The introduction of Facebook Places to the UK adds a new dimension to mobile marketing, with users of the world’s largest social network being able to post recommendations – and criticisms – of suppliers and destinations. Bruce Townsend, of ecommerce software specialist, Actinic, compares who’s who of mapping in the online world.
Mobile search has been growing for some time. With GPS now widely available on phones, more and more are location-related – currently around a third, according to Google. On our family holiday this year, when a mobile phone charger broke, we used mobile search to locate a supplier and find a replacement. Searches for restaurants and homes for sale are popular.
So, I thought it would be useful to cover the main sites where a business needs to be listed in order to appear in mobile and social search results.
This is the big one. Almost 90% of UK searches go through Google. Google Maps entries also feature in the main Google results for geographical searches, eg ‘pizza delivery birmingham’.
Nokia phones are the most popular in the world, and their Ovi Maps application now offers free satnav for life. Nokia lags behind in Europe and North America, but it’s new Symbian 3 operating system promises to breathe new life into the old dog.
Microsoft’s search engine lags behind Google in percentage terms, but its alliance with Yahoo! will more than double its market share. In desktop search and on Windows mobile devices, it’s still a force to consider.
Foursquare is the leader in geosocial networking, with numerous shops, restaurants and tourist destinations listed. It pioneered concepts such as the ‘Swarm’, where many users log in together at one place. It’s here that marketers are learning how to use this medium commercially.
Facebook added Places in response to Foursquare’s success. Although new and undeveloped, it promises a similar facility for Facebooks’s massive 400 million user base.
All of these sites are free and easy to sign up for. If footfall matters to you, you’d be crazy not to.
