Should My Business Be on Foursquare?

Isn’t this New Media world we live in excit­ing! LOL I know what my con­trac­tor audi­ence is think­ing, ​“David I can’t take it any­more! To many new toys, gad­gets, sites, likes, followers…ahhh!” Well, I’m hear to tell you about anoth­er one! Actu­al­ly, many of you have already heard of it. It’s called Foursquare. It is a GPS mobile app where an indi­vid­ual checks-in at a local busi­ness, shop­ping cen­ter, park, gov­ern­ment build­ing and so on. It is a mini social net­work­ing pro­gram where the indi­vid­ual can have friends con­nect­ed to his or her check-ins and can com­ment, share, become the may­or of a busi­ness and even offer tips about the place they are vis­it­ing. Foursquare is unique in that it offers users spe­cials based on where they check in at. The local busi­ness of course has to sign up to offer these spe­cials. How it works: A user looks at his device, finds the name of the place he is at, clicks ​“Check in Here” and if there is a spe­cial, he’ll get a coupon that a busi­ness can type in a code or scan the device. Foursquare keeps track of the per­son­’s check ins at each loca­tion and can earn points as well as become the may­or (per­son who has checked in the most/​recent). Now that you know the basics of Foursquare, should you 1) Use it your­self and 2) Have your busi­ness list­ed? Pros of Foursquare for a Business

• It can cre­ate cus­tomer loy­al­ty: i.e. Some restau­rants offer the ​“may­or” of their loca­tion a bet­ter deal than any­one else. Why not! The per­son shows up the most and orders from them. Reward your top clients and they’ll keep com­ing back. Also those who are not may­ors can also get spe­cial deals for mul­ti­ple check ins. So this too cre­ates cus­tomers fight­ing for may­or­ship or to receive a free meal, drink, per­cent­age off or some­thing spe­cial now and then.
• Good brand aware­ness: It does­n’t cost to list your busi­ness and it just gives more peo­ple oppor­tu­ni­ty to see your name.
• Most of your com­peti­tors are not using it (yet)
• It is grow­ing in popularity
• You can learn what peo­ple think of your busi­ness: peo­ple can offer tips about the busi­ness­es they visit
• It can be addict­ing and fun com­pet­ing with friends for points, spe­cials and mayorships!

Cons of Foursquare for Business

• Pri­va­cy issues: peo­ple can know where you are. This def­i­nite­ly both­ers a lot of people!
• It is just anoth­er thing to do…and it prob­a­bly won’t bring you tons and tons of busi­ness if you are a con­trac­tor. A restau­rant on the hand should def­i­nite­ly do it.
• It is addict­ing if you use Foursquare, and most of the time, a waste of time. So if you get hooked, you might need to go to a Foursquare recov­ery pro­gram someday!
• Learn what peo­ple think about your busi­ness can be depress­ing! Yes…and the bad you can’t delete! The more you expose your busi­ness online, the more you real­ly have to watch and pro­tect your rep­u­ta­tion. This does help com­pa­nies pro­vide bet­ter cus­tomer service.
• Check-ins don’t do much for you: For a ser­vice com­pa­ny that works at the con­sumer’s home or busi­ness, your cus­tomers won’t be check­ing in at your office very often. In this case, Foursquare will be pri­mar­i­ly for brand aware­ness only.
• Offer­ing deals and spe­cials won’t work well: Can it work? Yes. But again, most ser­vice com­pa­nies won’t have cus­tomers check­ing in.

So are you using Foursquare now? Do you like it? Hate it or have no clue what it is!? I use Foursquare and a hun­dred oth­er tools, because I’m test­ing out gad­gets, apps, pro­grams, for my clients. I must admit, I thought Foursquare was dumb for the longest time. I decid­ed to swal­low my pride and try it out. Well, after 6+ months of steady use…it is kind of fun. I am com­pet­i­tive, so I’m com­pet­ing with my office man­ag­er for first place and may­or­ships in our city! Oh, and my busi­ness is on Foursquare. If you hap­pen to be in my area and check in, I’ll treat you to lunch!