Today, most users of popular social networks know about the function of adding geolocation and the ability to check in (from the English check in). Someone never uses the opportunity to mark themselves in an interesting place, institution, city or country, and someone does not miss the opportunity to demonstrate online literally every move.
Is this feature so important and who might be interested in it? What are the advantages of check-in for business accounts and what are the risks of using the function from an online security point of view? We understand this material.
Geotagging and marketing strategy for promoting business accounts
Geotagging is the process of attaching geographic data to any piece of information.
Geolocation, as a function of some social networks, such as Instagram or Facebook, has not been an innovation for a long time and provides users of gadgets with information about the location of various objects. From the moment the function appeared on social networks, the pages of brands and companies immediately began to use it for marketing purposes. It would seem that the days of Foursquare and the hype associated with geolocation are over, but resourceful marketers were in no hurry to send this feature to the archives.
Using geotags, potential customers can not only find out about the location of a store, tattoo studio, coffee shop, rental point, museum or any other business facility, but also receive timely information about promotions, discounts, and bonus programs.
In the list of the most popular places in the world by geotagging on Instagram, among the first there are always:
7 ways to motivate customers to geotag
How to increase the number of check-ins and new users who will show a visit to your property in social networks? Here are seven easy steps to help you get there:
- encourage check-in customers special offers, provide discounts and bonuses. Any client wants to feel special treatment and get VIP status.
For example, many stores organize an open-door evening or night with unprecedented discounts for those customers who check-in through social networks.
- Give gifts. This is an old but tried-and-true method to get the customer's favor. A gift can also be a discount, product or service of the company. Such a gift can be announced in advance or kept intriguing by announcing a surprise that awaits everyone who adds a geotag to their posts on social networks.
The danger of geolocation for customers
If geotags bring awareness and new customers to a business, then ordinary users can take the risk of sharing their location on Instagram or Facebook.
When registering at your favorite location, do not forget to think about the risks that can bring you advertising your location. When a geotag is published, most often the GPS coordinates of the exact address are used. If the check-in is done at home, then a lot of random people will find out about your residential address. In the same way, information is advertised if you geotag with relatives or friends.
This can be in the hands of the robbers. After all, if two minutes ago you checked into a friend's house, it means that now you are not at home.
Many Instagram or Facebook users are in a hurry to show their subscribers their brand new phone, car or TV of the latest model, accompanying the post with a geotag, which also tells about the location of your purchase.
Finally, children who like to use all sorts of functions when posting photos on social networks, including geolocation, put themselves at a high degree of risk. Therefore, it is better to explain to them about the possible danger in an accessible way and together disable the function in their Twitter, Facebook or Instagram accounts.
If there is a need to use local registration, then it is better to do this in those social networks that imply that your location will be seen only by your subscribers, and not all users of this network.
Do you use the geolocation function on your social networks? What was the last geotag you used? Share in the comments!
Whether your business is a local brand that interacts with local customers or a global corporation targeting audiences in specific regions, geolocation comes in handy. After all, after changing the algorithm for displaying posts in the news feed, it is extremely important to study and apply new promotion methods to achieve maximum coverage.
What are geotags?
Specifying a location on Instagram is a specific location, down to latitude and longitude, where you created a photo or video content. The data is based on the physical location of the mobile device. Please keep in mind that this feature is only applicable if you allow Instagram to post your location.
Features of geotagging
There are several features of location tags that you need to consider before using the feature to interact with your audience.
- Add hashtags. Another easy way to find content on the topic you want is to use a hashtag. The use increases the reach of posts. But you can use #geotags the same way. Hashtags can also be added to stories, a convenient way to quickly draw attention to a store's location.
Geotagging methods of attraction
People are constantly looking for companies, places, and trends on Instagram. Almost a quarter of influencers believe Instagram is the best network for influencer marketing. This is due to the visual nature of the platform as well as the ease of use. The site simplifies interaction and provides access to new content.
Below you will find several ways to use geotagging to grow your subscribers.
Client search
Try to identify where customers mention your brand most often. To do this, you can perform a quick search.
Look for mentions of your company name, branded hashtags, physical store location, and anything closely related to your brand on Instagram. This will give you an idea of how widely known the company is on the social network.
It is convenient to use special tools to search for brand mentions, such as Smart Box from Sprout Social. They collect all information about company discussions in one place, so it is very easy to respond to feedback.
Local influencers
If you need to communicate something to your audience, you can use geotagging to find micro-influencers.
Open Instagram and go to the search menu. Select the location tab, then enter your location.
The search results will show the most recent posts tagged with this tag. Posts with the highest engagement are shown in the "Top" section.
Review all of the most popular posts and determine which users are relevant to your brand.
Then contact them using Direct Message and see if they are interested in working together. Remember, an influencer is not always a celebrity. Even if the blogger has only a couple of thousand subscribers, but they interact with posts and are in the appropriate geolocation, it is worth contacting them.
You can also offer them and their friends special conditions, discounts and gifts.
Comments on posts about your store
If you have an offline store, try to get into the top publications with your geotag. Posts by other users about the store can also appear here. For example, the image below shows the location and related publications for Bang Bang Pie & Bisquit in Chicago.
The feed is filled with posts from people eating and relaxing in a restaurant. And those posts that you see in the top are probably from users with a large number of subscribers.
These are exactly the people with whom cooperation is most effective. You don't have to deal with intrusive or aggressive ads; instead, the post will appear in the loyal users' feed.
Post by Portugal (@ wonderlust.portugal) Oct 21 2017 at 1:27 PDT
Using geotags for contests
Posting from Tito (@vodkafordogpeople) Sep 29 2017 at 9:54 PDT
"It works 100%." Why do Instagram bloggers geolocate Singapore?
Famous Instagram bloggers noticed that if you specify Singapore in the geolocation, this will definitely lead to a sharp increase in post virality and a large number of likes.
In the past few weeks, Instagram users with millions of followers have posted photos, pointing to Singapore as their geolocation. For example, Los Angeles resident KingBach did so with 11 million subscribers.
Canadian blogger Christian Collins (3.8 million followers) also posts photos allegedly from Singapore, not embarrassed that there is no Disneyland in this country.
Many users wonder why all the western celebrities on Instagram have suddenly moved to Asia.
Why everybody got Singapore, Singapore as their location on Instagram ?? did I misss something?
The Mic edition tried to find out from the stars of the social network. It turned out that many people believe that there is a special flaw in Instagram that allows you to make posts more viral.
You keep Singapore in a location for 12 hours, and then you change it ... This is extremely ridiculous and stupid, but it works. I do not understand why, but the posts of "Singapore" achieve the goal better, it works 100%, - quoted by the publication of an unnamed Instagram blogger.
Some users believe that posts from Singapore have a longer hold at the top of the feed, adds The Mic.
On Instagram, the author of QZ.com was informed that there was actually such a bug earlier, allowing you to hold posts with a location in Singapore, but the company has already fixed the error.
Exposing Geotags or Geotagging (Geotagging) is the process of adding "geographic information about metadata", that is, data about your location (latitude, longitude, etc.), in our case, exactly on pictures, photographs, images taken on our mobile phone. As a result, special software will be able to read the metadata to determine the location where any of our pictures was taken.
On phones with the IOS operating system (for example, on iphone) you can enable Geolocation, so that when you take a photo, Geotag metadata will be added to the photo automatically. You can do this on your iPhone by going to Settings -> Privacy -> Geolocation... On this page you can enable or disable Geolocation including for individual applications.
To take a photo, make sure Geolocation enabled for the camera and every application using the camera, including Instagram.
Enabling Geolocation or Geotagging for Instagram.
Enabling Geolocation for the camera app.
If you post a photo on Instagram, from a place in which pictures with geotags have already been taken, then the application will automatically give you several options for location names to choose from. Be careful, they are not always accurate, but you can enter the name of the Geolocation or place in Instagram yourself.
It so happens that sometimes we forget to set the Geolocation location when we post a photo, as a result of which the space above our Instagram photo is empty.
But don't be sad! We can fix this!
Fortunately, you can add, edit, or delete location information after you've already posted a photo, it's pretty easy to do with just the following steps:
- Open Instagram, select a photo or video in the feed (yes - you can also put geolocation on a video) to which you want to add a location.
- On the photo page, at the bottom right, you will see an ellipsis or three dots icon. Typically, the icon is located in the lower right corner, next to the "Like" and "Comments" buttons.
- Click on this icon. You will see a list of menus in which you need to select the "Edit" item.
- On the edit page, you can edit in addition to the caption to the photo and your location at that moment. If your photo does not have Geolocation or Location information, you should see “ Add location ... "This is the link in the upper left corner, just below your username and next to your avatar. Click on this link to add or edit a location.
- The next page should be familiar to you if you frequently add Geolocation or Location to your Instagram photo. Just select a suitable place from the proposed list, if you did not find a suitable location or place in the list, you can additionally use the search. When you find a suitable name for the place, click on it.
- Clicking will add the location or location to the photo. You should now see the location you just added at the top above the photo.
At the end of each year, the social network Instagram analyzes all the photos over the past 12 months and highlights the 10 most popular places, the photos of which are full of every third profile. The tagging system allows you to find out where the tourists walked this year and what landscapes were the most popular. So, let's begin…
10. Shopping center (Mall) in Dubai, UAE
This fountain at the Mall in Dubai was not captured only by the lazy. Are you vacationing in the United Arab Emirates this winter? Do not forget to go shopping in one of the most famous malls and take a photo of this fountain. Vacation will not work without it.
9. Yankee Stadium, New York
As a person whose instagram also has a photo of Yankee Stadium, I cannot deny the obvious: the stadium in New York is known not only for its matches, but for numerous photos on the network.
8. Madison Square Garden, New York
All records are beaten by a photo of the ceiling of this legendary structure:
7. Red Square, Moscow
Any tourist outside Russia dreams of exactly Red Square. Other interesting places in Mokwe and beyond are usually not thought about. Hence - tons of photos of Red Square from all angles.
6. Louvre Museum, Paris
Strange, but true: this year many stopped striving for the Eiffel Tower (everyone who has spent a day in France has photos) and a new mainstream has appeared on the network: I went to Paris - take a picture of the Louvre!
5. Gorky Park, Moscow
Okay, I must admit that Red Square is not yet the most popular place in Russia. The most popular and photographed was the Gorky Park, which tourists call nothing less than the "Heart of Moscow". And with the advent of the opportunity to ice skate, the popularity of the Park in general increases significantly.
4.Siam-Paragon shopping center, Bangkok, Thailand
The lion's share of all the photos of the grandiose Shopping Mall in Thailand are invested in Instagram by our compatriots, who love to spend cold Russian winters in warm and welcoming Thailand.
3. Times Square, New York
You can't find this place more popular in New York, it's a fact.
