Now, I’m a bit of a skeptic when it comes to location based services. I’m still not entirely convinced why I should be checking into places all the time, and what exactly is in it for me personally.
However, I see professionally countless opportunities for myself and other marketing pros to utilize the latest location based services. This became even more apparent when I listened to a talk from Mike Schneider (@SchneiderMike) at Social Fresh Tampa earlier this week.
Location based services offer a whole new level of marketing opportunities for businesses. As @SchneiderMike points out, marketers have always wanted to know where people are going. Now, they have unprecedented opportunity to find this out through Foursquare, Gowalla, SCVNGR, Facebook Places and even Yelp and Google Places/Latitude.
Every business should be monitoring these sites, and finding out who is checking in there. When you have a mayor at your location, that means they have taken the time to check in to your place multiple times. They are clearly a fan of your brand, and we as marketers need to smarten up and start engaging with them.
Also, do you have someone monitoring tips on Foursquare and Gowalla or Yelp reviews. This is a way to see what people enjoy about products/services as well as things to improve on.
So, what are you doing to encourage your customers to “check into” your establishment and/or leave tips/reviews?
Are you thinking beyond short-term contests and incentives?
How are you incorporating location-based services into your long-term social media strategy?
This is another opportunity to engage further and possibly develop brand evangelists. That’s the holy grail.
*To learn more about location-based marketing, check out @schneidermike blog as well as his new book: “Location-Based Marketing For Dummies.”
