First off: No unicorns.

The analogy of a unicorn is one I’ve been using for awhile. Even though my company specializes in social media, one of the very first things we try to impress on anyone we work with is to stop treating it like it’s so special. So unique. So weirdly fantastic. Because the more we romanticize it, the more unattainable and unusual it feels. The more we trick ourselves into essentially not understanding it. It becomes this amazing unicorn, and while we stare at it up on the hill, we barely notice all of the unicorns standing at the bottom of the hill around us.

So many professionals have spent so much time fearing or idolizing social media that they’ve failed to notice how ubiquitous and “baked in” it has become. With all of the navel-gazing, they failed to realize that everyone else had incorporated social media into their daily lives, into every interaction. Perhaps it was never that separate for the average consumer to begin with. Suddenly surveys are splitting hairs about whether people “use” social media to make X or Y decisions without noticing that everyone’s using a form of social media for every decision—they just aren’t bothering to CALL it “social media.” Anymore than I say, “I am about to write my friend an electronic mail which I will thrust through the internets in order to communicate thoughts from afar!” The idea of social media is NOT new. Anymore than AOL messageboards or phone party lines are new.

Which brings us to place.

Currently there’s quite a lot of buzz over “check-in” applications such as Foursquare, PlacePop, SCVNGR, Gowalla and Hot Potato. People stumble a bit in sometimes claiming that this wave of geolocation is somehow the start of the trend, but it’s myopic to claim geolocation is in its infancy. It’s certainly not when you consider how long Google Maps, Google Reviews, Brightkite and Mapquest has been around. We have to be careful to not ignore the emphasis that GPS and place has had on search in the last ten years and only focus on the Foursquare vs Gowalla.

By treating geolocation as so special we bundle its effects into something to lift up or be scared of. We watch as institutions wonder aloud whether they should partake in it… as though the only way to partake was to dive completely in. I think there’s some low-hanging fruit that worth pointing out to both the managers struggling with what Foursquare is and the C-suite who may be unusually enamored or scared of it. It’s simply worth just taking the time to ensure that your college buildings, hospital, wellness centers, retail locations, etc. are just listed in these apps. With Foursquare in particular, someone has to add a location- they aren’t automatically there like in SCVNGR (which is pre-populated with Google Places data) or MyTown (which uses CityPages). Nevermind if you have the money or inclination to engage, do sponsored badges, etc. – but are you even listed so that someone could check in? Or perhaps listed incorrectly? Are you there and people are already talking about you? A good analogy is really the old use of the phone book. There’s buying into a Yellow Pages ad program, but there’s also just making sure you appear in it and appear correctly.

But if we treat geolocation as a unicorn, we miss the opportunity to simply be found. And when did we treat our address as so special?

The apps themselves are often more in tune with the shortcomings of locations than the locations themselves are. In our recent research on event tourism with the a music festival we found some interesting benefits and problems with Bonnaroo’s official use of Foursquare (we’ll be elaborating a bit on the blog and  in a full-throated report soon, free to our clients) while other check-in apps didn’t even have a single central location to check-in at.

PlacePop worked diligently to try and add one when we spoke to them, and kudos for them for taking the effort and responding to Feedback’s open worry, but what would have simply helped was for the institution of a massive music festival that becomes Tennessee’s fourth-largest city in a weekend to have taken the initiative to simply have their address in the phone-book that is the top 5-10 apps.

There’s much more, from ensuring our photos and videos are properly associated with place and more… The concept of place is so much bigger than just check-ins. It’s someone needing something and asking a search engine of any sort, be it the augmented reality view of a camera phone held aloft to simply a Google Maps search from an iPhone. We’ve recently seen maternity wards being reviewed on apps like Yelp, traditionally the app of restaurants, for goodness sakes! How long before we realize the consumer isn’t waiting for the institution to get on board or not?

The overall issue of place is as old as the phone book. It’s as old as maps. It’s as old as grave markers of any sort. The check-in-app of old was simply the letter sent back home to tell family that we made it to the new land. Now I let select friends know I’ve landed with a click, or I can flip through the virtual catalog of places, opinions, ideas and opportunities, without having to write or interact myself, just to find a great place to eat, or raise a family, or hear some music.

So. Beware of unicorns.  :)

-Dean (@dbrowell)