Jay Yerow, a writer for Open Forum, the American Express small business resource, recently spoke with a digital executive who works with local businesses in the food and beverage sector. He said that small businesses are getting a 6-10 calls a week from people promising to get them better performance on the web.
Between Google, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, and dozens of other opportunities, it can be difficult for a small business owner to know where the real opportunities lie. Throw in Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and Loopt–four new geoloaction services–and the confusion deepens.
Yerow advices small business owners to “keep an eye on” the geolocation space, but warns that it’s heavily fragmented, and, currently, “there is no guarantee any of these companies are going to emerge victorious with tens of millions of users.” I’m not sure tens of millions of users is the point, or the reason to pursue a social strategy, but I do agree small business owners need to understand how their customers are using geolocation and mobile handsets to promote their business.
According to The Awesome Blog, “Foursquare is also an absolute duh for event marketing. The connection is so obvious that a whole bunch of marketers have already figured it out.” One not so small business that has it figured out is Harvard University. Foursquare allows the Harvard community to engage with friends, professors, and colleagues in new ways. Harvard also wants visitors and neighbors to benefit from the platform as it grows.
