Last week, Facebook announced the rollout of a new opt-in feature called "Nearby Friends." As its name suggests, the new feature allows you to discover if friends are nearby or precisely where they are located using location sharing from your iOS or Android device.

A number of potential use cases exist for Facebook end users, but the core functionality boils down to Facebook notifying you when friends (who have also opted in to Nearby Friends) are in your general vicinity and being able to share your precise location with particular friends for a set period of time.

Amidst inevitable privacy concerns that will arise and numerous location-sharing competitors, I believe this could lead to major long-term opportunities for Facebook and more importantly for location-based marketing and you, the marketers.

Facebook commented that Nearby Friends will not currently be used for social media advertising targeting, but I would bet that is where Facebook is heading. Techcrunch described the perfect real-time marketing scenario for a social media marketer in their article:

Imagine if the ads you saw in your News Feed were for restaurants or shops a block away. Those would surely be more relevant to users and more effective for businesses.

What implications and major opportunities does this possibility bring to you, though?

Personalized, Real-Time Social Advertising
Facebook already allows you to tailor audiences and target specific custom audiences, but the possibility of social targeting based on current location will bring immense opportunities for marketers.

It will allow you more opportunities than ever to get your message in front of the right audience at precisely the right time. Location-based messaging gives you the opportunity to reduce the waste of an ad placement or message with bad timing.

Sending location-based push messages through a mobile app is already capable on ExactTarget's MobilePush platform, but if Facebook started allowing advertisers to promote location-based messages, this could also revolutionize social advertising from a mobile marketing perspective. This would bring great opportunities for cross channel marketing and robust mobile marketing campaigns.

Bridging Offline Behaviors with Online Messaging
Location-based messaging is one of the important keys to connecting offline and online behaviors. Unlocking Facebook location data could lead to major gains in capturing data on your audience's actual behavior and not just demographic and customer attributes.

From our latest report, Bridging the Digital Divide: How CMOs Can Rise to Meet 5 Expanding Expectations, digging into data-based insights was one of the top expectations for CMOs. Fifty-two percent of CMOs indicated a greater need for personnel with data and analytics expertise.

Connecting your data and bridging online and offline behavior has never been more important.

The opportunity for marketers to use this location data is purely speculation and not currently available, but I would venture to guess that is the direction Facebook will take. The ROI on location-based messaging will be much greater for brands, causing higher CPC and CPM and bringing ultimately more revenue for Facebook and for you.