Foursquare to Facebook Places: Insight into Check-ins

Many are claiming this year as the year of “social mobile”.  Even Facebook’s CTO announced that one of the primary objectives for Facebook this year is mobile, a statement that is backed with increased emphasis on its geolocation tool – Facebook Places.

This said, social media marketers should get up to speed on the adoption of geolocation tools, and review current insight on consumers attitudes and preferences when it comes to “checking in”.  I hope to share e-marketer data from a few recent reports that will give us a snapshot of this space.

How Many Users are Checking In?

A study by SNL Kagan compared the recent increase in location based service users from 2009 to 2010 and found that it nearly tripled.  This, combined with the explosion of smart phone adoption, means that 2011 is bound to experience even stronger growth within geolocation tools.

This said, a study by Pew Internet and American Life Project in November 2010 puts this in perspective with the finding that only 4% of adult online users currently use location based services.  So while these applications are likely to grow by leaps and bounds – we still have a way to go in terms of mainstream adoption.