Location, Location, Location

Disclaimer: This may be sooo displaced on Aprons and A-Lines, but I wrote this weeks ago for my former company's blog. I spent a good chunk of time on it, and it's going to get published SOMEWHERE. 

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Hypcorite, thy name is Amy. Weeks ago I engaged in a conversation about location-based social media with a colleague. “How presumptuous to think anyone cares if you’re at Starbucks or if you’re at the grocery store or if you’re getting your tires rotated at Bob’s Tire Shack,” I ranted. “Also, why not just broadcast ‘Attention, everyone, I’m not home – please rob me!’” Sorry, but the invitation to welcome any stalker types had zero appeal for me.

Two weeks later it took all of five seconds for me to eat my words. While waiting for my food to arrive at TGI Fridays, I reached for my iPhone and glanced at my Facebook app. Hmmm. What places come up if I use the very conveniently placed “check in” button.  Before I knew it I not only “checked-in” to TGI Fridays, advertising my whereabouts to my entire friends list, but I also tagged my lunch companion, my husband, in the same act. It all happened so fast.

Geolocation mobile applications pinpoint coordinates using your phone as a GPS tracking device. Some people use it to simply communicate to their friends what they’re doing, while others use it to take advantage of retailer incentives. The rest do it to clog my Twitter feed. 

image: marketingdiner.com

Location-based social networks (also called “geosocial” networks) are becoming bigger and bigger each day and routinely top any “2011 Social Media Trends” forecast list. Already, more than six million people have signed up for services like Foursquare and Gowalla to keep track of their friends' whereabouts or search for nearby merchants and deals using their cell phones. As incentive to divulge one’s location, brands and businesses offer exclusive deals per check-in.  Gap gave away 200 pairs of jeans to users who checked-in on a certain day through Facebook’s new Deals application.  Starbucks introduced discounts for Foursquare ‘mayors’, and Facebook is working with McDonald’s to introduce check-ins and showing featured food items in their posts.

And therein lays one of my personal struggles in rejecting location-sharing. My resolve becomes weakened when free frappes and jeans enter the picture.  Plus, as a marketer, I find it a pretty brilliant trade-off between both the consumer and business. The business gains a customer, and through the user publicizing the business’s name to their social networks, instant brand recognition is achieved.  

Inner turmoil aside, I believe this new level of technology is worth taking the time to understand, especially when you consider how rapidly smartphones are changing the ways in which we use  the Internet.  Geosocial allows users to discover people and places in a way we haven’t encountered before. If my  friend was alerted I was shopping at Target, and she happened to be close by, it would take very little effort to meet up.  If I was in an unfamiliar city, a location app would clue me in on a great no-name restaurant or an off the beaten path hotel I may have never known about otherwise.

Oh, but remember my previous mocking and fear of privacy invasions? Kristine van Dillen, director of industry initiatives and partnerships at the Mobile Marketing Association, says location-based services aren’t growing as quickly as they should be. One reason for the lag is concern over privacy and who has access to users’ data. Sites like PleaseRobMe.com, which humorously bring awareness to location-based privacy issues, may have scared some social media users from opting in.

Privacy is definitely a negative for me when using geosocial media.  But on the other hand, I hope I have no unsavory characters on my friends list that would dare entertain the idea of breaking into my house.

Being a hip geosocial naysayer came easy to me, and to be perfectly honest, I’m still not 100% sold on the technology or how I see it being completely useful in my life. Time is very telling. I have to remember my feelings a few years ago about Twitter, and I wasn’t alone in my early skepticism and hesitancy.   It took Twitter the better part of two years to conquer the “Why do I care what you had for breakfast” perception, and now location based social networks face similar refrains. Until then, I'll be cautiously and sporadically checking in to various places. Don't knock it til you try it, right?