The job of any successful PR professional is to keep abreast of all the new and emerging technologies that will help them become more successful. With so many social media tools out there, the challenge for most is to decide which tools makes the most sense to use and will provide the best results.
Foursquare is one such social network application that is rapidly growing in popularity, even more so since Facebook launched its own location-based service, Facebook Places. If you aren’t familiar with Foursquare, it connects users and allows them to broadcast their locations using their mobile devices.
Foursquare is especially attractive because it allows communicators to tie their programs to physical point-of-sale activities—something that has proven to be difficult to accomplish in the broader social Web.
So far, Foursquare has proven to be most effective in the food and beverage, hospitality and entertainment industries—spaces that have brick-and-mortar destinations. But having a bar or restaurant isn’t a requirement; PR pros are experimenting using Foursquare for one-off and recurring events, too.
So how can you leverage Foursquare for your PR activities? To help answer this question, we chatted with some PR pros, took a hard look at how some brands are currently using Foursquare and came up with the list of five steps below.
1. Determine how your brand stacks up on Foursquare:
Before diving into a full-blown Foursquare campaign, check to see if your business (or client) is listed in Foursquare. If they are, find out how active users are engaging with it. If there are multiple locations, find out who the top mayors are—mayors are people who have the most check-ins at a location. If you’re an organization without a physical location, see the next step.
2. Take ownership of your venue: Venues on Foursquare are usually created by individual members as they check in to a location. Therefore, they are often missing important information or are inaccurate. You can go in and claim your venue and make sure your information is correct.
If there is no venue, you can register one yourself. For a planned event, create a venue with the event title—Digital PR Conference, for example.
3. Utilize the Tips feature: One of the easiest ways to start getting traction with Foursquare is to use the “Tips” function. Food and beverage communicators may target a user who checks in to a local restaurant with a tip saying, “Since you are so close to Starbucks, you might want to stop by for a latte. Mayors get 15% off their order.”
This type of targeted campaign helps to influence and drive awareness and traffic to your business.
4. Promote your Foursquare presence: Make sure customers know that your venue is a part of Foursquare. At physical locations, display materials like the official Foursquare window stickers. For events, leverage channels such as Facebook, Twitter and your Web site to let fans know they can check in at the event using Foursquare.
Other ways to market participation might be to host an event and offer Foursquare check-in incentives to attendees, or organize a Foursquare swarm party, where attendees get a “Swarm” badge if there are 50 or more people checked into your venue.
5. Give them a reason to check in—again: Encourage your customers to return by giving them a reason to. Develop and implement a Foursquare loyalty system for repeat customers.
Why try Foursquare? Here’s some benefits given by PR pros who have used the platform:
• Real-time feedback: Like Twitter, you can monitor and respond to people’s comments in real time.
• Robust data: Foursquare Perspective delivers key statistics such as total venues, total check-ins, unique visitors and total mayorships via snappy graphs and maps.
• Virtual community: Here’s another opportunity to connect people with common interests to your brand.
For the right organizations, Foursquare can generate significant and immediate feedback and bottom-line results. PRN
CONTACT:
This article was written by David Carter, founder and CTO of Awareness Inc. He can be reached at [email protected].
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