Make Location the Heart of Your Marketing

Introducing the Geosocial Index:

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Introducing the Geosocial Index

Businesses today understand the valuable

impact of social engagement on loyalty, cus-

tomer experience and even revenue. But with-

out a standardized metric, it’s hard for them

to measure the social activity generated from

their venues, or benchmark against competi-

tors. While the Klout Score ranked the social

influence of individual social profiles, there is no

equivalent for locations.

That’s why HYP3R created the

Geosocial Index. The goal of the

Geosocial Index is to organize the social

activity of places around the world .

It ranks venues based on public social

media activity at each location, and also

takes the venue’s capacity into account

for an apples-to-apples comparison. For this

initial phase, HYP3R focused on the top hotel

brands around the world, along with the top

stadiums and hospitals in the U.S.

This is just the beginning. We see a unique

opportunity for this data to inform consumers’

decisions, and for businesses to benchmark

social activity to compare locations within

their portfolio and across their industry.

The Geosocial Index provides marketers the

first standardized, location-based social media

ranking to understand how their venues are

performing against each other and against

competitors. If, for example, a hotel sees that

its competitor across the street has a higher

Geosocial Index, they can dig deeper to see

exactly what kinds of social engagements that

hotel is participating in. This could inform a

new strategy or suggest new engagement

tactics. The Geosocial Index is also a good

benchmark when testing new social engage-

ment strategies—if they work, the scores will

see a boost.

Introducing the Geosocial Index

“The goal of the Geosocial Index is to

organize the social activity of places

around the world.”

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Introducing the Geosocial Index

There are two calculations in this initiative: the Geosocial Index and the HYP3R Score.

The Geosocial Index

The Geosocial Index measures the number of

posts, the number of users and the reach per

post (e.g. the more followers, the more reach)

at a venue, all over a certain time period, while

taking into account the venue’s capacity. This

creates an apples-to-apples comparison for

venues of all sizes. As an example, a Geosocial

Index of 2.0 means the hotel generates twice

as much social activity as similarly-sized hotels.

The HYP3R Score

The HYP3R Score also calculates the number

of posts, users and reach at a venue, and then

ranks that level of social activity on a scale

with all other venues in the same industry.

The HYP3R Score is a standard deviation that

goes from 0 (no social activity) to 100 (highest

amount of social activity).

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Here’s why we broke it into two scores: A

boutique hotel in New Orleans with 100 rooms

is likely to have a lower HYP3R Score than a

1,000-room hotel in Las Vegas, purely because

there are fewer people (and therefore fewer

posts) at the hotel. But if that boutique hotel

is over-indexing in social activity compared to

other small hotels, then its Geosocial Index will

be higher, even if the number of posts at the

boutique hotel is lower.

While the HYP3R score is the clear-cut compar-

ison within an industry, the Geosocial Index is a

long-term social health indicator for the venue.

• More than ever before, consumers use social media to

help make purchasing decisions. For example, Marriott

International saw an increase in online reviews from

3.2 million in 2015 to 3.7 million in 2016.

• On HYP3R’s Geosocial Index for April 2017, The

Beverly Hilton had the highest HYP3R Score of 100.

This means that it had the most on-site social activity

with the greatest reach compared to other hotels

around the world.

Did you know?

Introducing the Geosocial Index

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So how did location-based marketing—what

we call geosocial marketing—quickly become

king ? Several key technological developments

accelerated interest in location-first strategies

(and therefore, increased spend in marketing

budgets).

To start, the growth of mobile as consumers’

device of choice has unlocked new online-to-of-

fline marketing programs with insights grounded

in smartphones’ geo-data. In fact, according to

marketing analyst BIA Kelsey, geo-targeted ad

sales are expected to rise from $12.4 billion in

2016 to $32.4 billion in 2021.

Secondly, the giants of social networking have

added synchronized and seamless location

integrations into their products, making it easier

for users to add location to their posts and for

marketers to track it.

Thanks to location data, marketing can be

more contextual, situational and, in effect, more

relevant. Amid the noise, your brand can find the

right moment to connect with your

customers to amplify their experience—they

don’t even have to mention you, they just have to

be posting at your venue (which they will be).

Say you work on the social media team for a

national fitness center, and a member publicly

posts a photo from one of the gyms, but men-

tions that the class they love was full that morn-

ing. Your staff can comment on that post with

other times that class is offered, or take it a step

further and let the manager of that gym know,

so they can offer the person a free personal

training session.

As another example, a major beverage compa-

ny used HYP3R’s geosocial marketing platform

to track social behavior at the multiple events

it sponsored at SXSW 2017. During the event,

the company’s marketing managers were able

to proactively engage more than 700 people

in real-time based on their public tweets and

Instagrams—including the 42% of posts that

didn’t use #SXSW or #SXSW2016 hashtags but

were posting from the sponsored events. Due

to the personalized, in-the-moment engage-

ments, the company saw a 16% lift in new

follower conversion.

Geosocial marketing empowers businesses

to go beyond passive, reactive social strat-

egies and engage with an authenticity that

feels human—because it is. For instance, one

The Industry Landscape

Introducing the Geosocial Index

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lifelong fan of a major league baseball team

posted from the stadium for the first time, and

received a tear-jerking “Welcome home” com-

ment from the team’s account.

Or look no further than the

Marriott guest who posted a

photo of a towel in her room

folded like an elephant ,

only to receive a towel fold-

ing class hosted by Marriott

staffers the next day. With

the help of geosocial marketing, businesses

have the power to delight their clients not only

through online engagements, but with unfor-

gettable real-life interactions, too.

“Geosocial marketing empowers businesses

to go beyond passive, reactive social

strategies and engage with an authenticity

that feels human—because it is.”

Introducing the Geosocial Index

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We are now entering the third generation of cloud marketing. Here’s a look at

how it has evolved:

Introducing the Geosocial Index

CRM and Marketing

Automation

(12 years ago)

1st Generation

Listening and publishing on

social media through social

media management solutions

(5 to 7 years ago)

2nd Generation

Surprise and delight on-site

engagement through

location-based media tools

(now)

3rd Generation

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What makes companies successful at geosocial

marketing? It starts with understanding that

enhancing customers’ experience is core to

your business. When people post from their

location they are, ultimately, making a recom-

mendation to their friends and followers . For

industries like travel and hospitality, sports and

entertainment, and healthcare, recommenda-

tions on social media—today’s form of word

of mouth—can be the most powerful forms of

advertising. Businesses in these industries have

the opportunity to influence customers’ narra-

tives through on-location engagement.

Travel & Hospitality

Hotels have offered “surprise and delight”

services since before social media existed,

but now with geosocial marketing, they can

double down on it.

In the past, if a couple got engaged at a hotel,

that couple would be upgraded to a suite—but

only if the hotel’s GM serendipitously found

out about it. Now with geosocial marketing

tools, staffers receive notifications for public,

on-location celebration posts—allowing them

to capitalize on every opportunity to create an

unforgettable guest experience.

Geosocial Marketing and the Bottom Line

Introducing the Geosocial Index

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This is holding the door for guests or

chocolates on the pillow 2.0—and it’s

paying off. Guests who have been engaged on

social media are more likely to leave a positive

TripAdvisor review, and there is a strong cor-

relation between the Geosocial Index and a

hotel’s RevPAR (revenue per available room).

Sports & Entertainment

Sports arenas and concert venues are rife

for geosocial marketing because

they’re inherently shareable and take

place during a set period of time.

Sports teams, for example, can use

geosocial marketing to focus their

efforts during live games happening

in their stadium. Fans are there for an

experience and these teams have a

very specific window in which they

can enhance it.

Geosocial marketing can help teams build rela-

tionships with their fans and ensure an incred-

ible in-game experience—they can now bridge

the digital and physical worlds to increase

return on engagement. For example, during the

2016 season, 54% of one MLB team’s on-loca-

tion engagements through HYP3R received a

comment from the fan in response. And 8% of

fans engaged began following the team’s social

accounts, helping to grow their audience.

Healthcare

Healthcare providers’ aim is to make patients

feel safe and at-ease. Hospitals can use geo-

social marketing to create a more comfortable

experience for its patients and their families

during what is often a stressful time.

On-location engagement can help enhance

patient experience during the most important

time—while they are on the property. In

2016, people publicly posted 4,600 times from

a top hospital’s campus, but 79% of them didn’t

use a hashtag or mention. Using geosocial tools,

the hospital’s marketing manager can discover

these posts and send meaningful messages

to, for example, congratulate a family on

their newborn .

“Guests who have been engaged on

social media are more likely to leave a

positive TripAdvisor review.”

Introducing the Geosocial Index

“Friends don’t wait two days to respond to a post—so why should you?”

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Geosocial marketing transcends social media.

It’s not just about publishing great content

and hoping that people will engage with it,

or listening to what people are saying and

reacting if there’s a customer service issue.

It’s about truly engaging with your brand’s

most valuable customers: the ones who are

with you right now. The present is often the

moment of truth for many customers, so

engaging the people that are at your venue

can be far more valuable—both monetarily and

experientially—than simply engaging customers

on social media wherever they are. In short,

on-location engagement gives your brand the

ability to connect with people when and where

it matters most.

Ultimately, your brand is seizing the opportu-

nity to be more human, to build a new kind of

connection with your customers. With geosocial

marketing, if a Golden State Warriors fan is at

a game celebrating his birthday with friends

and posts about it, the team has the opportuni-

ty—right then—to capitalize on that memorable

Looking Ahead: The Future of Location-Based Marketing

Introducing the Geosocial Index

“Geosocial

marketing is about

truly engaging

with your brand’s

most valuable

customers.”

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• On average, 25% of marketing budgets are spent on

location-based marketing strategies.

• 50% of businesses surveyed in the LBMA report said

they use location data to connect with consumers.

• In 2016, social media marketing strategies took

up 10.6% of a marketing budgets on average. It’s

estimated that this will rise to 17.1% in two years.

Insights from the Location Based Marketing Association (LBMA)’s Global Location Trends Report

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moment by simply saying

“Happy Birthday .” Wait too long and the

moment is lost.

Over the years, the evolution of marketing has

come full circle. As businesses grew, human-

to-human connection was nearly impossible.

That is, until social media entered the fold.

But while social media enabled businesses to

improve their customer service, they were still

interacting with consumers in a reactive way,

only online and often after the fact. The future

of social media marketing brings businesses

directly to consumers for real-time—and even

real-life—engagement. The technology avail-

able today allows delightful and personalized

brand engagements to happen at a larger scale.

Thanks to geosocial marketing, human-to-hu-

man relationships aren’t a thing of the past—

they’re a thing of the future.

Introducing the Geosocial Index

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HYP3R is a real-time, location-based engage-

ment platform. We make it easy for businesses

to engage influential customers at specific

locations on a personal level, in real-time.

What excites us most about HYP3R is build-

ing a new frontier for brand communication,

powered by timely, authentic engagement in

the context of location. We’re on a mission to

make marketing efficient for businesses and

delightful for consumers. That yin-yang is our

guiding light as we lead the next frontier in

marketing cloud.

After graduating from Disney Accelerator and

Techstars last fall, we have gained the trust of

amazing partners—including leading compa-

nies in travel, professional sports teams and

global brands. We recently won the NFL’s and

TechCrunch’s 1st & Future competition at

Stanford as well as the Visa Everywhere

Global Events Challenge. We are a well funded,

revenue-generating company headquartered in

San Francisco.

About HYP3R

Introducing the Geosocial Index