Max Gladwell

Note: Max Gladwell founder Rob Reed was interviewed for the following American Express Open Forum story on the emerging geolocation trend. It reflects our evolved positioning and the direction we’ll be taking with our coverage and consulting.

by Leah Betancourt

Small businesses stand to increase their local audience and further their market reach through geolocation platforms, which attach real-world locations to mobile phones. Here are a few ways companies can become part of the location tagging world of social media.

Late last year, Twitter launched geolocation for tweets. The microblogging service also recently rolled out Local Trends, which makes geolocated tweets trending topics.

Other location services such as BrightKite, Gowalla and Loopt allow users to check in at locations, and the ability to share that activity among a network of friends.

On February 9th , Google announced its new social media platform Buzz that is tied to a user’s Gmail account and has location-tagging options. For example, the Buzz nearby mobile feature serves up a list about places, and users can read Buzz info about those places from others who are both in and outside their networks.

Foursquare allows for check-ins and has a gaming element in which users earn badges and can work their way to become the “mayor” of their favorite locations. MyTown also allows for check-ins and rewards as a gaming element.

Dina Meek, owner of a social media consulting firm for small businesses called Big Buzzness said these types of platforms are essentially cheap or free for small businesses – for the moment, at least.

“It’s absolutely something they can tap into and be ready (for),” she said.

Become familiar and aware of location tagging networks.

Meek said small businesses should sign up and start using these location-tagged services. She recommended finding a comparable business in a nearby town that is on Foursquare and seeing how it is using the platform.

“For small businesses, if you can put the time in to get the buzz in and get the word out, it doesn’t cost anything,” she said.

What if your town is small, or isn’t as savvy on geolocation services as Silicon Valley? Then be one of the first to start building that location-tagging presence in that area. Meek suggested talking to the local chamber of commerce to see what kinds of incentives they might offer to attract consumers who are on geolocation networks.  Figure out how to draw people in from nearby cities and think about banding together with other local businesses to do cross-promotion that might benefit your area.

Make sure your business is already discoverable on geolocation apps.

First, check to see if your business is there and if it isn’t, add it or contact that site to find out how to get your business added, said Rob Reed, who authors the blog MaxGladwell.com and is the vice president of marketing at the paperless postal system Zumbox.com.

He pointed out that businesses are going to have to be search engine optimized, social media optimized, and geographically optimized.

There’s a big distinction between the kinds of interaction going on and content being generated in these location-based app spaces. Reed said businesses can say they’re already on GPS services such as Garmin or TomTom, but all that content is static. He said the difference is that social geolocation content is in real-time.  “It’s more about the conversation,” he said.

Full Story

Related Posts

• Max Gladwell Embraces Geo-Local Revolution
• Is Location a Business or Feature?
• You Are Here: Geolocation is the Trend for 2010
• Google Buzz: A Worthy Effort With the Wrong Brand
• Twitter Local Trends: The Dawn of Geospatial Awareness