Location, Location, Location

T Magazine Fashion Week Hot Spots

One of the most unsettling and simultaneously exciting things about the Internet is undoubtedly its constantly evolving nature. One day it’s MySpace, then suddenly everyone’s on Facebook– then just as you get comfortable with that, Twitter opens the floodgates. Similarly, new marketing opportunities are constantly presenting themselves to both brands and businesses. Do you advertise through banners, place an ad through Facebook, create a custom campaign or use social networking to connect to your consumers?

The possibilities are literally endless, and now there’s a new kid on the block… Geotagging…Predicted as one of the main trends for 2010, geotagging is basically the process of adding a geographical identification tag (or metadata) to various types of media, i.e. photographs, videos, websites or RSS Feeds. The way this works is by combining the latitude and longitude coordinates of your whereabouts as well as your altitude, bearing and place name. This helps users find location specific information, for example by entering their location allowing them to find pictures that were taken at that location.

Auto-geotagging occurs when a device is programmed to automatically associate a specific location with media (a photo, video or piece of text) and transfer that media to an online map, therefore publishing media in real-time. Enter mobile geotagging and with it, applications like foursquare and Gowalla who will literally turn social life into a game of points and rewards. Geotagging is based on the global positioning system that has been used throughout history, so in that sense it’s nothing new. What is new is the marketing opportunities that have arisen through auto-geotagging.

How does it work? Let’s look at foursquare (the more popular of the two). The first step is to download the foursquare application onto your phone (Iphone, Blackberry, android and Palm all work). The app will allow you to ‘check-in’ to tell foursquare where you are. Foursquare then sends a message to your friends letting them know what you’re up to, it’ll also send you recommendations, written by other users, of what’s close-by and what’s good.

The point is that you’ll slowly discover more and more about what’s around you and what’s worth seeing and frequenting – whether it be a restaurant, park, bar or shop. Foursquare encourage their users to contribute valuable pointers to the community, as stated on their ‘Learn More’ page: “Think beyond your standard review – we’re looking less for “The food here is top notch” and more for “Go to Dumont Burger and try the most amazing Mac and Cheese ever.”” The recommendations system that foursquare has created means that rather than going to a blog, asking your friend to write a lengthy email, or doing hours of research of what to do in a new city, you can now simply check-in, and voila you’re presented with an unlimited resource of relevant information. If you click on the map from T Magazine above, you will be linked to their list with a map of all their essential New York Fashion Week events – using Google Maps you could create a mapped itinerary for each day of Fashion Week.

But alas, not satisfied being simply a consistently renewable and totally mobile social network, the creators have given foursquare a competitive edge and therefore an excellent marketing and sales strategy. A user gets five points every time they check-into a location, extra if they visit more than one venue in a night, discovering new places other foursquare users haven’t yet earns you extra points too, and with the points you can (not unlike an Xbox or Playstation game) unlock badges or, (and this is the highest honour of them all) be crowned a ‘mayor’ (aka the most regular of regulars). Being a mayor gets you all kinds of freebies, whether it be a free sandwich, hot chocalate, hotel visit or t-shirt.

So in a way foursqure is a game, and foursquare’s users thrive off and are driven by the points system. Foursquare’s strategy is to get as many businesses as possible to participate in their discounts and promotions, the businesses with the most alluring rewards reap the greatest benefits from the many dedicated foursquare users.
Recently foursqure have signed interesting deals with a variety of high profile clients, including HBO, Zagat and The History Channel, as well as creating a promotion for the film Valentines Day, where users who check-in at two locations on a list put together by foursquare users, they are able to unlock a Valentines Day Badge that will allow them a discount to see the movie.

What the success of location-based mobile apps proves is that consumers are craving even more engagement. A number of fashion related brands and companies have taken the plunge and created mobile apps but these apps are rarely updated more than once every six to three months. The challenge is to stay ahead of these trends, “According to Flurry, a mobile applications analytics company in San Francisco, keeping users entertained will be an ongoing challenge. Foursquare said that it is seeing user retention between 30 and 60 percent. For retailers, that presents a large opportunity; brands and designers who leverage emerging social technologies have seen stronger brand building, e-commerce and in-stores sales opportunities than those who are slow to adopt.” says Marcala Wrigh Lee, from fashionablymarketing.me.

Can you see yourself incorporating geotagging or applications such as foursquare into your marketing strategy?

Read more about foursquare and geotagging at TechCrunch, PocketGamer and eweek.com.

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