95% of the world's people over 18 years old own a mobile phone. In the last year alone we have gone from 4.021 million Internet users to 4.388 million, that is, a 9% more. 1% of the Spanish population connects to the internet daily, 78 million users in total who connect more than 7 hours a day. "If your business is not on the Internet, your business does not exist" Bill Gates. And if you don't have geolocation, you lose the visibility of millions of consumers.
Geolocation applications are much more than being able to find your business on a coordinate map. Thanks to it you can be visible on a map, it is true, but what you may not know is that you can even be visible in the real world. Its uses extend to personalized advertising of luminous panels in the streets, because it allows the location of businesses, objects, people and anything connected with a positioning system.
What is geolocation and how does it work?
Geolocation is the ability to determine the exact geographic location of an object. It can be a person, a house, a mobile phone, a business, and any other physical object that can be positioned. Geolocation can be both for querying a location and for determining the location in real time. In addition, the set of coordinates to determine the locations is usually determined by computer equipment that has geographic positioning systems. East system, organized by software and hardware, allows the capture, storage and manipulation of the data collected by the locations.
As we said at the beginning, practically all people today have a mobile phone. The electronic device par excellence of every citizen, ready to be located. And it does not necessarily have to be a Smartphone, due to the different geolocation mechanisms that exist, which we are going to expose.
GPS geolocation
The best known of all. GPS derives from its acronym in English Global Positioning System, Global Positioning System. This system can determine the position of any object on the planet with an accuracy of up to centimeters, although the normal thing is that there are a few meters of error. It was developed by the United States Department of Defense, and uses the technique of trilateration, although it is popularly called triangulation, to determine positions around the world.
The GPS system works with a minimum of 24 satellites that orbit the Earth in synchronization. They try to cover the maximum of space in 6 different orbits, and they do it at a height of 20 to 180 km. The more satellites that take part in the triangulation, the more exact the geographical position. Measurements are possible thanks to the coordinates of longitude, latitude, height and time
Geolocation by GSM
The global system that take over the telephony infrastructures, used for mobile communications. The acronym comes from Global System for Mobile communication, which means global system for mobile communications. The GSM geolocation system is possible thanks to the network of towers, antennas and repeaters that make communication by telephone possible.
To understand us, the system is similar to GPS. In this, the time it takes for the signal to go from one tower to another is taken as a reference, as well as the intensity with which it is received. However, in this case the margin of error can reach 200 meters and it's not that attractive. Despite this, it is the most widespread in the world, with coverage in 218 countries.
Geolocation by WPS
Less well known, but no less important is the Wifi Positioning system, WPS. The main advantage of this system lies in getting to geolocate an object where the GPS does not reach. The most immediate example, the interior of a house. From the connection of a device to your network, you can know the location of that device, a computer or a mobile normally.
Uses of geolocation for business
Online geolocation marks constant increases and awakens and attracts the interest of the market more and more. Despite this, the use of the applications you may have in the world is still quite unknown. For this reason, although there is already an impact on the lives of many people, it will continue to increase as businesses and companies that become familiar with geolocation grow.
Taking advantage of this moment is today an opportunity. And it will continue to be so in the future to a lesser extent as more businesses incorporate it. Not for that reason it will have to pay less attention, since the majority adoption will cause that the opportunity is translated into a need. For this reason, companies that remain at the forefront of this technology today will not only be able to increase their economic benefits. Rather, they will be more used and prepared to adapt to the different variances suffered by the way in which they interact with the end customer.
Let's see below, some practical examples of the advantages that geolocation offers us.
Positioning in Google
One of the first advantages of positioning our business in services such as Google Maps, makes us gain positions in Google, and best of all, without paying. We will be visible to any user who searches the area or enlarges the Maps. In it, we can make contact information available, such as the exact address, telephone number, type of business, hours, opinions, etc.
This point can be used to our advantage. In the opinions of our users, we can have an engine so that they choose our business before another. We have talked about how manage online reputation, and is that a good service will be reflected in the evaluations of other users. We want them to see us, that we exist, and that we are good.
Internet Advertising and Sales in Business
Thanks to tools like Google Adwords, we can advertise our business to customers who are close to it. Such advertising can also be personalized. That is, we choose a gender, an age group, a radius of kilometers, and even depending on their searches. Segmenting consumers will help lower costs, more defined and potential customers that can geolocate us and be more attractive to groups that interest us.
Geolocation games
This nascent marketing practice is offering very good results. It is based on interacting with the user to solve a game based on clues or interact constantly with us. One of the best examples that comes to mind was the strategic alliance of Pokemon Go and McDonald's in 2016. They transformed the chain's restaurants into poker stops, in a way that encouraged players to go into business.
Turn a game into something that revolves around the geolocation of your business predisposes the potential client's advertising experience in a more persuasive, enjoyable and lasting way.
Car geolocation
There are applications to register the geographical position in real time for company vehicles. The maximum number of cars that can be registered is very high. In fact, It is enough with a company mobile that carries this function implicit in the application that is being used.
In this way, bad practices by workers can be traced and recorded. Whether as routes, waiting times, etc. It works very well, and more and more companies are incorporating this technology into their vehicle fleets.
Geotagging
There are exceptions in which it may be interesting to hang a photograph of a place and be able to locate it geographically. Either because it is a photography business, construction work, event montage, or whatever. As long as we can link that place to our business, it is another way that can be adopted to take advantage of geolocation. In addition, we can take advantage to highlight good photographs, and be able to enhance our brand image.
For Google tagging or depending on what action we want to do, it is enough to enter Google support and put the words we are looking for, for example "label maps". Some tabs are displayed, and depending on what we want to do, the instructions are detailed in a simple and clear way.
Geolocation for tracking people and objects
This use is above all focused on safety, both for people, animals, vehicles or objects. In case of theft, the alarm systems cannot always work, perhaps because the thieves themselves deactivate it or because they do not have a battery. The geolocation system allows us to determine the exact location of that object that we have lost and to recover it. They are usually low in cost, and more than compensate for the losses that could be incurred.
In the case of people, they can even make the difference between living and dying. I do not intend to alarm anyone, but if I had a company that sells hiking equipment for example, and that does mountaineering excursions, I would think about it. Sometimes the weather conditions can be very adverse. Whether the monitor or if someone is lost, a bad fall, or any accident that may occur. Geolocation will occupy the first place, in the event of communication breakdowns, loss of consciousness or entrapment.
Conclusions
The uses of geolocation are very extensive, and will continue to spread longer as more people adopt its use. Applying it in our business will bring us more benefits than regrets, and it is not as complicated a technology to master as it may seem from its name.
In it we have seen a more than interesting and intelligent option for our business, from its visibility, promotion, sales and security. I hope this article has served you well, and brings you many benefits.