Checking In or Checking Out?

The Pew Internet Life Project has release a new study related to location-based check in services such as Gowalla, Foursquare and Facebook Places. It found that adults are 8 times less likely to use a location-based check-in application. Overall, 4% of Americans use location-based check-in tools.

What does that mean to you? It probably means that you should really consider who your target audience really is, and if they are using smartphones prior to embarking on a full fledged location-based program. If your target audience is comprised of younger adults who use smartphones then you should give more serious consideration to location-based check-in applications. If not, then perhaps you should use those energies in your other social media efforts.

If you want to revisit one of my previous posts on the launch of Facebook Places, visit it here.

image from NY Times

Places

Facebook recently added a feature called Places. It is a geo-location application similar to Gowalla and Foursquare in that it allows you to share where you are with your friends via social media. These programs use the GPS in your phone to pinpoint your location to within 300 meters.

Most geo-tagging applications are currently set up as games, where you can earn badges and points. However you can also read reviews and offer discounts or coupons to people checking in at a location. For example Pizza Hut has found this to be successful by offering free breadsticks to people who are mayors. Others offer percentage discounts for 5 or more check ins. Think of it as an electronic frequent buyer punch card.

Are your employees already using it? They very well could be and could call your office Workie Poo. A sweet term of endearment do you think?

You can even take it to the extreme by using a geo-location tool called a GPS ‘Pen’ to check in and spell out words like this man did for his love of Ayn Rand’s books. Here’s a link to the whole story behind it.