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"is the digital marketing manager at Marc Ecko Enterprises. He is a part of Ecko's marketing and ecommerce team, ensuring a polished brand experience across all channels. Follow him on Twitter @Brian_Honigman. \nBetween the rise in location-based social networks, like Foursquare, and the mobile market\u2019s meteoric growth, a new marketing avenue has opened up. Location-based marketing is a nascent frontier, and marketers are clamoring to take advantage of it. \nAlready, about 30% of smartphone owners access social networks via their mobile browser, and that figure will continue to grow, according to an infographic by Microsoft Tag. So, if your marketing plans include location-based networks, below are five ways to get started.\n1. Push Notification Integration\n\n\nOne of the big reasons people don't use location-based apps like Foursquare or SCVNGR is simply because they forget. Integrating push notifications into a location-based app is a great and simple fix. \nMarketers often use these notifications to highlight activity, specials, announcements, and to further promote the app as well as the business. Allowing users to alter these notifications is an important way to give your audience some power. That ensures your messaging makes it to their phone without being a burden.\n2. Loyalty Programs\nGiving rewards to loyal customers for continuing to check in via a location-based networks is a great option. Arby\u2019s marketing team did this on Foursquare by offering special reserved seating to their Foursquare mayors at 30 restaurants and 50% off on purchases. Ideas like these drive competition and increase use, which leads to greater exposure for the business being marketed on these networks.\n3. Geofencing\nGeofencing has been around for some time, but it\u2019s increasingly becoming incorporated in more location-based networks. For those who aren\u2019t familiar, geofencing is a virtual boundary set around a location, like a store. One way marketers are using geofencing on location-based networks is by sending messages to users who\u2019ve opted in to a particular service. \nLets use Starbucks as an example. If a person crosses a Starbucks geofence, they will receive a message from their location-based app highlighting an offer, coupon, or just a reminder to stop by. This is similar to the idea of a push notification, except it\u2019s only triggered by a person who comes into a geofence around a specific location. This messaging is more relevant to a user and more effective for a company. \n4. Mixed Media\n\n\nApps like GetGlue and Foursquare both give you the ability to check in and incorporate other media. For instance, GetGlue allows a user to check in and share a favorite book, song or TV show. Optimize your content and forge partnerships with companies like GetGlue as a way to extend your reach among users that are more likely to view your content if recommended by their friends.    \n5. Better Content\n\n\nAs the king of the location-based space, Foursquare helps set the tone for innovation in this industry. Recently at South by Southwest, Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley spoke about the future of location-based apps and how the company\u2019s focus is shifting from checking in to other features that their audience uses more and that will help the company become more mainstream. \nFor instance, Foursquare\u2019s \"explore\" feature is fairly new and allows a user to discover food, nightlife, shops, and more based on broad categories. It aggregates suggestions based on your checkin history as well as information available on the network about a location. This is why any content you add to Foursquare and similar sites should be optimized. \nImage courtesy of iStockphoto, hocus-focus"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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