Facebook and McDonald’s team for geo-marketing

Facebook is debuting location-based features next month, and its kickoff partner will be McDonald’s. According to ClickZ (which you should be reading every day), Facebook is pulling a FourSquare and enabling users to “check in” from their locations. First stop: McDonald’s, where people can check in “while featuring one of the quick-serve chain’s products, such as a Big Mac, in their activity feed.” So forget, for a moment, the health implications of this and focus on the local advertising impact: location-based marketing is moving in to the local markets. You’re seeing more and more stores adopt it, and it makes sense. People have already demonstrated that they like checking in. One of the obvious incentives is “geo-couponing,” where a check-in results in a coupon good for the place you are. Both sides win – you get the discount and the store/restaurant gets the promotion. ClickZ also points out the potential for Facebook to be a “FourSquare killer,” what with its base of 425 million users and all. I don’t think it will go that far, but it will be an interesting entry in the location-based marketing arena. And every dollar spent on a location-based ad play in your local market is a dollar your station isn’t getting…