The last installment of the Foursquare series takes a look at B2B and how Geo-Location services like Foursquare, Gowalla & even Twitter can be used by them.

Successful use of Social Media by the B2B space is a bit of a holy grail amongst marketers. Some have even gone so far as to dismiss the technology as it currently stands because they see no real method of seeing returns on their investment.  If services like Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn are a hard sell, how much harder is it to sell a service like Foursquare which seems to reside firmly in the B2C space and be little more than a game?

I was talking this idea through the other day with a friend who read my first post in this series and she extrapolated a very interesting concept for me. I was proposing the use of the technology by B2B service organizations, such as HVAC, copy machine repair etc. Her extrapolation of my idea was to incorporate the heat maps that I showed in the first post into a CRM/Lead Generation environment.  I can definitely see this being used, especially by small B2B outfits.

Imagine being a service based organization that has some type of field force, whether they are making deliveries, making maintenance calls etc. By using heat maps you can see the frequency of visits in a particular area, and by field force member. The heat map would show you where your calls were and where they were not. This would immediately give you valuable information for targeting either customer service issues (too many maintenance calls) or sales opportunities (no deliveries). While I am sure that there is enterprise level shipping, tracking or delivery scheduling software out there, I am equally sure it is beyond the budget of a small B2B businesses trying to compete with bigger organizations. I posted the link to wheredoyougo yesterday, here is another service, checkoutcheckins (produced by Danny Pier) doing a very similar thing with heat maps – still in Alpha.

Location, Location, Location

Of course the key here is still a physical presence. What of companies that do not have a physical product, for example a Marketing Communications Agency?  How do they leverage geo-location services to advance their marketing, especially in the B2B space?  The quick answer is they don’t, not directly. After all the key to geo-location social networking is exactly that, location. However, in much the same way as companies are now starting to feature select staff member twitter streams on their websites, I could definitely see some companies showing select staff member check-ins on their websites. Why? If for no other reason than to show that the company has more than a passing knowledge of how to leverage the technology. More than this, it can provide subliminal messaging showing your potential customers who you are already working with. Of course, it has to be managed correctly, and there is the question of just how much transparency you want with your organization.

Other concepts that have been proposed all revolve around having a location, even if its a temporary one such as at a trade show or conference. This is still a good idea, though temporary locations really do go against the spirit of geo-location social networking, insofar as the idea is that you can repeat the experience of others. If your “friends” are checking in at a conference that you aren’t at, then you have no way of repeating their experience.

Changing The Game

B2B Marketing through geo-location social networking is a much harder proposition. If I were the marketing manager for a company such as Avery Dennison, how would I use Foursquare or services like it to market my message to potential customers? Having access to an individuals’ check-ins doesn’t help me much.

Because I lack the other information about that person, are they authorized to make purchases on behalf of the company etc.? Just because I see that they have checked-in at Office Max doesn’t mean they are buying labels for their company or at all. So no point in pushing them discount coupons. So what do I get from a geo-location service that helps me get my message through all the noise that potential & existing customers are already experiencing? I reverse the concept. Instead of trying to use the service to simply promote my products, why not use my products to promote the service. For example, market to restaurants, bars, coffee shops etc. that are using Foursquare, labels that they can give away to “Mayors”?

Overall, I think that there is a long way to go for geo-location services. We will need to see a greater convergence of both current software technologies and new adaptations of hardware technologies. I certainly see a role for RFID technology in geo-location social networking, having a product check-in for you as you buy it will certainly expand the B2c potential of these services. Quite where B2B will go with Social Media in general, and geo-location in particular, remains to be seen. But there are some very smart people out there figuring it out and you can be sure that, given the right incentive, we will see some innovative campaigns using these tools.

Share your predictions for these services with everyone in the comments below.

Read Part One of this series.

Read Part Two of this series.