For awhile now people and businesses have been getting excited about location-based marketing or geomarketing. We discussed this on our blog in June.
Well, by summer’s end the din over location-based marketing has only increased, especially with Facebook’s recent launch of its “Places” application. According to the Advertising Age article "Facebook Introduces 'Places,' Lets Users Check in From Venues," Facebook definitely had businesses in mind with its new application: "'[Business owners] can claim their business's Places page, and every time anyone checks in from that location, that's a huge deal,' said Chris Cox, VP-product.”
With all the different platforms offering spatial awareness to a mass audience – Foursquare, Gowalla, SCVNGR, and now Places – it seems people have either become more comfortable with the idea of others knowing where they’ve been, or if they’re of a certain age just didn’t care. Matt Britton, CEO of social marketing agency Mr. Youth, recently stated in MediaPost that “All Interactive Youth Marketing Will Soon Be Location-Based.” Britton writes:
“With rampant smartphone adoption, a market dying to share its location with the world, and the overwhelming desire to 'hook up,' brands will be deluged with a real-time treasure trove of location information that will forever change the way we market.
Geo-targeting will continue to birth a new wave of technologies, experts, and devices built to deliver relevant information based on where you are, not just who you are.”
Britton cites everything from the adoption of smartphones to lack of concern for privacy among younger generations to the fact that young people are single, for reasons why location-based marketing will soon be as important in the social media marketing realm as Facebook and Twitter, if not more so.
However, for the young-at-heart if not young, privacy is a huge concern. Soon after Facebook announced Places, the ACLU of Northern California issued a statement saying the social network has failed to build in some important safeguards: “Even if you’ve already gone through your settings to limit the info that apps can access, you should do it again- you may find that you’ve been defaulted into sharing your location info with apps.” However in its announcement of Facebook Places, the Advertising Age article says that Facebook was quick to tout its privacy buffers, which could be a huge issue to large number of its user-base.
Many companies certainly agree that geomarketing is here to stay, or at least worth investing in right now. Check out this picture snapped by TechCrunch at a San Francisco Giants game:
Photo credit TechCrunch
However, most companies don’t have the same spending budget as the San Franciscio Giants. So, what do businesses do with Foursquare, or SCVNGR, or Places? Britton makes some recommendations for marketers and how they can make sure they are properly placed for location-based marketing. You can read the full article at MediaPost.
We’ll also take a more in-depth look in a future blog post about how different companies are already using location-based marketing.
