With the explosion in social media and in particular, social location check-in (think foursquare, Loopt, GoWalla, Yelp, PegShot, etc...) it's becoming very important for business owners to consider how they can take more ownership over the information that is being shared online (web and mobile) about their business. As a business owner wouldn’t you want to be sure that correct information about your business is being shared on the web?

Increasingly, customers, particularly tech savvy, mobile enthusiasts are turning to mobile local search apps and social services to locate places to go to for entertainment, meals, travel, and even for business purposes. For the application end user, its very easy to simply believe everything you read, however, how can any business owner be sure what's being shared about his business? For that reason I think its very important that business owners make an effort to register and list their business in various POI databases available for consumption on the web - particularly in databases that are used as a starting point for apps, services, and social check-in tools. The following are some resources that any business (small or large) should consider taking some form of ownership over the information being conveyed.

Google business listings

One popular database used as a starting point for many applications is Google's business listings. Linked to a user's Google Account, this resource enables business owners to add a free listing for their business. Listings appear on google Maps and developers building on the Google business listing DB may also share details of your business with their end users. businesses create a listing and then claim their ownership via responding to a postcard or to a phone call. Business owners with more than 10 listings can add information in bulk by uploading a data file. Once a business is active, owners can easily add online coupons so individuals seeing the business listing online can be offered a promotion for visiting your place of business. As more developers build on Google apps and services, having an accurate business listing in this database is increasingly important. List your business at http://www.google.com/local/add/

Citysearch (http://www.citysearch.com)

A popular online database of business listings. The company also makes their database available to application developers, meaning that listings within the DB are not only available for users consuming the citysearch service, but developers are building apps that pull data from the CitySearch holdings. The company makes available a Merchant Account http://myaccount.citysearch.com. Using this resource a business owner can control what information is provided about their business, add photos, respond to reviews, add links to social media, offer discounts etc... Application developers, see also CitySearch for developers

Gowalla (www.gowalla.com)

Searching Gowalla for information for the Business owner yields very little information, although they do have a contact email for business owners and suggest they contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Hopefully that will lead to more information for businesses like creating custom badges, special offers, etc... Looking a little deeper I did find a feedback button. Using that, you can enter a request for help or info and in return you'll be presented with information from their help base. 

Foursquare (www.foursquare.com)

There's no question that Foursquare has been a huge hit with mobile device users who are anxious to share where they are and what they are doing with their social networks. For the small business owner this could be huge... after all, we're talking about free advertising here. One problem with the service is that much of the POI information has been crowd-sourced with users adding places and the associated information to describe the place. Any business owner would be wise to add their business to the foursquare POI DB simply by checking in and creating a place... an alternative would be to search and edit the information that describes the place - users with super user status can do this. Because many of the places in foursquare are crowd sources, much information is either innacurate or lacking, for example, place names entered in correctly (eg. Loodles Coffee Shop as opposed to Loodles, Coffee, Art, and Books) and many details are lacking, such as complete address and phone numbers.

Creating a foursquare Special for your customers...
 

Creating foursquare specials for your business is relatively  easy thanks to an update to the process by foursquare. Here’s a quick primer on how the whole process will work. Foursquare has a section devoted to the Business Owner – see http://foursquare.com/businesses/. To accomplish this you’ll need to locate and Confirm your business information and Create your first special.  Start off  by logging into your foursquare account – if you don’t have one yet then create one – no doubt many business owners may not have one yet. Then you can start your claim for a business.

Start at the Business Page and use the search for a business name to identify your business or see if it exists in the database – create it if it doesn’t exist (note, your business may already exist although it could have been created by a foursquare user who paid you a visit – if so you’ll want to correct/valifate the info). Then you start your claim, this is where you can add details, verify metadata, and add useful information and even specials (like a freebie offer for visitors). Currently foursquare has a somewhat archaic, albeit manual verification process so once you claim a business you’ll need to wait on some form of verification performed by the foursquare team. Interesting to note that there is an option for a marketing firm or third party rep to claim the business on behalf of the owner.

The most common form of special currently is a prize offer for the Mayor… somewhat cool I guess, although I have my doubts about this one and would prefer to see reward style discounts to customers for repeat use… for example, get a discount or free cookie for every 5th checkin!

Add A Venue to foursquare – a form enables you to provide contact information, address, phone.

Brightkite (www.brightkite.com)

Brightkite, like many social checkin services, enables users to add a place that does not appear within a database... this is great for a business owner and many small business owners would be advised to search and check the popular social apps to see  if and how their business appears. One pitfall of this service is that many apps allow anyone to add a place, so, for the business owner, there's a great chance that information about your business is incorrect or incomplete - this is why you need to chedk for your business. In Brightkite 2.0 you can add a place if it doesn't show up in our search results. To do so click the Not in this list button at the bottom of the list.
Most servies will have a contact page or resource for business owners who need to correct information about their place of business.

Yelp (www.yelp.com)

For the business owner interested in advertising or offering coupons or discounts to foursquare users there is a business owner resource with more information. See http://www.yelp.com/business/unlocking. Yelp is a popular business listing resource along with powerful user reviews (the reviews are the real meat of yelp!). Yelp provides a Business owner's resource page and information for unlocking your business at http://www.yelp.com/business/unlocking. Once a business is unlocked the owner will be able to be able to:

    * Communicate with your customers, both privately and publicly
    * Track how many people view your business page
    * Add photos, a detailed business description, up-to-date information, history, and specialties
    * Announce special offers and upcoming events
    * Recommend other businesses
Of interest, business owners can unlock a business page at any time simply by visiting the resources page on Yelp and clicking the ""Is this your business?" Link.

WHERE (where.com)

Where is another fine local search resource with business listings. It doesn't appear that business owners can take ownership of their listing, however, registered account holders can maintain a list of favorites and add/edit information and tips... business owners may with to provide some tips for visitors. See http://www.where.com/local/myplace

Schmap (Schmap.com)

Schmap is another "fab" resource that publishes very cool local guides. There appears to be no official business POI database, however, there is a service where end users can publish schmaps, to share places on the web with maps, photos, articles and reviews. Definitely a handy way for business owners to make sure that accurate, quality information is being shared with those searching for resources.
http://www.schmap.com/publish/

Loopt (Loopt.com)

Many mobile apps and services, like Loopt for example, use a third party advertising service to provide ads and coupons from local businesses. Several months ago, Loopt integrated local advertising that lets mobile consumers tap into offers, coupons and discounts with local neighborhood retailers. This new set of local advertising offers on Loopt is powered by Mobile Spinach, who has built a database of completely unique, relevant and hyper-targeted local offers not available through any other service provider. Mobile Spinach is a free mobile membership community that shares exclusive local merchant offers, promotions, sales, discounts and deals to its members via text message and email - see http://www.mobilespinach.com/

Other useful business listings and POI's

• Lat49 (Lat49.com) Another third party solution enabling businesses to serve ads and discounts via mobile apps and web services is LAt49 and their Mapvertising service - see http://lat49.com/advertiser/index.php. Some details from Lat49... Lat49 puts your ad right where your customers are looking — on the map. Geo-target your campaign by selecting areas of the map that matter to your business. Lat49 displays your ad on our publisher's map-sites — every time your customers bring the map to that region.
  
• Mapquest offers a number of business solutions, including a business locator service, see http://www.mapquest.com/businesslocator
• For more information about mobile advertising solutions and solution providers, see this news archive with a number of recent announcements http://www.lbszone.com/content/category/1/63/2/
• YellowBot is essentially a local search site for finding and reviewing the places you go to in your community (and elsewhere) s 
• Experian
  
• wCities
  
• Acxio
  
• Industrial Directory
  
• D&B http://smallbusiness.dnb.com/

• 5 Twitter Tips for the Geo Business user
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• 2009 The Year of Social Location - 10 Geo Social Location-Aware Apps Making Waves