Discover What Geolocation is Doing for Customers

The reading level for this article is Novice

Connecting with new customers is a goal which most every business aspires to. This has been accomplished in the past through millions of dollars worth of advertising. These days, companies still spend a lot on advertising, but small businesses are getting an upper hand. They are able to use geolocation to connect with people in a variety of different ways.

The first thing you need to know about geolocation is what you are dealing with. This is a platform which uses different forms of social media online to locate business in an area. It finds the location of the person using the feature to make sure that they are given information about the businesses in their area they might be looking for.

For instance, say you are on Google and you are looking for a local flower shop, it will discover your location first. This way it will be able to tell you all the flower shops which are in your location. It will even give you a connection to Google Maps so that you can get the directions you will need to get there.

Naturally, this is only convenient to those small businesses taking advantage of the new technology. You can update your status in Google Maps to start. You can even go further through Twitter, Loopt, Foursquare, Gowalla, BrightKite and more. These location services allow you to be found and even allow you to offer potential customers incentives to come in to your location.

You can add a discount in your POS systems so that your employees will know to check in with customers. Your location will build in popularity because of the buzz it will cause through the friends of the customers already at your location. This is the kind of instantaneous success which can cause a slow Tuesday to be a record breaking day.

Entering loss leaders into more than just your point of sale systems will help you to connect with your customers on a daily basis. Make sure to enter updates to Twitter, Facebook and more. Your customers will be given incentives to keep coming back to your location. They will also have incentive to keep using geolocation to connect with deals in their area.

The more customers feel they are getting out of geolocation, the more small businesses get out of it. This is because they will keep spending money at the locations they discover. The incentive is cyclical in this manner. Best of all, the money invested in the businesses will allow for even better advertisements and even better incentives.

Such companies as Foursquare and MyTown get a lot of recognition because it has a gaming element which connects on an even deeper level with the youth today. It makes discovering new places even more fun. With features like being able to be the mayor through Foursquare, it takes the incentives for the customers to a new level.

With all of the benefits to the customers, it is easy to see why they are using geolocation. With the potential to bring in new customers, it is not hard to see why many small businesses are using it also.