Parallel Session

‘Checking-in’ post or share has always been of great interest in social media. This intersection of social media and location-based services result in the development of location-based or geographic business data. It is also referred as Geo-social networking. A type of social networking in which geographic services and capabilities such as geo-coding and geo-tagging are used to enable additional social dynamics. It allows social networks to connect and coordinate users with local people or events that match their interests. The most recent trend witnessed is increase in the number of Location Based Social Apps and Game Sites. Drawing on user’s accounts of location-based social networking, this session will talk about the growing importance of location in social media to understand the perception and user experience in real-time space and how a location is mediated in the digital age.

Digital retail with E and M-commerce is growing at a remarkable pace. It has given an ease and power to the consumer to buy anything from anywhere at any time at their doorstep. It is possible to make “web” sites operate much like a physical site, with the transformation of mobile devices to a personalized channel — a shopper’s phone.

This panel will discuss how can adding a location component is a smart enabler in your retails and e-commerce business?

Imagine, you walk by a retail store whose website is in your favorite list and you often add an item to your shopping cart but do not proceed to checkout in hope of getting further discounts or waiting to be in stock again. However, that retailer incorporated a location-based marketing solution that tied into their existing systems and allowed them to say, “Hi Zoe, the scarf in your online shopping cart is in-store today. Come inside and purchase them for 50% discount!”

Location awareness is beneficial for business performance management, and Location Intelligence can make all the difference in gaining better insights about customers.

In era of digital consumerism, smartphones help customers check anything they want ‘on-the-go’– e-mail, social media, Snapchat, etc. To keep up with this trend of shifting expectation and compete effectively in an increasingly connected marketplace, brands must continuously fine-tune their customer strategies. This requires investing in technology platforms and applications that anticipate designing, managing, and measuring customers’ behaviors early in the buying cycle. Location analytics firms are collecting billions of customer measurements data each day across thousands of locations. The ability to identify, track, and target customers in physical locations will enable businesses to gain complete understanding of customer needs, wants, and behaviors. The session will highlight how use of location-based services are helping companies to track their customers, through enhanced services, and identifying new market prospects with high concentrations of target customers to achieve long-term profitable growth.

Location data has been collected for years for different purposes but it has been as the most restricted data mainly by healthcare, telecommunications, and banking/financial, etc. organizations. But with advent of digital era and connected devices everywhere, a new period of data selling initiated, which included massive location based data coming from Bluetooth beacon, GPS, social media, open Wi-Fi zones, etc. Thereby causing data privacy challenges and giving rise to questions such as legal and ethics – cost and benefits – business benefit – adding new infrastructures, etc.