The latest new social media innovation to get significant attention is ‘here’! Indeed, it’s here, there and everywhere! You guessed it. I’m talking about location based services.

Facebook recently launched its new product, Facebook Places, to the market. With other location based services such as Foursquare increasing in popularity – you should know that your customers are becoming an active part of this latest trend.

But what are location based services? And when do they become relevant to our businesses?

Well, location based services allow people to connect to each other by sharing facts about a location. For example I may want to tell my friends: “I’m here! You can meet me if you like!”
…or I might feel compelled to express my dining experience with the world:
“I recommend the salad, very nice!”
It’s all about ranking and distributing information in a way that bares relevance to our geographical whereabouts.

How might we use this?

As location based services catch on, (and they’re not exactly main stream just yet) the services present a greater opportunity to be discoverable to potential customers lurking nearby. As well as this, its easier to identify customers as regulars.

Starbucks are leveraging off this phenomenon by giving certain customers discounts! Read this blog post to learn how:
http://mashable.com/2010/05/17/starbucks-foursquare-mayor-specials/

The question is – how are you going to leverage your location?

That’s all for now folks,
Jamie
Facebook Angel