How Pokemon GO is Affecting Social and SEO

PokemonGO is more than a global phenomenon or a new trend. It is an absolute wrecking force for local marketing. Business have seen a massive uptick due to a simple game. Geeks, gamers, and recluses are all running around in the real world spending money.

This begs the question: how can business utilize social, seo, and PokemonGo?

Local SEO is bar none the most powerful tool for brick and mortar business. Whenever someone search in google “restaurants near me” and your restaurant doesn’t pop up, that is you losing money!

Even someone who is massively in love with the power of Snapchat and social, I have to tip my hat to SEO. Building the basics of local SEO isn’t hard. Local SEO is all about relevance, and location. How relevant is the search terms and how close are you.

An easy way to start is to fill out all your social profiles with keywords, address, and some content. Most notable to this is your business’s Google+ page and Yelp. Once you have your baseline covered for social and SEO, you can really start to benefit from Pokemon Go and create some interesting marketing initiatives.

A Brief Overview of Pokemon Go

With more daily active users than Facebook, chances are you have played the game. If you haven’t let me share a couple of things to get you up to speed.

Pokemon Go has a few features that are important in your marketing initiatives.

• Those are the players themselves, which are called Pokemon trainers
• Pokestops, which are notable landmarks where trainers can stock up on supplies
• Pokegyms, where trainers can battle for leadership and earn experience
• Pokelure is a digital item that spawns more Pokemon at a Pokestop for 30 minutes

A Business’ Secret Weapon in Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go has two main features that can greatly benefit business. These are Pokestops and Pokegyms. Pokestops are key landmarks that pPkemon players can locate and resupply much needed items.

Pokestops + Pokelures = $$$$

Whenever a Pokelure is activated, all the local trainers flock to it. This is because everyone can benefit from the item and collect more Pokemon.  If your business happens to be lucky enough to be near a Pokestop use this to your advantage.

Smart restaurant and bar owners, will purchase these lures and place them on their establishment. There are numerous accounts of 30-50 people flocking to a location and enjoying a meal while catching Pokemon.

A single lure is cost roughly $1 and lasts for 30 minutes. If the average customer pays $20 for a meal and it brings in only 1 customer. That single Pokemon trainer you just lured in netted you a $19 profit. Every additional new customer is more profit on top of it!

To have lures active for a 8 hour period would cost you under $20 and would attract Pokemon players all day long. Not a bad marketing initiative, in my humble opinion.

Reward Gym Owners

The second secret weapon business have in the Pokemon GO universe is Pokemon Gyms.

If you aren’t lucky enough to have a Pokestop near your establishment all hope isn’t lost. Pray that your business is the site of a Pokegym. These are usually buildings that are extremely notable such as churches or historic buildings.

If your restaurant or establishment happens to benefit from a Pokegym here is what you can do. Offer a 10% discount if your team (Valor, Mystic, or Instinct) owns the gym. This will incentivize people to fight over your gym and use the discount when they have it. Gyms are not held for long, after all.

You can even go one step further and reward the “Gym Leader” the person with the strongest Pokemon at the gym. Offering real world items like “badges.” This could lead to an interesting cross promotion with other businesses who benefit from Pokegyms, letting players recreate collecting gym badges, and of course they only get said badge if they buy from you.

This will create hype in the Pokemon Go community and will naturally attract other Pokemon Go trainers. Not to mention there is a good chance of local press picking up the story.

How to use Pokemon GO if you have neither a gym or a Pokestop nearby:

This is much tougher for sure. You don’t have any mechanism to naturally attract Pokemon players. This is where your chops as a marketer are gonna come into play.

• Create a Facebook post that says Pokemon Go players receive a 10% discount if they show their account. After you push that Facebook post out, advertise it to your local community. Target the people in a 10 mile radius who are playing the game.
• Create a Pokemon go meetup group and host it at your location.
• Get creative in your marketing!

The goal here would be to create your place of business as a hot spot to collect Pokemon.

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Have more tips we should add? Let us know in the comments!