It’s often said that you don’t need to understand the technology used to print newspapers to be able to create a great ad for your business. Or that you don’t need to use a product to be able to market it. To a certain degree and for certain products or markets this is a valid argument imo, but when it comes down to social media and more specific Location Based Services (LBS) I can’t disagree more.

My main argument being that Location Based Services, like the popular Foursquare, Gowalla or Dutch-only Feest.je are highly influential on (social) behavior, could give you great insights in who, when, why and where your customers check-in to your stores, could generate extra ‘pageviews’ or awareness for your brand, or could allow you to implement smart reward-programs for your loyal customers. However if you’re not a ‘user’ of these services yourself you won’t ‘get’ the game nor will you understand the mechanics or recognize important behavioral patterns. But most important you’ll have a blind spot on your brand radar. And by now you should know that even when you decide for your brand to not engage on the social web, others will and do talk about you for better or worse. And for LBS this can be even more rewarding (or deadly). For example if you own a nice food restaurant and you’ll see a sudden drop in your customers it might be wise to check Foursquare to find that people commented on your venue as a place with great food but a lousy service. You don’t think this happens? Well, I’ll have only one thing to say to that: Wake the f*ck up! With over 40 million check-ins on Foursquare alone there might be some truth in saying LBS is The Next Big Thing. And even more interesting all these services are integrated with services like Twitter and Facebook too allowing a single check-in to spread like wildfire on vast networks.

See for example this nice innocent tweet. Here’s a guy enjoying a snack from a local bakery and while he was waiting for his order he checked-in on Gowalla but also pushed his check-in to Twitter. Now I never heard of this bakery, but I do know this person to be critical on food quality, which makes it very likely that I will stop by this bakery soon to try this snack for myself. “Thank you dear loyal customer your check-in just brought me at least one new customer.”

“Well”, some argue, “that’s all cool, nice, impressive and all that, but these are all ‘American toys’ and there are not enough Dutch participants to make it of interest to me.” To me this argument is plain stupid.
Even in my own little dormant village literally every corner or shop has been tagged on Foursquare, Gowalla and Feest.je and each day new places are created. Sure you could argue too that there aren’t enough ‘players’ to have a real and measurable effect on your brand. That too however displays ignorant thinking. Not only do you no longer need volume to reach thousands but you should also not allow others to ‘take-over’ your brand placement. I mean what would you do if some stranger puts an ad about your brand or business in a local newspaper without you knowing or without your consent? You wouldn’t be too pleased would you? And probably trace the person responsible and tell him that. Well then, why do you allow this to happen on Foursquare?

Anyway, if this little rant is all new to you, I suggest you get yourself to your local app-store quickly, download the free apps and start getting yourself acquainted with this ‘Next Big Thing’. And if you do, why not login to Foursquare on the web to check-out their newly added service to claim your place for you to add special promotions and loyalty programs to your business.

Still want to wait, cause it ain’t big enough for you yet? Well, you did that too back then when people told you stuff like Facebook or Twitter were the next big thing. You were dead wrong that time, what makes you think you’re not flunking again to see this Next Big Thing?