How to start marketing on foursquare

“Creativity in its best form” is the phrase that we would love to associate with foursquare, which is an excellent social networking website having location based applications. Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai are the two masterminds behind the evolution of this wonderful application that took place in the year 2009. It enables your interaction with the environment using your mobile phone (smart phones)this is the theme behind the functioning of foursquare. Today it has the largest user base which is the second largest in the world, first being Facebook.

How does it function?

The users who are registered with foursquare can “check-in” (means they can post their location) and get connected with their friends on a particular venue. The users are awarded with points for the number of check-ins they do in a particular period. It also allows the users to post their check-ins on their Facebook accounts as well as twitter accounts. Also, if some locations have been already tagged by different users all over the world, the users can earn badges.

How companies use it for their marketing purposes?

Companies can create their own personal pages on foursquare. Once they create their own page on foursquare, they provide tips to the users on when they should check-in at some per-defined locations. The users can make use of these tips when they follow the company on foursquare. In this manner, the companies provide the users with expertise related to check-ins and thus earn more and more points. For enhanced customer each, some companies have provisions of unlocking some special badges that have a considerable number of check-ins. Now you may wonder as to how providing tips to the customers would help the companies in promoting themselves? Well, the pages that companies have created on foursquare also contain their Facebook and twitter account links so that the customers can be aware of these companies and the business which they deal in. the number of times a user visits the page of a particular company, the more is the awareness in the mind of the user regarding that company.

“Foursquare for business merchant “ is a platform that helps various restaurants, retail chains and other businesses(large or small) to claim certain venues using the foursquare application and thus they are able to provide special deals to the customers. This provides the customers with convenience in check-ins and connecting with their friends at different places. This process comprises of the following simple steps:

Ø Make a claim for a particular venue .You would be required to search for the venue on foursquare. It may be already available as someone might have already created it. You can click on “add a new venue on foursquare” link and then claim it.

Ø After filling of a questionnaire, your ownership would be verified after which you would be given a PIN for logging in.

Ø You can add your special deals on foursquare and market your product.

Ø After you have been assigned as an owner of a particular venue, the merchant platform can be used for rewarding the customers. The method by which specials can be created is being guided by a wizard. Also, foursquare allows you to add two specials that can run simultaneously. A dashboard analysis is being provided to you so that you can keep a track of the number of check-ins at a particular location. The details would include the number of check-ins in the last 30 days and average check-ins per day. A graphical representation of the check-ins helps in showing the status in an appropriate way and thus, contributes to the marketing strategy of the company.

Ø The extent of social reach would enable you to have a clear idea as to how much intensive your marketing strategies should be. This would also depict the status of your present customer reach.

Ø A segmentation based on the age group of customers enables you to manage your tips and number of check-ins effectively.

It is not mandatory that your brand or company should have a location (brick and mortar location). Even if your brand exists without being present physically (like a magazine) , foursquare can be efficiently used for enhancing the customer reach and implementation of marketing strategies. The unlocking of brand badges depends on the frequency of check-ins done by you and also on factors like the population of a particular location (for example, a check-in at a location with 50 people or more enables you to unlock Swarm badge). It is very important that your employees should learn the ways to recognize a particular foursquare user. It would ensure that the efforts that you put in a marketing campaign do not go in vain.