System and method for geolocation of social media posts

A system for geolocation of social media posts, comprising:

• a social search engine stored and operating on a network-attached computer;
• a geolocation software module stored and operating on a network-attached computer;
• and
• a network-attached database comprising at least a media storage and a metadata storage;
• wherein the social search engine retrieves a plurality of social media content postings and stores them in the database;
• and
• wherein the geolocation software module carries out the following steps to geolocate a first social media content posting:
• (a) extracting any metadata present in or associated with the social media content posting;
• (b) extracting any embedded location data in or associated with the social media content posting;
• (c) identifying an author of the social media content posting;
• (d) determining if the metadata storage contains location-related data about the author, if one was identified;
• (e) determining if location data pertaining to a physical location of the author at the time of posting of the social media content posting is available;
• (f) identifying any known place names present in or associated with the social media content posting;
• (g) if a plurality of locations is obtained as a result of steps (a)-(f) that comprises more than one potential location, disambiguating, using a relevancy software module, the plurality of locations to determine a most likely location;
• and
• (h) geotagging the social media content posting and storing the resulting geotagged social media content posting in the metadata storage.