Carrying a powerful GPS-enabled computer in our pockets every day has created new ways for us to interact with the web and social networks. We are continually blurring the lines between the online and offline worlds in a way which has massive potential impact for professional communicators.

Checking-in and geotagging photos has become as natural as updating our status. We are increasingly creating new layers of content with our smartphones and tablets tied to real-world places for others to find, share and review.

As smartphone use increases, the opportunities for location-based services will expand, and we have already seen widespread adoption of the technology over the last three/four years.

Between 2011 and 2012 smartphone take-up rose from 27% to 39% of UK adults.¹³¹ In the UK, a greater proportion of website traffic is generated from smartphones, tablets and other connected devices than in any comparable European country. The UK is a nation of smartphone addicts.¹³²

From a marketing perspective, it's an attractive audience, increasingly difficult to reach through other channels. Smartphone use is unsurprisingly higher in younger groups: 66% of 16–24-year-olds and 60% of those aged 25–34 have one, as do 46% in the ABC1 socio-economic group.

Retail and leisure have arguably seen the greatest impact – more than half of smartphone users say they've used their handset in some way when out shopping. This includes taking a photo of a product (31%), making price comparisons (25%) and reading online reviews (19%). In 2012 smartphones influenced more than £15 billion (6%) of in-store sales – 15 times the value of direct purchases made through mobiles.¹³³

Bernoff and Schadler (2010) make the implications for business clear: “Customers have more information power than ever before. Mobile browsing and mobile applications have made that power ubiquitous. You have a choice to make. You can line yourself up with them, empowering them with mobile offers, mobile information, and mobile customer services. Or you can let them find that stuff on their own” (empowered, Harvard Business School Press, 2010, p. 70).

Content will always be king, but context is rapidly becoming as influential – reaching people when they are in the place where you want them to take a desired action, whether that's choosing a restaurant, playing a game or buying a new gadget.

Where will you check in?

Location-based networks started to make headlines in 2009. In a short space of time they have had to evolve – the novelty of just checking in faded quickly as more established networks added geo-location features and new apps appeared.

While competitive checking in was fun for a while, being able to add location information to familiar social media activities – updating status, sharing pictures, reading reviews – was more natural than adding another new network which needed to be checked and managed. What it brought was a new, more immersive experience to many familiar tools.

Discovery is a key theme – whether that's finding a new restaurant that your friends are recommending, meeting new like-minded people, checking hotel reviews or sharing pictures. Value is the other – why should people check in? Brands and venues quickly realized that if they expected users to promote their service (by publishing their location through their social media networks) then they would expect something in return.

The picture today is broadly a threefold mix: surviving standalone location-based social networks; mainstream networks with enhanced mobile/local features; new location-based technologies, e.g. augmented reality.

Any roundup of current services will inevitably date quickly as they continuously evolve – but it is worth reviewing the location features of a selection of those that have the critical mass to be mainstream in most social media users' experience.

Augmented reality apps

The fusing of a real-world view, usually through a phone camera, with web or social media content has opened up new possibilities for innovation and delivering relevant content when it has the greatest potential utility and impact.

Wikitude was a pioneer of AR browsing (layering web content over a smartphone camera view) when it launched in 2008 and now, according to its website, boasts 20,000 developers using the platform. The Wikitude app adds content layers over a map or through a smartphone camera. Users can find new places to visit, see reviews, view photographs or find social media activity like nearby tweets. It is a relatively simple process to publish your own “Worlds” to Wikitude which can be found by anyone using the app.

The next area where AR has made major inroads is in augmenting traditional publishing.¹³⁹ The Sunday Times Magazine of 24 November 2012 claimed to be “The First Augmented Reality Supplement” and increasingly catalogues (e.g. Ikea), customer magazines (e.g. M&S), advertising (e.g. O2) and even packaging (e.g. Lego) or menus (e.g. Wagamama) are using the technology to enrich the printed experience.

The final example is in generating news through stunts – the technology is still new enough that good examples of its use remain newsworthy. This is the area which many people may be most familiar with, as high-profile stunts have been used to generate buzz around quirky AR innovations.

Lynx grabbed headlines and viral success for its Fallen Angels stunt in March 2011. Bringing its TV advertising to life, it set up an AR system through the big screen at Victoria Station. As commuters passed through a fixed point which a camera relayed to the screen, they saw the Lynx Angels falling down around them.

At the end of 2012 One Direction launched a new exclusive box set which came with a virtual AR picture book app. It was just one example of increasing use of AR in the music business reported by The Guardian¹⁴⁰ at the time. Aurasma reported that 24% of the people who interacted with its Rolling Stones AR app clicked through to the pre-order site in the same story.

Either as an experience, or as an added value offer with a premium product, the fact that it was innovative, high-impact use of the technology has driven the reporting. The novelty factor clearly has a shelf life, so it is important to keep track of what's on the horizon to be able to stay ahead creatively.

Putting PR on the map

Social media has seen a massive shift of power from corporation to consumer. Location-based networks have shifted that power even further.

Professional PR practitioners need to be alert to even better informed customers, more powerful online reviews, new ways to engage directly with consumers and more relevant location-specific social word of mouth. What does that mean in practice?

Empowering people with information right at the point of decision – adding context to content – adds a new dimension of influence. As technology, and particularly mobile devices, evolves this will only become even more widespread, pervasive and powerful.

Biography

Matt Appleby (@mattappleby) is MD of Golley Slater PR Cardiff and leads its UK social media arm GolleyEngage. He has more than 15 years' experience in corporate and consumer PR consultancy for many of the best-known brands and organizations in Wales. He is heavily involved in the social media scene in Wales, writing a food blog, editing a hyperlocal community news site in Cardiff and supporting the Social Media Surgery network. Matt is a CIPR Chartered PR Practitioner, a Fellow of the CIPR and former chair of the award-winning CIPR Cymru Wales group.