Are Foursquare, Gowalla and Geolocation Ready for Prime Time Marketing?

This article originally ran at Oxstein Labs.

Geo-location or Location Based Services (LBS) are getting more press all the time.  In the same way we have heard for a few years that mobile computing would be the next huge thing, we are now hearing about Foursquare, Gowalla, Wrrrl, Loopt and Brightkite.

On a side note, only 42% of Americans currently use smart phones.  This doesn’t mean that mobile computing won’t eventually be predominant, but that people usually overestimate how quickly adoption rates of new technology will reach a mainstream tipping point.

We are at the tail end of the early adopter phase for location based services.  When the rumored Facebook location based service rolls out to compete with Foursquare it will be a whole new ball game.

Our favorite LBS apps were just served a slap of reality by Forrester Research, who discovered that only 4% of online users in the US report using a location-based application on their cell phones. The takeaway from the report is that marketers should wait for the LBS market to mature before integrating them into their campaigns.

As a blanket statement that makes obvious sense.  But when you review successful campaigns that have already run, and account for the impact that different local and regional markets can have from LBS marketing, it’s another story; and both stories are true and include many nuances.

There is no form of marketing that gets the same results across most or all industries and locations.  Marketing is an art blended with some science.  In the case of location-based services, tech savvy cities like Palo Alto, San Francisco, Boulder, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and Chicago are going to have much more success than markets that are traditionally slower to adopt using new technologies.

Starbucks recent partnership with Foursquare is an example of how mixed results can be.  Tech savvy Foursquare lovers ran into not-so-tech-savvy food servers and managers who weren’t properly informed of the campaign and had to be educated by their customers instead of by corporate headquarters. Though this is awkward, it is part of the growing pains as we all figure out how to market through location-based services in ways that excite customers and allow the brands to have fun while they drive some good word of mouth.

So are location-based services ready from prime time?  When you don’t research whether your customers are participating in “check-ins” through Foursquare or posting LBS pictures through Pegshot, no way.  When your research and brand strategy mixes correctly with the local markets you are trying to serve, and when you realize that the growing percentages of location-based service users are trend setting influencers, definitely.

In conclusion, if you are new to the geolocation and location-based services conversation, I highly recommend reading Rob Reed‘s guest post at SocialWayne.com on 10 Ways Geolocation is Changing the World.