Foursquare has been gaining more steam this past week, with articles about the service (or location-based services in general – Brightkite, Google Latitude, Stalqer, Gowalla) in CNN, Huffington Post, Washington Post, and NPR. These services are definitely being hyped as the “next big thing,” especially because of their marketing potential – what I want to focus on in this travelogue.
So far, there are 35 NYC based businesses (mostly bars and restaurants) actively using Foursquare to promote return visits and promotions. Here are a few examples of what they’re doing:
@Angels and Kings: Hey Hey! Every 5th check in on Foursquare get a well drink or beer for free! Show your bartender to redeem!
user comments on Angels and Kings promo
@ Nurse Bettie: Show the bartender you’ve checked-in and get 1 drink free after your 1st purchase. Mayor gets happy hour pricing all night!
@ Gustorganics: Hey Hey! Free 100% organic basil martini on your 10th check-in on Foursquare!
@ Haakon’s Hall: Mayor gets a Haakon’s Hall Amber Ale or a Norwegian Ice-Cream Sandwich!!
@ Foos Burgers: Free game of foosball on your first check in. Beat the reigning champion and win a beer and burger at Lucky Strike. (Mon – Fri 10-6)
@ The Lite Choice: Hey Hey! Buy any size cup or cone and get a FREE “upgrade” to the next size! Show your server that you’ve checked in on foursquare to redeem!
And I had to add Foursquare’s headquarters, just because I thought it was a great example of their use of humor and the tone/language they use.
@ 4SQ HQ: If you’ve been here more than 5x, help yourself to one free make-out session with Naveen. Ladies only, please.
As you can see, businesses are using Foursquare similar to a coupon or customer loyalty card. With the small user-base right now, I think the advantage to this is Foursquare’s linkage to Twitter and Facebook, spreading word-of-mouth to all of the customer’s friends who may not be registered Foursquare users.
When you check-in to a venue, Foursquare automatically alerts the user of the promotions being offered, and will alert users to promotions and recommendations in the surrounding area as well (on the same block or street) – the advertisements are in real-time, personalized, and relevant to what the individual is doing at that exact moment. There’s great potential here for businesses to implement hyper-local marketing. 
- pic from psfk.com
There has also been talk of sponsored badges – the partnership with BART allows users to receive a BART badge, and TechCrunch believes this contains even more possibility: “I’ve had a number of conversations with people in the advertising space who think that sponsored badges which center around events (like SXSW, where the Foursquare iPhone app officially launched) has real potential.”
Another advantage Foursquare has is the location data they gather. Through check-ins, Foursquare has the quantifiable data to measure a venue’s foot traffic, valuable in understanding consumer behavior and measuring how effective the service actually is.
“Being able to connect web advertising, recommendations, and social media buzz to an actual person walking into your store has long been the holy grail of the advertising world. We spent lots of money and effort online to drum up our brand, but does it actually drive food traffic? Foursquare knows.” (thisisgoingtobebig.com)
In class we discussed a bit about Foursquare’s potential profitability. As of right now, Foursquare is based on investors, but they haven’t implemented a monetary based business model with venues yet.
“[We're] really just focusing on getting the product working properly (crashes / UX etc). [It's] worth noting that we don’t want to shoehorn biz stuff in at the last min, which is why we’re trying to get local merchants involved now. Even if all the deals are freebees,” Crowley TechCrunch in an email a month ago.
Sounds like a smart plan. The most obvious business model here would be for Foursquare to charge local businesses to have them promote these deals to drive customers to their venues, or incorporate sponsorships, as mentioned above.
One can ask: “Do we really need more advertising?” Well, advertising is never going to disappear – so would relevant, personalized advertising be less invasive and more effective? It’s something to think about.
This all has very much to do with our readings this week. Foursquare, and/or the other mobile technology location-based services have the potential to alter the way we interact with our urban environment, and the way that our surroundings can alter our behavior – it will be interesting to see whether Foursquare eventually does impact the way we move about our city.
Possibly Relevant Posts:
- “Checking In” To Foursquare (6) | Alison
- Foursquare: Another hyped start-up, or a valuable social media tool? (5) | Alison
- Foursquare’d: Week 1 (2) | Alison
4 Comments
From your analysis, I’m thinking this is like Google Analytics but for… like real space. I’m both extremely excited, and extremely frightened by the prospect!
Nice call Harlo. You are right on. As an advertising platform, it seems like Four Square stands to be a champion in the hyper local advertising market. What I like about this is that it is a nice hybrid between online engagement and real world activity. I wonder how this technology could be leveraged for something non commercial (not to throw you off your travelogue).
The business potential for Foursquare is incredible. I’ve never used it (BlackBerry user), but I wonder how invasive its users find it? What are your opinions/opinions you’ve heard? Are there any features you choose to ignore? I suppose that although its invasive, its not SO bad because the user has the authority to use it or not use it. I’m fearing the day where ads can pop up on my phone uncontrolled.
Is foursquare available on a standard computer or netbook, or only on phones? If it were, perhaps free wifi might become more common – which would be fantastic.
If Foursquare can provide businesses numbers as to foot traffic, they could then sell further information (all that demographic info they collect when you sign up) back to the businesses that participate. I am not sure if there are laws regarding this, but theoretically a business you went to once could buy your mailing address from a service like Foursquare and then send you flyers, etc.
Ironic to me, since we have finally gotten to the point where we have some laws/limits on telephone solicitations (e.g., No Call lists). We will have to continue churning out laws to keep up with the technology, but there will always be a lagtime, during which negative societal effect builds. I remember how furious I used to get when I got text solicitations when I first started using sms in 1999-2000; they started out infrequently, then I got more and more. After awhile there were new laws/systems in place to combat that, because clearly a chunk of society was getting pissed off too.
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[...] service seems to be promising a lot in the way of near-future developments. As I discussed in my last post, Foursquare has the potential to combine marketing with consumer engagement both online and [...]