Location-based Marketing a Must for Local Businesses
Its official – the Location Based Marketing train is full steam ahead and if you’re not on it you’re missing a huge opportunity.
Up until this past week the only big game contenders in the Location Based Services arena were Foursquare and Gowalla. Then on Wednesday, Facebook introduced Facebook Places, a new feature giving Facebook users the option to let their friends know where they are via “check-ins” on their mobile web enabled devices. Let’s talk about what this means for businesses.
Foursquare is nearing 3 million users, Facebook recently hit the 500 million user mark, with those figures in mind, if businesses chose to not participate in Foursquare, chances are they weren’t ignoring a huge chunk of their customer base. Now, even if only a small fraction of Facebook users opt to utilize Facebook Places and a business remains uninvolved, that’s a big miss.
It’s time to stop standing idly by and get involved. Ironically enough, with the advent of Facebook Places, more people are jumping on the Foursquare bandwagon – so start there. Go to Foursquare for Businesses, make sure your business is listed as a venue, see who the Mayor is (the person who has checked-in the most), see who has checked-in recently, read what tips have been left, get to know your customers. Now comes the fun part, create a Mayor promotion or check-in special, giving people a reason to keep coming back and checking-in. Your final task is to advertise that you are on Foursquare and that you have deals and specials for those participating. Foursquare was originally created as a game so keep it fun but don’t lose sight of the business benefits – check back to the site regularly to keep up to date with who the Mayor is and who’s been checking-in.
Now onto Facebook. Read more…
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Saying It Social, LLC provides Social Media Marketing & Local SEO Services for Franchisees & other Small Businesses.
“According to the Cone Business in Social Media Study, 93 percent of Americans expect companies they do business with to have a social media presence. And 85 percent believe a company should not only be present, but also interact with its customers via social media.”
We help your business to increase brand awareness, build relationships with and establish trust within your target market, be seen as an industry expert, provide exceptional customer service, increase customer retention, and increase search engine ranking all with the ongoing goal of generating more quality leads.
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