Emily Reeves, director of account management and research with Little Rock-based Stone Ward Communications, was our guest on Talk Business this week.  She’s also our newest program contributor through her high-tech blog, Ms. Adverthinker.com. 

This week, we explored the new craze surrounding location-based applications in social media.  This phenomenon has personal and business ramifications as the whole point of social media is to drive interaction between communities and users.  Reeves says that more than half of all text/SMS (short message service) messages in 2009 were some variation of “Where are you?”.

Location-based applications are free interactive services that allow users to update their status (much like Twitter or Facebook), but attach a very specific location to that update, either with a dot on a map, a longitude and latitude reading, or a location defined and named by the users (a restaurant, retail location, ballroom at a convention center, etc.).

“Consumers are not adopting these location-based services because they want to announce to the world their every move, but because people are inherently social—they want to communicate, share and interact—and using the services, they can,” Reeves says. 

“They can find other people at the same locations at the same time, find out if friends have been there before, find tips for getting the most out of their experience at that particular location, and get rewarded for participating.”

For instance, if you like a particular restaurant or have a positive shopping experience at a store, you might let those you trust know about it.

So what do you know about location-based apps like FourSquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Brightkite, and Google Latitude?  They are free, online account tools that are growing in popularity.  Most allow you to sync up your account to your Twitter or Facebook accounts.  FourSquare seems to be gaining the largest following having just surpassed one million users recently.

FourSquare is a great example of how consumers can get rewarded for their experiences at businesses.  You can earn badges or titles that ultimately may result in free gifts or discounted products or services.

Businesses, on the other hand, can build customer loyalty and learn more about how customers are interpreting their offerings.

“If you give people a reason to check in on your location, you are definitely driving traffic,” says Reeves. “You are encouraging them to come back over and over again. And if they’re coming back, their loyalty is obviously going to increase.”

This Friday, FourSquare will promote a day of hyping its service.  On April 16th (4/16, or 4-squared – get it?) will host “swarm parties” aimed at building usage of its service.  You can learn more at this link.

To watch all of Reeves’ informative interview from Talk Business on location-based social media and its impact on businesses, consumers and the general public, check out the video below.  You can read a post on the subject at her blog here.