively and exciting atmosphere as it does from the music itself.

Happy Customer = Good

Happy customers come back and they bring their friends. You don’t need metrics  to know it is true. There are many ways to make people happy and social media could be part of the mix.

When we began talking about new elements to the Ottawa Bluesfest site, the predominant focus was to build something that would help people enjoy the festival even more (300 bands, hundreds of thousands of people … doing ok … but still). The idea was to add elements that would allow people to make better decision so they wouldn’t miss great acts, especially ones that they had not heard of. Answer the “who the heck is that” question, a well known problem.  In addition, music festivals are social events … people go together and part of the joy is to share a beautiful experience with people you like.

Not Just About Selling More Tickets

The “Buy Tickets” button is present but was never a priority and we didn’t even get measured against “Buy Tickets” clicks (though we counted them of course . This really surprised me and I was reminded of a valuable lesson:

“It is not about YOU! (the company/brand)”

There a few exceptions to this (musicians, charities …) but not many. Connect them with music they like, connect them with their friends, give them a voice, let them contribute … let them be part of something bigger and feel special. By all means, make sure the buy tickets button is easy to find but don’t let it get in the way.

Since we’re huge live music fans already, we did a bunch of things we thought would make fans happy:

• aggregated bios and videos of all the acts so even a child could check out a band they had never heard of
• helped people invite their friends by providing them an “invite friends” function
• provided ability to create a personal calendar and share that calendar with friends (email, post on Facebook …)
• allowed fans to see which performers their friends were going to (Facebook app function only)
• allowed them to contribute by sending videos and pictures that included on the site for all to see (people love to see their stuff highlighted)
• interview fans and post the written or video interviews
• live tweet and post pics of behind the scenes stuff (backstage, while the KISS stage was being assembled …). Lots of people felt like insiders. I got suspended from Twitter for a couple of hours likely for overtweeting
• interview performers somewhat on the fly and post the interviews as much as possible
• when we realized it was very time consuming to go through each of the nearly 300 acts one by one, we built the Bluesfest Jukebox so you could just listen for hours and pluck out bands of interest
• let people do as much as possible without creating an account but provided them extra value for registering only if it made sense

Many of these ideas came straight from Mark Monahan, the bluesfest executive director (the guy at the top) btw. The guy making the decisions and approving the cheques (checks for you American folks).

I’m really sharing the thought process with you to make a few key points:

• the customer comes first. Love them and seek to provide them value  first and foremost
• be sure to monitor and listen to make sure fans actually love what you are doing
• Social media tools, like the ones we used and built, can be a substantial, cost effective way to make your customers happy
• Clean bathrooms are important (not everything is about social media)

Love Your Customer!

By all means measure and tie whatever you can count to business imperatives… we do that all the time … but don’t forget the key imperative is to make your customers happy. Everything comes after that.

What are you doing in social media to make customers happy? What has worked and what hasn’t. You have the stand, please share …. I’m sure you have some great thoughts on this and experiences to share.

Please don’t forget to vote for our Social Media ROI panel at SXSW here panel picker . The panel is moderated by Keith Burtis and I’m joined by a stunning group comprising of Amber Naslund of Radian6 ; Sue Murphy of Jester Creative; Jay Berkowitz, CEO of 10 Golden Rules 10 Golden Rules Blog and Justin Levy New Marketing Labs. Be sure to check their posts on this very topic … you’re guaranteed to learn something valuable.

Cheers,

Allan Isfan

CEO, FaveQuest

FaveQuest creates new site: Bluesfest ByWard

We’re creative types and had piled up a bunch of new ideas to run by the Ottawa Bluesfest organization. Bluesfest Radio, Bluesfest tv, embedding bluesfest viewtube in third party sites and so on. So we have a meeting and before we get into it, we’re told “we may be launching a small festival in the ByWard market”. Bill (my partner) and I look at each other. Huh?

A Nice Surprise

Totally derailed the conversation in a good direction. Finally sealed the deal late one night over the phone, settled on what we’d deliver, a time and a price and we were off to the races. Nearly 90 performers and DJs are coming from all over to play across 12 venues in the ByWard Market, including an outdoor stage!

Phase 1 of the Bluesfest ByWard site is finally up and it is pretty awesome.  We have more coming in the next few weeks too so please be sure to register for the site … even better, create an account so you can take full advantage of advanced features (access you calendar from anywhere, inviting friends, last minute alerts and more. Rather than tell you more about it, check it out for yourself.

http://bluesfestbyward.com

Cheers,

Allan Isfan

CEO, FaveQuest

More Live Music Innovation

We are Fans of the Ottawa Bluesfest

It makes a big difference when you’re a huge fan of the customer you’re doing work for. The people at FaveQuest have always loved the Ottawa Bluesfest and have countless positive memories. We’ve done our best to build tools for fans just like us and I must say, it is going very well.

We have received some very nice emails including one from a nearly blind woman,who was able to explore the bluesfest performers by using our viewtube application because of all the multimedia we included and the simple navigation.  That feels good!

Facebook app 2.0 and more!

But we’re not stopping there. Since launch we’ve added some new features like allowing people to publish their calendar so their friends can easily see what others are attending. We’re also in the process of developing version 2.0 of the Facebook application that will make it even more engaging and social.

There is more. In the next few weeks, we’ll be launching some more tools for fans to explore even more musical acts and stay up to date with daily events at the bluesfest. I can’t tell you more unfortunately but keep your ear to the ground and this blog.

It has been exciting and it is about to get even better!

Cheers,

Allan Isfan

CEO

A Great Social Media Story?

Advertising is one way but we can do better

Let me share why I think what we are trying to do at FaveQuest, and the Bluesfest ViewTube, we just launched is such a big deal.

Way back when, when you had a product to sell, you would get attention by holding press releases and buying advertising. If you had something really compelling, you could argue that you were doing people a favour by sharing your story. Beyond that though, you were interrupting them. Apparently, it still goes on:)

Serve Your Customers Instead

When we pitched the “social video calendar” to Mark Monahan (exec director of the Ottawa Bluesfest) and his team, we proposed something else. We suggested building a tool to solve problems for music fans. They could use this tool to get to know the bluesfest acts better, create a calendar and invite friends. To make it even easier, we would build an extension to their website and a facebook application so people could invite their facebook friends and see who was going to what show.

We built it and launched version 1.0 April22nd. It was not built to sell more tickets, though it likely will. It was built to provide fans with a better and deeper way to engage with the festival. There’s even a bonus if we hit certain engagement metrics. Not tickets sales, engagement!

More Ticket Sales?

I think all involved realize that more engagement is likely going to translate to more attendees. People are going to discover stuff and decide to go check it out. Friends are going to invite friends that may have not considered going to a particular show. Or they may see that a friends is going through their facebook newsfeed. In the next release coming very soon, as people check out the calendar of events, they’ll even be able to see which of their facebook friends is going to a particular show.

Help Your Customers Carry Your Torch

You don’t have to be a social media expert, or have even heard about social media, to realize that such a tool is going to lead people to go to more shows and buy tickets that they would not have bought otherwise.

The real point is that such tools have the power to transform the way some businesses reach out and connect with prospective customers. It is so much better to serve your customers and have them carry the torch for you, don’t you think?

Cheers,

Allan