Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Store, Cause, or Business with Foursquare
Time 19:59
If you are business skeptical about social media here is a new way to look at it. What if someone wants to find a new widget (you make, sell or have something to do with widgets) and this person comes to your place. When they get there, they use their smartphone, one of more than 291 million sold in the third quarter of 2009 alone.
They will use an application for the Android and iPhone among others called Foursquare. This interesting application combines the use of the location of the phone, city maps, an increasing database of business, civic, and other locations, and taps the curiosity and competitiveness of human nature.
Here are some screen shots from Foursquare and how I use it. You can see when I check into a place, Starbucks for example, it give the number of times I have told others I am there, points for checking in, and when I do that more than others over a week’s time I can become Mayor of that location. A competitive or at least context reference point compared to your friends on Foursquare and others using Foursquare in that city. Foursquare has a variety of rewards like becoming a Mayor when you have checked in to a specific place more than others in that city, or earn badges for specific types of actions. In this podcast with Tristan Walker, vp of business development for Foursquare, we discuss ways retail and non profits are driving traffic to their venue. 
Using the same incentive and reward concepts as scouting badges (or promotions, perks, and discounts, for big scouts) you can drive behavior. Hmmm that health insurance provider cutting those premiums for people who have the Gym Rat badge. The concepts are proven, the integration with other elements of technology and lifestyle are not.
The ability to share a piece of information when you are close enough to do something about it, that’s the logic behind Foursquare’s Nearby Special. I check in at a restaurant across from the Target Center in Minneapolis, and I see a message from the Timberwolves with a link to the game day media report and offers for that night’s game.
Today’s I’m attending the Social Media Breakfast Des Moines where will be talking about mobile applications and how the expansion of 3G networks and beyond, is creating innovation like Foursquare. Follow #smbdm on Twitter.
It’s early, so now is the time to push innovation with this application as a business. Foursquare is looking for what people, businesses, and organizations find of value in geotagging, crowd sourcing, consumer behavior, and demand creation. Foursquare will capture a marketer’s attention in the same way Twitter captured the attention of individuals. It’s a communications platform with plenty of potential uses, many of which are yet to be tried.
Robert Scoble reported this week on Foursquare releasing their API for developers to use with other applications. Ah, here is the catalyst of innovation, once you’ve created something people find interesting, give them the wherewithal to shape it to their needs. Innovation is like cookie dough, not cookies.
Scoble suggest in this post about how developers might use a Foursquare stream of individuals as a map of a lifestyle. Scoble refers to tracing the steps of noted wine expert Gary Vaynerchuk. I think if you are in New York City you might blurt out to your friend, ” Hey I’m going to have a Jimmy Fallon weekend,” and do the same things that he does an a weekend. Yes, this is a much better, honest form of celebrity endorsement.
Tags: Geolocation, geotagging, mobile applications
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 6:34 am and is filed under marketing, mobile, social media.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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November 24th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Albert, I think you bring up the key point in whether or not Foursquare will take off – business adoption. I think with Foursquare, it’s not so much the technology or the use, it’s how and if businesses integrate it into their strategy.
As of now, the only incentive (a few are doing well with Foursquare) is that the Mayor of a bar can receive a free beer. Where’s the incentive for other people to visit? The value isn’t there right now. Businesses need to give up a significant amount for this marketing strategy to work. Bars are a tough example and business to use. So lets use a local hardware store. Maybe the Mayor gets 5% of purchases and anyone who can show they’ve checked in get 2%. Obviously the numbers can be adjusted.
I see potential, but I also see hurdles. As we sit now, I see Foursquare as hype. Hopefully, they’ll turn it around, because I’m an avid user of it – just to keep track of visits.
November 25th, 2009 at 6:07 am
OK I’ll bite on this one, sure the Mayor discount, freebie is an obvious one. I think all of that discounting is old school thinking using new technologies and in the case of Foursquare folding in the wrinkle of gaming competitiveness.
But as Tristan says in the podcast, they are looking for innvative ways business will Shape, not follow usage. Quite frankly it’s not up to Foursquare to determine what’s valuable for business, it’s up to business to determine what is valuable about knowing where people are within the city, how their customers interact with other establishments and organizations.
See that’s the beauty of where we are and the API – it’s not up to the company to tell me what’s right for me. I think you are smart, which is why if you recommend a book I’ll likely give it a read rather than who the latest shill is on Oprah.
Next time we are out an about checking in on Foursquare you don’t have to be the Mayor, next beer is on me.
All the best and thanks for commenting. By the way, your comment may not get you a beer, but will get a food item donated to a St. Paul food shelter. Happy Thanksgiving!
November 25th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Twitter Comment
yes! RT @AlbertMaruggi dont @ look @Foursquare from an individual’s perspective,look at it from a biz perspective [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
November 30th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Great interview, Albert! It’s what pushed me off the fence to finally sign up and check out Foursquare for myself… but, as of right now, I’m just not “getting it.”
I wrote up my experience on my blog (http://emlarson.blogspot.com/2009/11/fumbling-with-foursquare.html — which is a long enough link that it’ll probably break here) but my point isn’t to get into a public troubleshooting session.
All I’m sayin’ is that if I, a fairly “geeky type person” with a moderate level of experience and skill with mobile technologies, am having a problem finding Foursquare even functional (let alone “useful” or “fun”)… I don’t think that bodes well for the thing overall.
Maybe the answer is, “If you were using a client other than a BlackBerry, it would be great!”… but it’s not like the BlackBerry is a rare commodity in the world.
Or maybe the answer is, “When you can’t find your location, you should be adding it yourself and building the community!”… but if I can’t find any of the three places I’ve tried, and when what I -am- finding is cluttered and redundant, is that really a solution?
Or maybe I’m just totally missing something obvious and I’ve publicly exposed my ignorance here… but if it helps the Foursquare folks to make their service more idiot-proof, I’m happy to serve as an example of idiocy for their sake.
January 25th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
Twitter Comment
@amiesandoval Just listened to @albertMaruggi podcast about @foursquare and it helped to understand the business use. [link to post]
– Posted using Chat Catcher
November 2nd, 2010 at 8:26 pm
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