A New Generation Marketer

For many of us socially connected techies with smart phones, the idea of Foursquare is a no-brainer. Share where you are with friends, earn badges and mayorships and occasionally be rewarded by a venue for your check-ins.

With over one hundred million Foursquare users to date, you might think it is more popular than it really is. In fact, Forrester Research found that only 4% of the adult, internet-using population has used a location-based application and only 1% of all adults check into locations once a week. Compared to social network behemoths like Facebook and Twitter, this is quite a small user base.

While Foursquare has integrated with the History Channel and has an ad on Bravo it is still not mainstream, but is getting there.

While many marketers believe Foursquare is not worth integrating into their marketing program, I think it CAN be a viable marketing channel, if not now, then in the near future.

Take a local restaurant, for example. They could create a check-in for their location, monitor who checks in, see if they tweet about it or share it on Facebook, and keep track of repeat visitors. With some simple monitoring, they could begin to view trends of who comes in on a regular basis and how they share it.

From there, the restaurant manager can create a special promotion or coupon for the user to reward them for their loyalty. Of course, getting a coupon from just using Foursquare will generate some local buzz which can only help the restaurant. Just like any social network, word will spread fast and more people will want to visit this venue and check-in frequently to get rewarded as well.

Now, take a large company like Target or Macy’s, for example. They could use a tool such as developed by Burlington, Mass based Awareness which can help them monitor and track visits to their locations. They can easily see trends and develop a rewards program for frequent visitors, such as 20% off an entire purchase after 5 check-ins.

Many companies and marketing agencies may view creating a Foursquare marketing campaign as a complex process, but all it really needs to have is a simple understanding of the people who check-in and how often, and then a type of promotion to give loyal visitors.

If large companies like Target and Macy’s begin to adopt these reward programs, it is sure to gain traction and press quickly. The great part about Foursquare is that it can be used anywhere, from a local boutique to a large clothing department store, meaning anyone can create a program around the application.

Even with their recent partnership with the History Channel and ad on Bravo, they have gained some serious traction, and now have over 40 million check-ins to date.

It will be very interesting to see how local to world-wide companies begin to use Foursquare in their marketing efforts. As more companies join the bandwagon, users are sure to follow. Within the past year alone they have significantly increased their user base, so it is only expected to grow exponentially from here.

How has your company used Foursquare to engage visitors? Do you see it as a viable marketing channel now or in the near future?

Note: I originally wrote this article as a guest blog post on 4squarebadges.com