How Marketers Can Use Twitter's New Locations Feature

After an announcement in November 2009 and a couple of fits and starts, it appears that Twitter has finally rolled out a geo-location feature. 

Here's how the feature works: After agreeing to share your location information in your settings, a small location icon will appear next to each tweets byline.  Clicking it will bring up Google Maps, displaying your location.  

So, how could this feature be of interest to marketers and business owners?

Imagine that you are in Cambridge, MA, and you're trying to find a place to eat.  If a local eatery was following the geographical tweets, they could send an offer to the folks in the area to visit their establishment.

Or, if you are at a conference, and you want to find out where HubSpot's Mike Volpe is speaking, his tweets about his location would allow you to find the right room quickly and get a seat.

In another example, think about trying to meet someone in an area you both don't know well, such as an airport.  Using Twitter's location features could allow you to save time traveling up and down terminals at O'Hare. 

Here's an example of Chris Haddad, one of our Inbound Marketing Consultants, trying out the feature.  He says, "I like the drop-down that lets me pic how specific I want to get with my "auto-guessed" location - I could say I was tweeting from MIT instead of "Kendall Square".  

Do you think the Twitter locations feature will have any value for marketers?  Will you use it?

Live Webinar: The Science of ReTweets With Dan Zarrella

Join Dan Zarrella, HubSpot's Social Media Scientist and author of the Social Media Marketing Book for a 30 minute overview of the Science of ReTweets! Date and time: Friday, March 19, 2010 at 1:00pm ET  Reserve your spot now  to learn what makes tweets contagious and how to create tweets that will go viral and increase your reach and authority..