Article

RFID + social media = marketing machine (video)

Kiosks designed for tradeshows allow attendees to sign in and post photos to Facebook.

May 30, 2011

The "like" kiosks deployed last month at RFID Journal Live in Orlando Fla., showed that combining RFID and Social Media allows users to interact at the time of an event.

"The success of using RFID tags and chips and Facebook together is exactly why every mobile phone will have an RFID device in it in the next three to five years," Patrick Sweeney, whose company, ODIN, designed the kiosks, said in his blog. "The smart companies will be the ones using UHF RFID to get the extended read range, so that guy doing a test ride at 200 mph can have his picture taken automatically and posted to his Facebook page before he gets out of the car."

Attendees at tradeshows using the social media kiosks receive cards or bracelets with RFID chips or Keyfobs with RFID tags that allow them to interact through ODIN's EasyConnect Software built for Facebook.

EasyConnect can register users at any event in less than 30 seconds. With dedicated "Like" and "Check-In" kiosks and automated Photo and Video booths, "it brings an entire network of friends to your event," he wrote in his blog. Users of ODIN's EasyConnect have 25 percent more friends than the average Facebook user and provide a huge marketing multiplier effect.

"Marketing professionals will have to take notice of RFID & Facebook because it gives the detailed information that they can't get any other way," Sweeny wrote in his blog. "You can go to Facebook ads and segregate by advanced demographics, but it doesn't give you the level of insight (that) knowing what they do and where they do it can give you."

He used the car industry as example, saying that a car manufacturer who pays $3-5 per click on a Facebook Ad has a much lower return if he relies on self-reported interests and Facebook demographics than if he has a passionate car lover at an auto show, rally or race track.

"If you are the car guy, getting the right information, and being able to share your experiences (even if you are going 200 mph) is the next logical evolution of Social Media," Sweeney wrote. "People don't or can't take out phones and laptops when they are engaged in events. RFID provides Facebook on Autopilot."

See how ODIN's social media kiosks work in the video below.