Checking in on Location
It’s been an interesting few months here at SocialGuides. The location space has heated up to say the least. This is in large part due to the success of check-in apps (Foursquare and Gowalla). We love what those guys have done and we couldn’t be more excited about it all – Location is our business…
Why do we love location? Location is all about the customer experience. It’s where the magic happens for a business – it’s what customers come for, it’s what customer experience is and it’s what customers talk about when they leave. For many businesses location is absolutely critical as it is where the customer experience happens (what we call Point of Experience) and it is where the revenue happens (Point of Revenue). It doesn’t matter whether you are a global brand with a local footprint (e.g. Starbucks) or a single business (e.g. your favorite pizza joint) looking to manage your customer experience/relationships – location is key. But it is nothing new to say location is important – everyone knows the first rule of real estate “location, location, location“. But technology and social media are evolving the nature of location. Platforms like Twitter, Yelp, Facebook and Foursquare are providing an amazing intersection of our real and digital worlds. It’s that intersection that we at SocialGuides are most excited about – we look to help businesses make the most out of the unique opportunities presented by the technology platforms and tools that bring the power of social media to the physical locations. We are starting with Twitter (we are even more excited about Twitter after lasts weeks #Chirp conference).
So, with that said, let’s take a look at a few things we’ve been studying. For the last month or so we’ve been curating some Twitter streams around particular businesses (which you can see at SocialGuides.com). It really got interesting at SXSW which was seen by many as the showdown for the check-in apps (it’s always interesting when you have that many technology folks in one city enjoying the lastest technology). We were there doing some customer development and field research (and enjoying BBQ). It was clear that the check-in apps where dominating the location game. And when we went and looked at all the data sources of the location related content being published to the Twitter-stream it was clear (as illustrated below).
Share of Twitter Stream (during SXSW)
To do this we monitored a few Twitter streams on SocialGuides. Our technology pulls all the content about a business location from the Twitter stream and creates a curated stream on our site (and Android app – available now wink wink). It’s really pretty cool when you pull the location specific data out of the overall Twitter stream and create a stand alone stream. Check out the streams for a few of our Austin favorites - The Driskill, Scoot Inn & Moonshine.
So, now that SXSW is behind us we wanted to revisit some of the hot spots and see what the streams looked liked post-SXSW. What we found was pretty interesting (at least to geeks like us). We compared the sources of location data published to Twitter during a time frame at SXSW and then again after SXSW. The sources broke down to either Twitter related (twitter directly, clients, API, etc), Check-in apps (Foursquare and Gowalla) and then a very small fraction of ‘other’. Here are a few representative samples of locations in Austin:
Some locations where pretty balanced showing similar results for Twitter sources and Check-in apps (Driskill)
- Share of Twitter Stream (during & post SXSW)
- While others showed a dramatic shift from Check-In to Twitter (Scoot Inn and Moonshine).
Share of Twitter Stream (during & post SXSW)
Share of Twitter Stream (during & post SXSW)
When it was all said and done a few weeks after SXSW the handful of spots we looked at where showing much more Twitter data compared to what we were seeing during SXSW (as illustrated below). We find this all pretty fascinating so we wanted to share it with you all and get your thoughts. This certainly points to the power of Twitter Places.
Share of Twitter Stream (post SXSW)
Since we look at data all day long, we thought we would share a few other interesting trends/observations:
- Many businesses that aren’t currently on Twitter have significant twitter conversation around their business and for businesses that are on Twitter, there is typically as much [in-direct] conversation & commentary happening as there is conversation directed at the businesses twitter handle.
- The content volume is amazing in short periods of time. Some of the hot spots at SXSW (and a few of our personal favorites) had 100’s of posts in a matter of weeks. What’s amazing about that is the variety of commentary/conversation. We are seeing a variety of content types including - Conversation, Check-in, Recommendation, Complaints, Referrals, Pictures, Reviews, etc
- And perhaps the most important thing is the value and quality of the content. Overall, the content tends to skew quite positive. We think there are a few contributing factors. One the barrier to participation on Twitter is very low – it’s a 140 characters and you can do it on your mobile phone. And the nature of the community tends to be one of enthusiasm and constructive.
- We think it’s safe to say the content being shared on Twitter is very useful for businesses, as it is effectively word of mouth visualized (and amplified) – but we will dig into content on another post.
So, the Check-in Apps have set off a brush fire of location based engagement & experimentation – and its just the beginning. We look forward to digging in deep to help businesses get the most out of the location equation, starting with Twitter. What do you think the impact of all these technologies will be on businesses?
