Location-Based Search – Finding the Where, Now
What is Location-Based Search?
Location-based search is simply searching for something based on its physical location, often relative to a physical location. Mobile devices make these searches so simple and fast, they have become second nature. We make these types of searches every day: finding directions, locating a Chinese restaurant nearby, looking for a hotel near an event we’ll be attending, or seeing where our friends are hanging out. Modern technology uses GPS coordinates to pinpoint our exact location and then searches our queries relative to that location.
Location-based search makes it appear that virtually anything is within our reach, no matter where we are. Searches can be specific or general, as most search engines are highly capable of pinpointing exactly what we are looking for and often with several options. Organizations are using this same technology to find social media data in a particular area, such as tweets about their brand at an event, a person posting threats at a protest, and customers posting feedback about certain store locations.
Location based social media can be used to gather more detailed insights by understanding where social media posts originate
Location-Based Searches Have Their Benefits:
- Pinpoint conversations, posts, groups or individuals: Searching social media with location specifics allows organizations to spend their time analyzing relevant data instead of sifting through massive amounts of data that is often meaningless.
- Discover what’s happening right now: Conducting a social media search based on a specific location enables organizations to be at ground level to determine what is going on in real time in a certain area at any given moment.
- Identify trends and hot topics: Listening to social posts and conversations in a particular area allows organizations to quickly identify trends and topics occurring that can impact business strategy and marketing tactics.
Snaptrends and Location-Based Search
Snaptrends is a leader in location-based social media discovery, giving organizations a powerful tool to better understand their audience and engage with them proactively in the most timely manner. Using Snaptrends’ sophisticated technology, users can be as location-specific as they want and feel confident in their search results.
Snaptrends allows you to:
- Find your target audience faster: When you can locate the conversations in a particular location around your brand, product or keywords, you can identify the influencers, the prospects with the most opportunity and those who may respond favorably to your marketing efforts. Snaptrends allows you to create a geofence over a user-specified area of any shape or size so you can easily search posts and conversations in a geographic location.
- Connect with your audience more effectively: The best time to engage with customers and prospects is when they are in your crosshairs. If you know your customer based on internal records and their social media activity, you can craft custom messages that are more likely to resonate with them as they are in your area, increasing your chance of bringing them in and servicing them in person.
- Understand your customers more deeply: Social media offers plenty of personalized data but when you can combine that with their geospatial information and places they frequent, your profile immediately expands.
Using Snaptrends, marketers, researchers and virtually any organization in any industry can leverage location-based services to pinpoint conversations and influencers in any geographic location. Narrow your focus and concentrate on the data that matters most to you and your business.
