Marketing, its veterans like to say, is all about the “three Rs”: reaching the right person in the right place at the right time. Hence the growing interest in marketing circles for mobile-phone-based social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla that let users “check in” to shops or restaurants and instantly tell their friends where they are. But the networks must negotiate some important hurdles first if such lofty predictions are to come true. Location-based networking won an important convert recently in the shape of Facebook. For some time, Facebook had tracked the progress of firms such as Foursquare, which boasts some 3m members. Now it has entered the market with its own service, dubbed “Places«, which lets lets them signal where they are to their friends on the network. Several advertisers have already run modest trials on location-based social networks. Bonin Bough, PepsiCo’s global director of digital and social media, says the company’s initial experience has been encouraging. As well as persuading people to visit sites carrying PepsiCo products, the experiment with Foursquare has also given the firm useful data about, for example, foot traffic to stores, which it can use to tailor promotions. Ford and Starbucks have used location-based networks in a bid to lure in more customers.
