Where are Your Customers? Social Media Can Help

Social media’s evolution is taking another step forward in knowing everything about everyone in your network. From Facebook to Foursquare, people can find where everyone is at any given time in the world, but only if you allow them to do so. This past week, Yelp!, jumped into this game by adding "check in" to their list of services they provide.

Social Media has become the revolution in marketing that only few could realize in the beginning. So much has happened in the last year in social media. Twitter become the word of the year and social media was used for the first time in holiday shopping. Foursquare, a newcomer to the social media scene, was created as a tool that contained only large metropolises were people "checked in" from different locals within a city. They could be the mayor (meaning they "checked in" to a certain store more than anyone else) or a newbie. Just recently, Foursquare did away with only having metropolises and opened the doors to all cities. Anywhere in the world, a person can tell you the location they are in, whether it be a popular coffee shop or the grocery store.

The importance this style of social media has for businesses (mainly small businesses) is just as big as Twitter and Facebook. The word for small businesses that describes these types of social media is Customer Relationship Management (CRM). What makes it good business:

Word of Mouth:

Every time a person "checks in." it shows their local which just might be your store or office. The "check in" then is displayed in several other social media sites and on search engines.

Loyalty:

Encourages user to "check in" to receive badgets and mayorships to the most frequenct users of each location, making it an interaction not only with frienda but the location they are visiting.

Tracking Customers:

Allows for anyone to look at the amount of "check in's" per location. It gives credibility to the location in which they rely on based on interactions with others in their network.

Reviews:

When making a trip to a unfamiliar city, someone with Foursquare can instantly find the best places to visit. It shows where the locals go and the frequency they visit the location.

Like all social media, there can be some negative effects. As of now, the amount of locations on all social media is limited. Most will rely on the input of others for their information which could be detrimental as customer reviews might often be regarding inadequate service or assistance.  Foursquare is available for all businesses to advantage of and it can help change the way locations focus on their business practices and strategies.