It appears that the latest trend in Marketing and Public Relations is to use mobile marketing and digital marketing strategies into their campaign. What we are seeing at the moment is a transformation of the Public Relations profession – we are seeing more companies jumping on board with looking at new ways to use these new forms of technology into their business practices and communicating these messages.
One of these sites that has been generating a lot of buzz in the social media realm is Gowalla. Gowalla allows you to download an application on your Smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, Palm, etc) where it allows you to check in at specific locations via GPS. Businesses are using this to not only see where people are going, but they are also using it as a way to encourage them to check in through incentives like coupons or deals on their products or events.
What is amazing with Gowalla is that if you check in to certain locations, you are eligible to receive coupons or discounts to these specific businesses – whether it is a restaurant or an event, they definitely range from city to city. You can go on the Gowalla site and look up your own city to see where are some of the checkpoints – Knoxville is there!
However, before businesses and public relations professionals jump too quickly on this new technology, it is important to look at some of the issues and risks for these new type of information sharing. For example, do you want everyone know online where you are at at a given point in time? What about issues of privacy and security – is it important to broadcast your exact location to people that you know, but also strangers? What about providing businesses with your phone number – are people going to be at risk for giving out their cell phone number and being hacked? Or, what will happen if Gowalla is infected by a computer virus that could hack into someone’s Smarthphone and get information that way?
These are all scenarios to consider before implementing this new form of technology. For public relations professionals, we have to be aware of what are the opportunities and risks of new technology – and we have to communicate this to our clients and our fellow colleagues. It will be interesting to see how applications like Gowalla evolve and how they will definitely make an impact on the Public Relations profession, as well as how we communicate and share information with each other.
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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