You are here

(week 2 - assignment post)

Image source: http://www.dalisocial.com

 Do you know where you are? Do your friends know where you are? Did you know that letting others know where you are eating, shopping, travelling, or walking your dog has changed how marketers are targeting us and how organizations and companies are now communicating with us?

Why don’t we understand this function better? Location-based services is one of the newer social media tools and surprisingly, like myself, not many mobile users quite understand why it exists and why we feel the need to use that “check-in” function on our phones. I am an avid user of my smartphone and probably have accounts to 90% of all social media platforms out there, and I confidently say that location based services is still new to me. I use it to sporadically show my virtual friends the cool places I’ve eaten or obnoxiously make it seem I’m cultured because I’m at the Four Seasons Centre watching an opera.

But why don’t we understand this function better? During our last lecture, we were graced by the presence of guest speaker, Jonathan Laba (@J_Lab), from BNOTIONS. He gave us more insight to location-based services – where it is now and where it’s going. Despite learning that there is a future for this service in how we interact with our surroundings, it was best to understand it at first hand.

So, I create my very own foursquare account but after that I thought “now what?” I played around with the app for a bit, understood what it was used for but still did not see the benefits to me. It wasn’t until I was at a park event that I got to understand foursquare more. Strolling down the path, I noticed Panago Pizza handed out free butter chicken pizzas along with a $5 off coupon. Naturally, free pizza was intriguing and after tasting theirs I was even more enticed to check out their nearest location.

Saving $5 later and waiting 12 minutes while it was cooking, I thought “Hey! I wonder if there are any specials for checking into this place?” Lo and behold, after checking in I was able to redeem another $5 off coupon because I was a first-time check-in! What a fantastic way to lure me into buying another pizza! I’m a new user of foursquare so the excitement of this app was still new to me, however during class I learned that foursquare was probably eventually going to fade out into the graveyard of forgotten apps. I was saddened to be behind on this but I can see why the novelty has died.

I feel that foursquare is not utilized by businesses very well, unlike Facebook or Twitter. I have never seen prompts to use it when I walk into restaurants, stores or places that I check into, which I think is their downfall. Perhaps if they partnered up with a more popular social media tool that majority of the population use or partner up with “deal of the day” websites like Groupon or LivingSocial to better provide value to its users and also allow these discount e-commerce business gain more customers.

Which has more value - QR codes or Mobile Visual Services?
Personally, I have never found true value or benefits in QR codes. I usually research something versus taking a picture of configuration of black blocks. However, I do appreciate how these can be used in a unique and creative way. Just like Jonathan Laba’s interesting game to get guests at a conference interactive. Also, learning that one of my Young Employee Network (Hewlett-Packard) board members is using QR codes in a similar way to promote our network in our office and leading them to our kick off by leaving QR codes around the building with trivia questions in them. QR codes can be valuable if used in the right way.

I was extremely impressed that Mobile Visual Services (MVS) exists, how much it has advanced and where it is going to take us in the future in terms of interacting with our surroundings. Apps like the Google Goggles is a fantastic tool to use with our everyday environment without much effort. It makes it more interesting to look up or research something but a click of a picture. In general, humans are keener on visuals. When it comes to social media, MVS is definitely something PR practitioners should be keeping a look out on and how it can be used as another strategy to communicate with the public in a more visually interactive way.

Google Goggles Demo

Why we should embrace Location-based services? But be careful of our privacy. 
Location-based service is an excellent tool for both marketing and social media. However, practitioners must understand how it can be value and use it in the right way. This is a great article on tips for successful location-based marketing Even though location-based marketing has been around for a few years, we can see that the popular social media platforms are now following the trend and seeing the value of using this tool. Twitter recently revamped their location-based marketing and Facebook included it in their mobile app as well. Here you can see the different types of location-based tools currently used and how they compare.

Source: http://kahlain.com/

But who is this really useful for? Customers? Users? Companies?

There is still a lot of work and research on how this tool can be a powerful marketing tool, which mutually benefits the end user and the companies who participate in it. I see this being a valuable tool for business who depend on customers walking into their establishments i.e. Restaurants, food/beverage shops and retails stores. Location-based service is happening and we cannot avoid it. However, it is controversial when it comes to privacy. This shows use that the general public is aware of this tool but a large amount of them are concerned with privacy and would likely be more inclined to use the tool if they were able to control the privacy settings.

Source: http://whatdidericsay.com

Regardless our setting, we must always be careful with our privacy and safety. Be aware of what you share and know your limits for sharing.

With that, I leave you with another intelligent Google idea

And for the fashionistas,

Thanks for checking in!