FourSquare…It’s More Than Just a Game

With FourSquare hitting the 10,000,000 user mark this past week it’s time you do more than just claiming your business? You could go play real FourSquare with the hipsters in the park or you could start taking advantage of all the different features that FourSquare has to offer your business for free!

Create a FourSquare Special

When a FourSquare user checks-in, they are often times rewarded with some type of special. There are seven different types of specials including:

• Swarm Special:
  • If 43 people check-in at your bar, everyone whom checked in will get 10% off of their bar tab
    • Can limit the frequency that this occurs and what number makes a swarm

• Friends Special:
  • Check-in with four friends and receive a free appetizer
    • FourSquare allows the number of friends that must be checked-in to be awarded the special

• Flash Special:
  • First 50 people into the store starting at 10:00 AM receive a coupon for $25.00 off of their purchase of $100.00 or more
    • Gives an incentive for individuals to come to your store at a specific time and specifically spend a certain amount of money

• Newbie Special:
  • On your first check-in, receive a free pedicure with the purchase of a manicure
    • Establish that relationship and hopefully gain a devoted customer

• Check-in Special:
  • A special every time a customer checks-in to your place of business

• Loyalty Special:
  • Every third check-in, receive a free desert with your dinner
    • Same concept as the Subway stamp card, reward your loyal customers for their loyalty

• Mayor Special:
  • If you are the mayor as of election day 2012, receive a free hour long party for you and 15 friends. All check-ins while mayor will be rewarded with 20% off of your bill.
    • Again, reward your loyal customers

A few other things to remember when creating your “FourSquare Special” are to keep it simple and to track the usage of each special, which leads me to my next topic!

Use FourSquare Check-In Statistics

FourSquare provides statistics for gender, age, check-in time and social reach (how many people are pushing their check-in onto Facebook or twitter). Use these statistics to your advantage to tailor your specials to target a specific market or specific times if your business is not busy before 7:00 P.M. If FourSquare users are pushing their information onto other social media outlets, one can use that information for further outreach in different marketing channels (twitter, facebook). FourSquare doesn’t track the usage of specials, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have your employees mark it down or keep track of any uses of FourSquare specials to see which ones work and which ones don’t.

Teach Your Employees About FourSquare and Please Don’t Let Them Be the Mayor

As an avid FourSquare user, I often run into the issue of checking into a business with a special and the employee won’t know what the special is or how to handle the special. It is frustrating for both parties, so make sure to always give your employees a heads-up of what the special is and or when it is changing, or how to track the special. One other aspect of teaching your employees about FourSquare is to make sure that they either don’t check-in at your business or have a separate check-in for employees. No FourSquare user wants to see the “Mayor” of their favorite establishment serving them their beer.

Use Posters In Your Business To Advertise Your Business on FourSquare

Yes, I know it is an interactive social app, but some people are not that big on checking into a business or completely forget to. With signs/posters with your FourSquare specials on them, the user will be more inclined to check-in and maybe even share or leave a FourSquare tip to their friends. Yes, it is simple and dare I say “old school” to use posters to advertise an interactive phone app, but it will be worth it in the long run.

To make a long story short, there are now 10,000,000 users on FourSquare, you can’t ignore them forever; it is free, so make sure to claim your business if you have not already done so and start growing your business using FourSquare.