Lately we’ve seen the emergence of a new kind of social media: localisation services such as FourSquare, Plyce, as well as mash-ups like TellMeWhere. Most are based on the model whereby people share their locality among their network of friends and possibly include some (hopefully) positive recommendations about the place they’re visiting – perhaps a restaurant, a store, etc…

Firstly, this underlines the evolution of social media: the more you go, the more you share with your community of friends. Once these sites reach critical mass, imagine how easy it will be to know where your friends are on a Saturday night, instead of spending half the evening trying to reach their mobile (also bear in mind they may not want to share their beer with you!)

Secondly, you can see tremendous opportunity for marketing and communications when these tools are used smartly. Imagine a club rewarding the “mayor” of the day (or, more accurately, night) with some free beverages, or a store giving extra discount to the first five “checkers” each day. The applications are endless. And in terms of PR, we already have a few ideas in mind.

Watch this space…