Social Saturdays: FourSquare

FourSquare is the ultimate “check in” social media site. The 10 million users check into a location based on GPS positioning on their smartphone. By checking in, a user can access coupons or exclusive Foursquare deals at varying locations in the user’s city. Foursquare can simultaneously post a user’s check-in to Twitter and Facebook promoting that store to the user’s friends. If a user has the most check-ins at one location they become the “Mayor.” Some forward thinking stores provide their “Mayor” with excellent deals, encouraging their customers to visit the store more often.

Marketing Implications Store owners can upload daily deals to the Foursquare listings influencing users to check-in at stores for point of purchase savings. Foursquare is still a growing community mostly used by 18-30 year olds with cash to burn (must have a smartphone and data plan). Providing deals for a store’s “Mayor” is essentially a small-scale rewards program, allowing the company to give back to their most loyal customer(s). Additionally, advertisers already using LivingSocial and GroupOn will find re-posting their deals on FourSquare a convenient addition to their marketing efforts. SM: Personally, I think that this program has a lot of upside, but am up in the air over whether it will be adopted by mainstream users. Yes, it’s fun to compete against friends for points, badges, and what not, however, that cannot and will not support the long term success of this platform. There are two things I believe need to happen to jolt FourSquare to social media prominence. 1) A majority of companies need to embrace FourSquare as a loyalty program and start offering worthwhile rewards to its consumers. 2) FourSquare members need to start writing and reading their friends reviews/tips for various businesses. Without these two progressions in this platform, I fear that FourSquare may never have the societal impact that defines a top tier social media platform. PW: Sean’s two points are absolutely correct. Personally, it’s discouraging that store owners are not providing deals. If there are no deals when you check in, you are just playing against your friends for points. And that is no fun if NONE OF YOUR FRIENDS are playing! Half of my FourSquare friends (some of whom will read this) no longer check in, and have not in months. With users abandoning the service, I feel bad spamming them with my own check ins (but its the only way I get points any longer). It’s an exciting game for the first two weeks, but the novelty wears off. As Sean said, FourSquare must work hard to convince shops to offer deals through the app. More deals will equal more users. In the meantime, I might just switch to SCVNGR soon.

Since we agree with each other, please vote for either "Both," "Neither," or "Who Cares?" Be sure to check out our social media evaluation tab for synopsis of other social platforms.