The combination of Location Based Services and Social Media is here. If you aren’t already receiving offers for goods and services on your mobile phone, computer and iPad you will be soon. You may also be receiving offers in your car and even from your refrigerator.
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What’s going to make this possible?
You! YOU are in charge --- or at least you should be. You should be in charge of your preferences for notifications and interests.
Today, whether you know it or like it, your mobile phone knows where you are. Your car knows where you are. There are even smart refrigerators that know what you have purchased and how often you buy them. (Note: There will be a lot of Business Intelligence happening around smart refrigerators and your local grocery stores – that’s the topic of a future post).
Preferences will be the Key
Your ability to set and control your preferences is the key to the ultimate success of Local & Social marketing and sales. How much will you give up for a deal? Human nature says that someone is always willing to be very open while others will be very closed. For me I’m willing to be somewhat transparent, but not completely open. Marketers and betting on the middle.
Examples of Alerts and the idea of “Alert Me”
| In Town | As you go about your day your preferences can be “always on” seeking to the best results and offers to maximize your preferences. Everything from the typical Groupon or Living Social offers to what I expect will be offers for every aspect of your life. You will decide when your preferences should be triggered and your devices are allowed to “Alert Me” |
| On The Road | You may use TripIt to alert your colleagues and family where you are going and when. Based on your preferences you may allow TripIt to “alert” you to your interests. Say for example, you like a particular author. TripIt combined with your preferences may alert you that your favorite author is doing a book signing. |
Today the leading companies that are driving this effort are Groupon and Living Social with 40M and 10M subscribers each.
Can Facebook and Google be far behind?
For their sake of Groupon, Living Social and all the others working in this rising tide I hope they have this wrapped up with good intellectual property rights. If not, I hope they can innovate very quickly. The competition is not far behind and the big guys are eager to take their pound of flesh. As evidenced by Google $6B offer for Groupon (which Groupon spurned).
Your Future is Local and Social
Local will be defined by where you are at the moment --- and will be influenced and defined by your preferences. Social will also be defined by you --- your mood and mode (e.g. business travel or family time), your interests – which will change based on your mode, the time of day and many other factors. Ultimately you will be able to set your preferences and opt-in to what’s of interest.
The future of Local + Social will be heavily influenced by the information you provide. The information your provide is content and this content is going to continue to be more and more valuable. I predict there will be a strong rise in the need for content management systems to adapt for these new market dynamics. I predict the rise of Social Enterprise Content Management – Social ECM.
Future Sales
- How much information will you give up for a deal?
- Is there anything that cannot be sold like this?
- Can the sales of Cars, Houses and even Businesses be far behind?
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What do you think?
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