More and more social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have recognized location awareness and ready to make the best advantage of it. Twitter recently has turned on its GPS feature and any day now Facebook will announce its plans to let its 400 million users share their location with friends.
Consumers are now able to make split second decisions with ease about where to go and what to buy. What is nearby, who is offering specials and what are their friends recommending? Answers to these questions can easily be arrived from Foursquare at the press of a button and companies have begun to realize the increasing importance of connecting with potential customers on this local and very personal level.
According to Advertising executive Ian Schafer this trend can actually provide big pay-offs for businesses, like providing them with valuable information about their customers. Who they are, when they visit and where they go afterwards. Social media has long been known as a way to connect people in a virtual world, leading to some criticism that it causes isolation from the real world. Now, location-awareness sites seem to be putting the “social” into social networking and bringing people together the old-fashioned way.