Can’t get enough of social media? Well neither can major companies such as Pepsi, HBO, and BravoTV. Foursquare, an application for mobile phones has quickly made its way into the social media scene and continues to add companies to its long list of members.
A little background on Foursquare: It allows people to “check-in” to wherever they are located. For instance, when visiting a cafe, bar, or restaurant, you simply “check-in” via the Foursquare application on your phone. It then notifies your “friends” of your whereabouts. Foursquare keeps track of how many times you’ve “checked-in” to the places you are visiting and compares your visits with how many times other people visit the same place. If you frequent the spot more than others, then you become the “Mayor” of the restaurant, cafe, bar, etc.
How do businesses incorporate this “geolocation” social media? Businesses have begun to utilize Foursquare as a way to offer rewards for people who become the “Mayor” of their establishment—a free coffee, free appetizer, etc. Many of the television stations are now using Foursquare to send “pings” about certain TV shows. When a user “checks-in” at a venue, they are then able to view tips, which “friends” leave about the particular venue. Recently, stations such as BravoTV and HBO leave “tips” at select locations, which are usually related to TV show characters or themes. Users who add the stations/shows as friends can view the “tips” at the locations, which then allows them to unlock “badges. “Badges” are tied to items such as real-life awards, sweepstakes, and coupons.
Will Foursquare catch on as a successful promotional tool, just as Twitter and Facebook have? The platform is still in the experimental phase, but already has the backing of big-name advertisers. It is also rumored that the developers at Facebook are creating a “check-in” feature. It will be interesting to follow Foursquare’s expansion as they have already begun discussing new campaigns with The History Channel, and a partnership with Zagat, a restaurant review guide that also allows users to publish tips about restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, San Fransisco, and Philadelphia.
Rachel Kaylor, Writer
Danielle Murray, Researcher
Mandy Baker, Design
This has potential. Something similar to this has been tried before with Loopt but everyone just thought it was too stalker-ish. I think now the emphasis is on letting people know when you’re at a particular place, as opposed to knowing where everyone else is. Businesses could really be on to something with the rewards, and the idea of user-created tips popping up after you check in adds a whole new layer to the social networking going on here. Some kind of aggregated list of places and their number of check-ins would be cool too. A visitor to a city or area of town could log on, search for coffee shops, see which place has the most check-ins, and make a decision based on that.