Social media can provide businesses with an interesting window into what people think about brands, places, products and services. Add location into the mix and those conversations can provide useful context when you’re trying to understand a particular market or assess a potential new business location.
Location-based social media intelligence looks at social conversations through a geographic lens. This could include analysing sentiment towards a brand in different towns and cities, understanding the issues people are discussing within a community or spotting interests and trends that appear particularly relevant to an area.
On its own, social media won’t tell you whether a location is right for your business. But combined with demographic, customer, competitor, footfall and other location data, it can add another perspective to the decision.
Understanding social sentiment
Social sentiment analysis looks at conversations taking place online to understand whether attitudes towards a particular subject, brand or place are broadly positive, negative or neutral.
For a business considering a new location, this can provide useful background. What are people saying about the area? Which local issues generate conversation? What businesses, amenities or experiences do people value? Are there recurring frustrations or indications of something people feel the area is missing? These conversations won’t necessarily represent everyone living or working in an area, so they need to be treated with some caution. But they can help you understand some of the attitudes and interests that sit behind the demographic numbers.
Gain a better understanding of the community
A potential location might look attractive on paper but understanding the character of the surrounding community can provide another useful perspective. Following public conversations about an area can highlight local interests, concerns and changes. Perhaps residents are talking enthusiastically about the regeneration of a town centre, or there is growing interest in independent food and drink businesses. Alternatively, conversations might highlight concerns about parking, congestion or the decline of a particular shopping area. None of these observations should determine a location decision by themselves, but they can raise useful questions and identify areas that warrant further investigation.
Understand how your brand is perceived
Social sentiment can also help businesses understand whether perceptions of their brand vary geographically.
A business may already have strong awareness in one part of the country but be relatively unknown somewhere else. Equally, there may be areas where the type of product, service or experience it offers appears particularly well aligned with local interests. This information can contribute to decisions about both expansion and marketing. An area with attractive demographics but very low brand awareness, for example, might require a very different launch strategy from one where the business already has an established customer following.
Spot changing interests and trends
Social media is often where new interests, behaviours and trends become visible. Monitoring conversations geographically can therefore provide additional clues about how different markets are changing.
For businesses considering expansion, these signals can be useful when they are viewed alongside longer-term evidence. A growing interest in a particular type of food, fitness activity or leisure experience might encourage a business to investigate an area more closely, but a short-lived online trend isn’t the same thing as sustainable customer demand.
This is where combining different sources of information becomes important.
How does Location Intelligence fit into the picture?
Social sentiment can tell you something about what people are discussing and how they feel, but it can’t tell you everything you need to know about a location.
Location Intelligence allows businesses to examine the more tangible characteristics of an area. Who lives there? How does the population compare with your existing customer base? What competitors are nearby? How do people move through the area? Where are your current customers coming from, and how far are they prepared to travel?
Periscope® brings together location, demographic, customer, competitor and movement data so these different factors can be viewed and analysed geographically. For example, a business considering two potential locations might find positive social conversations around both. Location Intelligence could then help it investigate whether either area also contains the right customer profile, sufficient potential demand, appropriate footfall and a competitive environment that supports the opportunity.
The social insight adds context. The location data helps test whether the opportunity stands up to closer scrutiny.
Look beyond a single source of information
Finding a new business location rarely comes down to one factor. A busy high street isn’t automatically the right high street, a favourable demographic profile doesn’t guarantee demand, and positive social sentiment doesn’t necessarily translate into customers. The stronger approach is to bring different evidence together and understand what it collectively tells you about a place.
Social sentiment can add an interesting human perspective to that research by revealing some of the conversations, attitudes and interests associated with an area. Combined with Location Intelligence, it can contribute to a much fuller understanding of whether a potential location deserves a closer look.
See how Periscope® can help you compare locations and make more informed decisions about where to grow.
