By Jim Chou

With announcements of Twitter and Facebook adding location to updates and the rise of smaller social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla, location-based applications continue to gain momentum with end-users, and relevance with mobile marketers. 

Tapping into core messaging services such as SMS and MMS, location-based applications hold tremendous opportunities for the mobile marketing world.

But how do marketers take advantage of the applications that end-users are already using and enhanced services that wireless carriers are starting to offer?

How prevalent is location-based application use?
Over the last year, the excitement and expectation that location has generated among subscribers has been tremendous.

Subscribers are using more social platforms than in the past to tell each other where they are and what they are doing.

According to the Mobile Marketing Association April 2010 study, ?Fully 91 percent of all U.S. adult consumers surveyed for this study reported having a cell phone, and of these, 26 percent indicated they had used a map, navigation or some other mobile phone service that automatically determines your current location. 

?Furthermore, 10 percent of mobile phone owners used such services at least once a week.?

The New York Times? David Carr explained the effect of location-based services and the digital world in his recent article highlighting this year?s South by Southwest conference. 

Typically one of the year?s most interactive events, the activity at South by Southwest was a sure sign that location is one of the most influential digital trends affecting the mobile landscape.

Attendees were driven to conference sessions and after-parties, and were connected via location in completely integrated and seamless ways.

South by Southwest is just one example. The popularity of location-based networks and social networks could not be higher and presents a great opportunity for carriers to join in.

Carriers make a play
While the current buzz around location applications has clearly focused on the applications themselves, carriers have and will continue to have a vital role in making them even more relevant to end-users and, in turn, more beneficial for mobile marketers and brands.

Take GPS, for example.

While an increasing number of mobile devices such as smartphones offer built-in GPS functionality, carriers can also tap into its network to expose location even for non-GPS phones.

This makes the addressable market for LBS even larger and that much easier for application developers and mobile marketers to tap into. 

So you may be thinking, great case in point, but how do carriers showcase their vital role in location-based services?

To start, carrier APIs are, and have always been, an attractive mechanism to place to access location for all handset types as well as other capabilities.

Specifically, carriers offer an array of network capabilities such as SMS, MMS, next generation messaging, as well as subscriber information, preferences and  location for all handsets and subscribers via a common API regardless of phone type or data package.

Compared to accessing location from phone APIs, which are highly fragmented across numerous operating systems and platforms, the assets that the carrier brings certainly position them ahead.

There is no doubt that the intelligence and capabilities that the carrier has put them in an ideal position to offer valuable solutions paired with third-party applications to which real-time location awareness is going to be expected by the subscribers.

Opportunity located
So we have discussed the fact that market drivers, the opportunity for carriers, and the opportunity for mobile marketers is clearly there.

In fact, many brands have already been taking advantage. However, if the subscriber trends I have outlined above continue, and carriers move forward with more intimate involvement in application enhancement, mobile marketing campaigns can be expanded to new areas we have not seen before. 

Targeting is one main area. Marketers? constant struggle to target customers more accurately can now take on new dimensions with the inclusion of location-based services and application layered on.

Using LBS to create easier point-of-purchase and customer touch points in real time are the obvious benefits.

Companies such as ShopAlerts and McDonald?s are already starting to implement located-based marketing and have seen success.

For example, ShopAlerts, an opt-in program which delivers messages about sales to consumers as they enter a physical location, found that 75 percent of users found messages somewhat to very useful, and 73 percent would definitely or probably use ShopAlerts in the future.

McDonald?s saw a 7 percent click-through rate and an increase in a drive of consumers in-store using its location-based mobile advertising (see story). 

It is important for marketing to adapt early to location-based solutions because it will ultimately allow them to control their brand before someone else does.

Today?s Internet is one where location is a powerful and increasingly common part of how people and organizations are represented. Thus it is important for companies to adapt early to this phenomenon to both represent the company properly in this channel and gain the benefits of early adoption of this technology. 

For example, a company would not want to miss out on people finding its shop simply because their address was not entered properly into a popular location-aware social networking service such as Yelp.

The marketer also would not want to miss the opportunity to create better customer relationships with those who frequent their location and ?check in? on Foursquare. 

Looking closer and deeper at location-based marketing is one way that brands can feed both consumers mobile appetite for location and leverage mobile as a valuable customer touch-point.

In conclusion, carriers and marketers need to focus on location. The last year has proven customers want their service providers and trusted brands to take advantage. It is now up to us to make it happen.

Jim Chou is product marketing manager at Airwide Solutions, Burlington, MA. Reach him at .