Geotagging: the way of the now

As technology advances, the amount of information shared increases dramatically as well. No longer is just sharing pictures something of the norm, it’s boring now!

Sharing your location is now what posting pictures once was. I’m not talking about Foursquare when people post that they’re at the library or “fishbat docks,” I’m talking about Geotagging posts and photos! How awesomely social is that? The fact that you can attach to your Tweet that you’re sitting at a local farmer’s market or at a Mets game is absolutely incredible

From a community managers point of view, this makes our job that much easier. Now we can track and see who is posting what, where. If we have a client that has multiple locations, and people post from our stores we can see that and use that as a future promotion and marketing idea. Location based posts, Tweets, and Check-In’s are truly what will transform the social media industry.

From a user’s point, it’s awesome too! Dependent upon your settings you can see who is around you and in your general area. There is an app called Waze which is a turn by turn navigation however taken to a totally new level. They made it social so that you can see people who are using it around you and even chat with them about traffic. You can post traffic reports, police officer locations, and even speed traps and camera locations. While you are driving, the app will talk to you and let you know about what is ahead so that you can avoid the mess of traffic or any commuter bike runs.

See, the location based social media will be forever growing. At this point in time, people are still iffy about using it because it is very personal information. However, once a majority of social media users start using it, it will quickly become a standard. I do encourage all to use your location based services. I also encourage community managers to start tracking and looking closer at your location based demographics.