How To Use Foursquare For Your Business

You may have notice that a lot of people are starting to be more open in letting the world know where they are. Thanks to foursquare, it became easy for us to share places we go to with our friends. But foursquare is not just another nice, shinning app to be added in our collection.

I’m not the type who thinks 100 times before installing a new app. If it’s something new, I’ll try it and if I see any value around it, I share it. Interested on how foursquare can help your business?

Foursquare is a location-based application. You can install it in an iPhone, an Android and a Blackberry. As a business, being found offline and online are part of our goals to let people know that we exist. With lots of people carrying mobile phones every day, I think this will work. So, how do we use this simple app for our business?

The Idea

We need to let people know that we will start using foursquare as another channel to engage and connect with our customers. If you have a Facebook fan page, a single post will do the job or if you have a Twitter account, casual Tweets can send the buzz. Inside the business establishment, a small investment in creating a sign will do (check in at Foursquare?).

By the way, foursquare can be integrated with our Facebook and Twitter accounts. Isn’t that neat?

Business Benefits

One of the most sought after badge in foursquare is the Mayor’s badge. This is given to individuals who check in the most in a particular establishment. We can always think of think of “specials” for people who always visits your establishment.

Since foursquare can be integrated with our facebook and twitter accounts, a single check in can be viewed by hundreds of people within our network. Simple word-of-mouth marketing for our business and it didn’t cost us a fortune.

Listen to your customers by encouraging them to Add Tips when they check in. The more they let people know about your business, the more you get prepared in doing adjustments.

How To Use It For Your Business

Customer Rewards – We can think of many ways to reward our customers who check in via foursquare. This can be promoted via Twitter and Facebook.

Mayor’s Special – Once earned by a frequent customer, we can offer him/her specials discounts, coupons or gift certificates.

Hold Monthly Events – For foursquare users only. This is to encourage others to participate and get curious with what foursquare is. You’re happy and foursquare too is happy.

Sponsor the Leaderboard – the leader board shows users who have earned the most points in a city. This was opened up recently for sponsorship. You can take a look at what Pepsi did with this one.

I heard that foursquare will soon integrate analytics for people to track real-time data. So, this is good. We can measure fun stuff we are doing in foursquare.

There are so many possibilities on how we could use foursquare for our business. It’s just a matter of creativity and making sure that it adds value. For the skeptics, it will be hard to understand foursquare if you don’t participate. Stop analyzing too much, just dive in and see what it can do for you and your business. And it’s FREE!