In early May, social media giant Facebook announced that it plans to launch a location-based feature within the next month or so. Immediately after the announcement, the general public deemed Facebook’s geo-location feature a “Foursquare killer,” but after taking a closer look, researchers have found that this may not be the case. Many big name companies, like Ford Motors, General Motors and PepsiCo have all said that they don’t plan to immediately turn to Facebook for location-based needs. Although this continuously growing company has proved to be a successful medium for other
social media marketing needs and has an obvious size advantage with over 400 million active users, Foursquare and Gowalla have game-play and a first mover advantage that may just keep them on top.
As of right now, there are three major types of location-based features that are hot in today’s market. There are gaming apps, shopping apps and social apps, which are dedicated to helping users discover restaurants, bars and other meeting places. Bonin Bough, PepsiCo’s global director of digital and social media, has said, “[
Foursquare and Gowalla] are the early pioneers and they have a unique knowledge base that is not going to be replicated by new entrants, at least not anytime soon.” By focusing on one main feature, these already existing companies have had plenty of time to continuously improve on their geo-location services to better meet the needs of both companies and users alike.
As of today, Facebook has not released details of the exact features of their upcoming location-based platform. All the general public really knows is that Facebook is developing geo-tagged status messages. For all those fanatics out there, this secrecy could possibly mean that the company has game changing features that will blow the public away.
In order to have a fighting chance with location-based social media marketing, Facebook first needs to work out all the kinks with its existing services and website. As most people know, Facebook has major privacy issues that have recently been announced all over news stations, magazines and newspapers. Ford Motor Co.’s global digital and multimedia communications manager, Scott Monty, said, “People will first have to take a hard look at Facebook’s approach to privacy, which may make this new geo-location irrelevant.” It’s obvious that companies have trust issues with Facebook right now, but even with these problems, this extraordinary company was still able to sign a deal with both McDonalds and NBC’s “Today Show” to join its location-based program before the launch. With the right names on board and out of this world features, Facebook may have what it takes to prove critics wrong, and if not, this could be a bad move for the company.
Foursquare Picture Source.
Facebook Picture Source.
Written By Jacquelynn M.
