4.

Social Media Location

Analytics
Contents
● Sources of Location Data
● Categories of Location Analytics
● Location Analytics and Privacy Concerns
● Location Analytics Tools
Location Analytics
● Location analytics, also known as spatial analysis or geo-analytics, involves
mapping, visualizing, and mining the location of people, data, and other
resources.
● GPS-enabled mobile devices make it possible to provide location-based
services, products, and information.
● Location analytics can be used in various sectors and can be instrumental in
understanding cities and human behaviors in space and time.
● An example of location analytics is the use of geo-located Twitter data to
study of New York City (França, Sayama et al. 2015) the "heartbeat" dataset of
a city and map its dynamics.
Sources of Location Data
● Postal Address
● Latitude Longitude
● GPS-based
● IP-based
Categories of Location Analytics
● Based on its scope, location analytics can be broadly classified
into two categories:

1) Business data-driven location analytics

2) Social media data- driven location analytics.
Business Driven Location Analytics

● Business data-driven location analytics involves mapping, visualizing, and

mining location data to reveal patterns and trends in business data.
● By capitalizing on data stored in a business database, location analytics can
provide location-specific information, products, and services based on where
customers are.
● Examples of how this can be used include recommending the nearest
convenience store or taxi, or making decisions about the best potential
location for a business warehouse.
Applications of Business Driven Location Analytics
● Powerful Intelligence
○ Simple maps can be useful,
○ sophisticated mapping techniques like
■ Clustering,
■ Heat mapping,
■ Data aggregation
■ Color-coded mapping can provide more detailed and insightful business intelligence.
Applications of Business Driven Location Analytics
● Geo Enrichment
○ Simple data maps can be enhanced with customer information such as
demographics, spending habits, lifestyle, and location.
○ This can help to answer questions such as where a company's loyal
customers spend most of their time.
Applications of Business Driven Location Analytics
● Collaboration and Sharing
○ Maps are easy to understand and are useful for communication and collaboration within an
organization.
○ Location analytics can be used to map business data for collaboration and information
sharing with customers.
○ Business data -Google Fusion Tables, allows for the creation of maps, tables, and charts.
2) Social Media Data Driven Location Analytics
● Recommendation Purposes
● Customer Segmentation -Tweepsmap (https://tweepsmap.com/), can be used to geo-locate your
Twitter followers by country, state, or city.
● Advertisement-Location-based advertisement allows targeted marketing and promotion campaign
mostly delivered through mobile devices to reach specific target audiences.
● Information Request- Based on their current location, customers can request a product, service, or
resource (e.g., the nearest coffee shop, restaurant, or parking lot).
● Alerts - Location data can be used to send and receive alerts and notifications, such as sales and
promotion alerts traffic congestion alerts, speed limit warnings, and storm warnings etc.
● Search and Rescue - Location data is vital in search and rescue operations e.g. disaster
management.
● Navigation - Mobile and GPS-based navigation services and apps can help users find addresses. An
example of this is the BE-ON-ROAD app for Android devices, which offers offline turn-by-turn GPS
navigation.
Location Analytics and Privacy Concerns
● Location-based services can bring convenience and value to businesses, but they also raise privacy
concerns.
● These concerns include the need for transparency about location tracking, user control over the
storage of location information, and options for preserving anonymity.
● There are also questions about legal protection for historical location data against unreasonable
searches, and the appropriate level of disclosure control.
● There is a need for appropriate governmental regulation to protect citizens' privacy rights in the era
of location-aware mobile devices.
Location Analytics Tools
● Google Fusion Tables is a web service for geo-tagging, storing, sharing, querying, and visualizing
tabular business data on Google Maps.
● Agos is a platform for geo-tagging and reporting that helps communities address climate change
and disaster risk reduction.
● Tweepsmap maps Twitter followers by location.
● Trendsmap is a real-time tool that maps the latest trends from Twitter.
● Followerwonk is a tool for performing basic Twitter analytics such as analyzing followers, location,
and tweeting patterns.
● Esri's GIS software is used for mapping, visualizing, questioning, analyzing, and interpreting data to
understand relationships, patterns, and trends.
Questions
● Define location analytics.
● Explain the two main categories of location analytics.
● What are the sources of location data.
● What are the main applications of business data-driven location analytics?
● What are the main applications of social media data-driven location analytics?
● Discuss privacy concerns related to location analytics.