Big claim I know. And many people would be saying, “What’s FourSquare?” But you won’t be saying that in 12 months time.
So what is FourSquare?
In a lot of ways, FourSquare represents the next generation of social networking. It combines the standard fodder: friends, followers, reviews and status updates with geographic and location-based features.
Users ‘check-in’ at different locations around a town or city, update their following where they are and what they are buying or doing and leave a comment or suggest a tip for others when they are in the same place. It sounds really geeky but until you use it, it’s difficult to really grasp how powerful this application could be.
And why do I think it’s the next best thing? Before Twitter became mainstream (before Oprah and Britney) it was widely mocked and laughed at as being solely for the ‘nerdarati’ and FourSquare is currently enjoying the same sort of derision.
However, as more and more users adopt the application and, more importantly, as more and more vendors and marketers see the possibility in it, FourSquare will take off, if not to the same huge degree, much the same as Twitter has.
And that is FourSquare’s great strength. As an online marketer, I can see a myriad opportunities for local small businesses – who make up the majority of my clientele – embracing location-based social networking and making a killing before the rest of their town gets on to it. And here’s how.
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A practical example
Let’s say you own a cafe. It’s in a pretty good spot and you serve great coffee. And two doors up from you, there’s another cafe, that also serves great coffee and is obviously in the same great spot.
If you list your cafe on FourSquare – and publicise the fact offline – you will potentially get a whole lot of new business but also a good hit of the business currently being served next door because, with FourSquare, you can offer them rewards and incentivise them to return. The way FourSquare does this is by providing a series of badges that can only be ‘unlocked’ through more use as well as bestowing mayorships on customers.
I know, I know … but stay with me.
The “Mayor’ of your cafe is the person who ‘checks-in’ at your premises more than anyone else in that 60 day period. They Mayor can be ousted by somebody else visiting the same place and checking-in and so on. This creates a kind of viral aspect to it because it brings out the basic need in a lot of us to compete and gain personal exposure.
If I was that cafe owner, I would work out an offer or a discount only available for the Mayor, such as 2 for 1 meals, free cake with a coffee or even free coffee! Imagine how many times some coffee devotees would come back to your cafe if they knew they had a chance to have their coffee for free.
I would also design specials for all FourSquare users, not just the Mayor and, most importantly, I would promote the specials (and in turn that I was a FourSquare venue) very publicly offline – in posters near the entrance, decals on the shopfront window and so on.
This is precisely the kind of social media integration I have successfully put in to a couple of my clients’ food outlets already.
You might be already using it
The other thing to remember is that if you are a small business owner providing a service or product and you have an existing clientele, your business may already be on FourSquare and not even know it. If a user tries to check-in to a particular venue, and that venue hasn’t already been added to FourSquare by the proprietors, then the user can add them. This is why it’s important that all small business owners check if they are already listed on the application and the spelling and brand identity is correct.
There is a really good cafe near where I live called Taste Gourmet Grocer and Cafe. Recently, I have checked in there on FourSquare but it wasn’t easy to find them at first because obviously another user had added them – and misspelled their name. On FourSquare, they are listed as ‘Taste Gormet”.
Now, this isn’t a major marketing disaster (after all, even I found them) but if your corporate identity is really important to you as a small business owner, and it should be, then you should check how other people might be listing you on applications like this one.
So, if you are a small business owner and are looking for different ways to engage your community, FourSquare is a good way to do it.
If you would like to see how I can help your business’ social engagement strategy through using FourSquare, both on and offline, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594.
Do you think FourSquare is a passing fad or do you agree with me that it might go the way of Twitter? Are you using it to better engage your customers? Let us know in the comments.
Click here to listen to my podcast about FourSquare for my Online Marketing Easy Program members.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh and follow me on FourSquare too! http://foursquare.com/user/nickbowditch
Thanks for the article it is really interesting. Some of the people I now have been using Four Square, but I guess it is something I am still hesitant about. I have never used it but still don’t see much benefit in using it for my business. Security is also another concern for me and I will admit I don’t know enough about Four Square to make an educated comment, I guess my concern using a location based social network is the privacy. I have a young child and it isn’t something that I want people to know where I am because of him. But as I said it is something I don’t know enough about so I could be wrong.
Hey Nick. Nice intro post. Good to see some practical examples of how Foursquare can be implemented for a paying client! Thanks.
Gday Glenn,
Thanks for the comment. I think FourSquare is going to be more and more widely used and integrated in the next few months. The early adopters will definitely get the maximum benefit from it, particularly small business owners.