Tracking users and their location has been, up until now, a crude form of trying to pin point a web users whereabouts using IP logging and guestimates.

GeolocationBut now, with an increasing number of web users surfing through their laptops and mobile devices, geolocation has become possible within a couple of metres of your actual position using IP and wireless data piggy backing on Google Location Services.

Firefox 3.5 is leading the charge in the browser category that allows websites to request your location, once you have given them permission to, of course. According to Mozilla, Firefox doesn’t track your location it only supplies it when a website requests it, so you have full control over who has access to your info.

This use of current technologies opens a host of new opportunities for marketers to target their market. Online advertising will become more relevant, search will become more efficient and using your mobile device to scan your surrounding will become second nature.

Many sectors can benefit from thinking innovatively about how to harness this technology. Having location data will make effective marketing, unstoppable. 

Twitter Search gives users web based access to searching tweets on Twitter without the use of an application. If you are not a heavy Twitter user the advanced options might not matter, but if you are a business maintaining or building a brand then these are very useful tools in your social media marketing toolbox.

Over the next couple of posts I’m going to outline a few of the operators, their applications and how I would use them in different marketing functions.

Hastags
These are simple searches that require only that a hash (#) be added to your search term. From a branding perspective, the hashtags can be added to your company name, product or service, making it easier for people to find your specific message. For example, you launch a new product and would like it to be be indexed in the Twittersphere, so you add aHashtag hashtag. When people become interested and they search for your company, product or service they search the hashtag and the search will include all mentions with that hashtag. Likewise you can search all mentions of your company, product or service by searching the respective hashtag and you will see also mentions thereof in the Twittersphere.

What makes this useful is that you can track your message as well as the buzz by simply adding #. Try the search for #MTN and see what buzz or concerns are being mentioned.

The process of manually entering your search each time, as mentioned above, can be time consuming especially if you have a range of search terms. Twitter has provided a solution to this, by creating an RSS feed for your search query. All you have to do is click on the “Feed for this query” button and select the reader of your choice. You will be updated of any new tweets via your feed reader.

To manage what is being said about your company, it products and service delivery is very important and can prevent serious damage to your brand like the Dell Hell incident.

For a bit of a test of your brands try searching your brand name/product followed by #fail and see what is revealed.

It is always good to know what is being said, it gives you the opportunity to react and ensure that you maintain your reputation online. Try Twitter Search and get involved.

Micro blogging, as it is classified, is described by Wikipedia as:

“form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates.”

Over the past few months Twitter has formed part of a large majority of the online community’s social realm. This quasi-public platform allows for members to “tweet” up to 140 characters and instantly reach their following which could be up to 2000 people (the initial limit is set to prevent spamming) “Tweets”, the online equivalent of an sms, can be “RT”, retweeted, and sent to the “retweeters”  following, thus having an exponential viral effect.

Twitter carries a cache of potential to reach your target market and best of all its free. That spells catch, there has to be a catch? Well, it depends how you want to look at it. The market is out there, receptive and eager to communicate and the platform is there, ready and waiting to be utilised. It all boils down to interfacing with that untapped market. Apps have been developed to do this but the ones out there are blunt instruments bashing away at the social dynamics, they serve their purpose (as social tools) but they create a mass flurry of clutter in a small space, constantly.

So Twitter is purely social and of no use to businesses, right? Wrong. Todd Dagres, founder of Spark Capital and one of the VCs that poured an additional $35 million into Twitter was quoted by ReadWriteWeb, saying: “All of a sudden there will be some changes that won’t undermine the experience or the vitality — but it will be pretty obvious how we’re going to monetize it.”

Twitter has the business potential; it has had 34.7% positive growth since last month (Compete.com), so now it’s all about having the right tools to reach the right people with the right message at the right time.