In case you missed the most recent news, Mashable is reporting geo-groovy app Foursquare has raised $20 Million, taking its value up to $95 Million. I could not be happier. When companies get this kind of support and certainly this kind of buy-in, it means the market is listening and that smart people are seeing the bigger picture — and the great potential for such a clever application. Let’s hope the small businesses of the world are listening, too. As I roll around Boulder, I’m still surprised by the lack of a good foothold it has with local merchants. I’m doing my part to change that, but it will take some time.
Oh, and one more key piece that makes me happy about this news? Foursquare owners decided to continue building, rather than selling themselves off to some larger company that could ruin them. Score one more for the little guys! That seems worthy of a special kind of Mayor badge.
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Are you using Foursquare or do you want to talk more about it? Have your say below, or by all means, connect with me there.
We’re just getting the swing of using Twitter for our business and the response has been pretty positive. Thanks for this post, because it gives me another way to use it that I hadn’t heard of. I’m wondering if my competitors or even other businesses in my area are using this yet. Do you know of a simple way for me to find out?
I’m still doing the “due diligence” to figure out what geotagging or geolocation is. This helped simplify things for me.Still not sure if our business is ready for it, but thanks for the info.
Yelp is becoming more and more similar, but it’s a different platform really, because it truly is a review app. Yelp is adding more game-like elements, so now has “Duchess/Duke” to match Foursquare’s “Mayor” title, but has now gone a step beyond to “Baron” and “King” for the ultra social. All told though, Yelp’s real strength lies in the thorough reviews of businesses and the way people use it to seek out businesses. Gowalla to me is always playing keep up, or the “me to” game. They’ve added a more social component and are even considering adding a similar “Mayorship” feature to their app. You can’t add tips (yet), so it’s really more of a way to just see where your friends are and where they’ve been. It’s morphing, but it’s way behind Foursquare and Yelp IMHO.
For your question on business use of Foursquare, your plan of attack can be as simple or complex as you like — and can manage. Here are a couple of tips I share with clients: Have a special for the Mayor of your business and switch it every 3 or so weeks to see how popular the offer was. Publicize the fact that you are on Foursquare and make a visible sign in your place to show it, plus the deals you’re offering both Mayors and guests of your business (Foursquare Specials, for example.) This is a very simple plan to set in place, mainly because it’s scalable and easily measurable. Make sure to put this in a spreadsheet so you can easily tell what worked, what fell flat and of course, what your customers had to say. Key to all of this is making sure your staff is aware and promoting/supporting the campaign. Good luck and if you need help, get in touch.