As social networking sites, mobile marketing and geolocation services intersect, new products from developers and established social platforms are providing people with a number of added benefits. Marketers, too, are beginning to see their value, experimenting with new promotions and platforms to increase customer engagement. ClickZ has rounded up some of the latest ways developers and marketers are tapping into the potential of mobile marketing and geolocation services.

“Can You Help Me Find…”
A lot of basic marketing information can be gleaned from social networking sites combined with an individual’s location, but now “secondary” mobile marketing data is beginning to emerge with some clever apps and geolocation services. Powell’s Book, an independent book store in Portland, Oregon, created an iPhone app that gives customers turn-by-turn directions to find the books they are looking for. It’s a great utility that can replace in-store kiosks and even a store associate, but also, a mobile marketing opportunity.

Social networking giant Facebook has jumped into the increasingly competitive online social deals space popularised by Groupon by launching a test run on Tuesday of its own coupon service in five American cities. The service, called Deals (rather ambiguously, given that is also the name of its checkin voucher service), will allow its users—now 600 million strong–to buy coupons on goods and services.

According to WSJ.com, Facebook has said that unlike Groupon and LivingSocial, which also happen to advertise heavily on the social net to attract new customers and allow users to share deals with friends, it would not focus on deep discounts. Instead, it will build the service around social experiences: while users will be able to buy a single version of a deal, they will be for things that people don’t usually do alone—such as going to a sporting event.