Better geo-tagging of tweets is coming soon with a partnership between Foursquare and Twitter.

Since Foursquare split the check-in functionality of their app to a second app Swarm, Facebook has become a more popular avenue for social media users to check in to locations on mobile devices.  And while Twitter had been rumored to be working on a better system for checking in, the recent rumor that they would partner up with Foursquare for geo-location purposes did turn out to be reality.

The new location tagging would work similarly to how it works on both Facebook and Swarm – the app would attempt to geolocate the user and then suggest nearby businesses or places for a user to choose as their current location or a user can simply search for the location.

It is interesting to note that users tweeting with a location from either Twitter for Android or iOS would also see their specific coordinates, in addition to the chosen location, showing up in their tweets.

From a marketing perspective, this is great for local businesses that are increasing their exposure, as it adds yet another social media platform where people can “check in” to a business.  But will users go out of their way to tweet they are at a business, the same way they might check in to Foursquare / Swarm or tag a post on Facebook?  That remains to be seen.  But it is likely that those users who would have tweeted about it anyway would be more likely to tag the location but I don’t expect new users to go out of their way to do this simply because Twitter now offers it.

For those worried about the privacy implications and the possibility that Twitter might randomly add geo location information to their tweets, it is fortunately a toggle setting that users can turn off and on at anytime.  It is currently turned off by default, but there is always the possibility that Twitter could change the default as the new location tagging feature continues to roll out.

Users can stop including location information in their tweets by clicking the location button (looks like a map pin icon) then selecting “turn off location” from the drop down menu.