Geo-Location | SocialWayne.com by Wayne Sutton

Posts Tagged ‘Geo-Location’

Posted on September 24, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

#GEOChat Transcript from September 21, 2010 – Tweets about location-based services

GEOChat covers all things location/geo related offline and online. The discussion also covers your favorite location-based applications such as Foursquare, whrrl, brightkite, Gowalla, TriOut, Facebook Places, SCVNGR, MyTown and more. Other topics includes privacy, API application mashups, offline marketing of location-based campaigns, and how does the entire GEO spaces affects businesses today.

If you have suggestions/questions/topics for #GEOChat please let me know in the comments. #GEOchat is held every Tuesday at 2:00 P.M. EST.

Here’s the #GEOChat Transcript from September 21, 2010

<br />

Posted on August 24, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

#GEOChat Starts today on Twitter at 2:00 P.M. EST, Discussing all things location

Original graphic by Jess3!

Topical Twitter hashtags conversations started a few years ago with #journchat by @prsarahevans. Now we have #b2bchat, #aptchat, #smchat, #blogchat and more. Today I’m pleased to announced #GEOchat starting today at 2:00 P.M. EST on Twitter. #GEOChat will cover all things location/geo related offline and online. The discussion will cover your favorite location-based applications such as Foursquare, whrrl, brightkite, Gowalla, TriOut, Facebook Places, MyTown and more. Other topics we’re going to cover will be privacy, API application mashups, offline marketing of location-based campaigns, and how does the entire GEO spaces affect businesses today.

To participate in #GEOChat setup your Twitter search for the hashtag #GEOChat at 2:00 P.M. EST and I’ll start the conversations off with about three questions and depending on your answers the chat will last for 30 minutes. If the conversation last longer, we’ll continue to 3:00 P.M. EST. In the future there will be guest host from other location-based platforms and marketing agencies leading in the location-based marketing space.

Kicking off #GEOChat here are a few of the questions we’re going to ask during #GEOChat:

1. If you’re a longtime user of other location-based apps are you now using Facebook Places as your primary LBS?

2. What is your number one concern about privacy using location-based apps?

3. What will drive the success of location-based services in the future? Gaming or group buying or coupons and why?

4. Outside of Facebook Places what new location-based service has impressed you? Ex. ShopKick, BarCode Hero, Hotlist, Picplz?

5. What features not in your favorite location-based service you would like to see implemented?

If you have suggestions/questions/topics for #GEOChat please let me know in the comments and I’ll tweet you at 2:00 P.M. for #GEOChat

Posted on August 18, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

Poll: Will you check-in with Facebook Places?

Uploaded with plasq‘s Skitch!

Early today Facebook announced Facebook Places a way for Facebook users to check into locations. Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook places was created for three main reasons:
1. To help people share where they are
2. To show people/places around you
3. To show what’s going on and discover new places around you

As some of you know there are over 67 location-base applications such as TriOut, Brightkite, Whrrl, Loopt along with the applications that presented at Facebook HQ tonight that included Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp and MyTown. Now we can officially add Facebook to the list of location-based apps, making it over 68. Facebook Places will be available tomorrow at http://touch.facebook.com and the soon to be updated iPhone app. With all the concern about Facebook privacy and check-in fatigue are users willing to ditch their favorite location-based app and use Facebook Places alone being that all of your friends are suppose to be on Facebook? I know, I’m not but what about you? Let me know by taking the will you check-in with Facebook Places poll below.

Thanks

Posted on July 12, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

11 Questions to Ask Before Using Location-Based Services to Market Your Business

Note: Originally posted on: SocialFresh.com on June 22, 2010

Location-based marketing (LBM) is here and it has been here for a long while, way before Yelp, Loopt and Foursquare. But now with the recent popularity in location-based mobile applications like Foursquare, TriOut (disclosure, I am a partner), Loopt Star and Gowalla, more brands and agencies are trying to take advantages of these services to increase sales, branding and in some cases just to look cool.

Emerging from a recent “future of location-based marketing” panel, much of the audience mentioned a need for more LBM brand success stories, to help get an idea of what is possible on these new platforms.

Reset Your Thinking

But it is important to remember that getting started with location-based marketing starts with a hyper-local twist. If you have your social media thinking cap on, I dare say take if off, sit it in a corner visit your local coffee shop and ask yourself what will drive more people to walk in the doors that are not customers or make existing customers visit more often before you even think about a badge.

Regardless, soon we’re going to see more Mayor check-in like specials, leader-board contests and discount from major brands, retailers and small businesses looking to use location-based services as a marketing channel.

It’s Harder Than It Looks

But businesses should be warned, it’s a lot more work and harder than getting people to follow you on Twitter. Before you get too excited about offering a badge, a coupon or a free beer on your customer’s 5th visit, please consider digging a little deeper into your strategy. Ask yourself these 11 questions about your business and location-based services before jumping in.

Who is my target audience?
Do my customers currently check-in to my location?
What location-based services do our customers and local community use?
What is our goal if we offer a check-in special/discount?
What’s the incentive for the customer to check-in?
How will I get the word out online and offline?
What objective numbers will I track and how?
How long will the location-based promotion last?
Who are we excluding by offering a check-in special?
How do I integrate our check-in special with existing marketing efforts?
What will it take to educate our staff on our location-based promotions?

As you look to embrace the “next big thing” in digital marketing, remember that a good strategy can help you learn and improve your efforts along the way. I’m sure there will be a lot more questions and answers to follow. Let us know what you are learning along the way.

How do you think business should approach location-based marketing?

Posted on May 7, 2010 - by Wayne Sutton

TriOut For Business explained. A location-based dashboard with messaging. By @LawPower

We are about to release some really exciting updates to TriOut for Business. The beta has been a great success and we have gotten feedback from those businesses that participated resulting in a number of enhancements and new features that add even more value for TriOut customers, both businesses and individuals. We will be sharing the details on the various plans with you over the coming weeks, along with some videos that show you how to use the service to enhance your sales and marketing efforts. If your business is not already listed in TriOut, please contact us and we’ll be happy to assist you.

We’ve talked a little bit before about some of the features of TfB; visitor statistics, special offers, etc. With the release of TriOut 1.4 for the iPhone we’re adding two new options for businesses to get involved; welcome messages and visitor messaging. Because this involves users directly, we want to be really open about what businesses can do and how users can control their experience with businesses.

Welcome messaging is pretty straight forward. If a business has a welcome message enabled, any user will see it on their first check in. The message could range from a simple “Thanks for visiting us” all the way up to special offers and coupons. It’s all up to the business to decide how to best use this feature.

Businesses also will be able to send messages to users who have checked in at their location. This could be a coupon or special offer, an invitation to an upcoming event, anything they like. I know this could sound a little invasive to the users, so here’s the rules we set up to keep everyone happy:

- Businesses can send no more than two messages a month and only to users who have checked in at their location.
- Messages are sent anonymously to all visitors, there’s no way to send a message just to a single user.
- Users have the option to receive these messages by push or by email, but by default they’ll just be seen when you log into your TriOut account.

We think this is a very good balance between providing businesses a valuable service while keeping users happy and respecting their privacy. Remember too, this is just the beginning. We’ll be listening to your feedback and making improvements that reflect those.