Excellent examples — and a nice twist on Foursquare. Rather than driving sales or rewarding loyalty, in your scenarios, it’s all about customer service!

Thanks for sharing them!

Enjoy not being in DSM today! We got a late season snow and everyone is quite grumpy! If you ever get back this way — give me a shout and we can grab coffee!

I want to address the comments regarding B2B value. What if you were a sales rep and you saw which of your competition had checked in on one of your clients. That’s valuable.
What if you are that business and you could create a way for your vendor reps to work better together to help you as a customer?

Here’s an example: I’m an IBM backup and recovery sales rep checking in at AIG’s building where their CTO offices. When I check in I see that Iron Mountain’s rep was there the day before? That changes how I talk to the client.

Another example: I’m the print rep for AstraZeneca visiting their building in Wilmington and upon checking in I see that the DigitasHealth rep is there too. We can connect for an impromptu conversation about how each of us serves the same client and find synergies between us to speed the clients processes. We both look great to our client.

Just my 2 cents!

BTW-Drew, I used to live in DSM when I worked for Younkers. I’m a Quad-Cities girl relo’d to Philly. I still miss Seniomsed on Friday afternoons.

First — I agree that the check in from anywhere is going to be a deal breaker if Foursquare really wants to be seen as a viable marketing tool. So that will need to change.

I’m like you — I’m just playing at this point to get the lay of the land. But it’s certainly created some buzz. Now the question is — what’s behind the buzz to sustain it.

Great post — thanks for sharing it!

Drew

Posted on location-based business models myself recently: http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/2010/1/21/Emerging-Platforms/Location–location–location—more-than-enough-mobile-eyeballs-to-go-around-_1141.aspx

Let me know what you think.

Thanks

Thanks for this post – I am a few days late reading it, but was prompted to look for info about whether or not I could use Foursquare if I switch from an iPhone to a Droid. Very happy to hear the answer is yes! Like everyone else, when I initially heard about Foursquare my question was “Why?” But then it just turned out to be fun and a little competition between friends. From a marketer’s POV, I am already talking to some of my current and potential local, small business clients about using Foursquare to offer incentives to users. We’ll see.

There is a very valid point above about verifying check-ins. Personally, it wouldn’t be fun if I cheated. But not everyone feels that way, especially when there is a free pizza party on the line!

It will be fun to see how this progresses and what innovative ways B2B can find to use Foursquare as well.

All we need to do now, is to go and educate the small business owners.
Who’s up for the challenge ??

In your project — did you explore how apps like Foursquare could be specifically used in the real estate industry or are you saying you’d like to figure it out? Are there any regulations that would restrict how agents or a real estate company might use the tool?

Drew

Here’s a blog post that does a very nice job of explaining how it all works:

http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/27779/what-is-foursquare

Thanks,

Drew

CauseWorld sounds like it has some interesting twists to it. As you say — people like to do good. It’s a strong motivator and it allows a business to build some cause marketing muscle as well. Especially if it was coupled with other offline activities.

Clearly the one thing we know for sure is that geolocation applications are one of the hot trends of 2010. I’m looking forward to seeing which ones survive what will no doubt be an onslaught of new competitors in the coming months.

Drew

For most of our users, just the help this brings as a tool to market yourself with social networks can be a blessing – that’s what we call Stage One. Of course, there are plenty of ways to keep developing and merging this technology with others, especially in the Geo-IP/QR Barcodes areas.

What I want to understand is how FourSquare could be used in the real estate segment as a way to prompt more actual check-ins rather than the quick-360-video dismissals many buyers do over the internet now.

Right now, I think everyone is just starting to figure Foursquare out. So, yes…I think there is plenty of “I’m at the office” check ins.

I’ve thought about the security implications/concerns as well. I guess this is a little different in that most check ins are pretty short term (restaurant, coffee shop) rather than I’m on vacation sorts of updates. But, the risk are there.

I think being cautious is probably a wise watchword when it comes to any of the social media tools that feel very personal and private but are in fact, quite public.

Drew

All valid questions. I think all of this still has to be sorted out. I predict that the users will self-regulate a lot of these issues.

I suppose ultimately if Foursquare doesn’t provide value, it will fade away — much like MySpace.

I think that a smart business could come up with a worthy offer/special/enticement that would encourage people to actually make a purchase. I’m not sure how many people have time to drive around town, checking in just to check in. That might be a problem in the beginning but it would wear off pretty quickly.

Drew

What concerns me most about Foursquare are the implications it has with personal security. I have seen stories about people Tweeting that they are away from home and upon returning find out they were robbed. This community just seems a little too voyeur for me broadcasting every time I fill up my tank of gas each week or going to get my haircut.

On the other hand, I have aspirations of doing something within the music industry. I could see, with limited and strategic use, having artists use Foursquare to share future locations of events or random “fan tweetups” while on tour.

I will grant you, there are probably countless way to take advantage of using Foursquare, but people singing up and using Foursquare need to cautious.

As I see it, Foursquare “rewards” someone who checks in the most, even though they may not necessarily buy anything from me or even be at my establishment. Why would I want to do that?

Let’s take a different view. Let’s say Foursquare “rewards” someone who checks in the most and actually DOES buy something from me each time. Most likely this is someone who is going to buy something from me anyway based on the experience data that they always do buy something. So by rewarding the mayor of my establishment, I have actually given away a discount to someone who would have bought from me anyway without a discount. Why would I want to do that?

Besides the exposure which is great (although my understanding is that Foursquare only has 200,000 users), I don’t see how using Foursquare to reward customers will help my bottomline. Thoughts?

Your company could become a real hero if you helped your restaurant clients figure this out. They’re the perfect audience for this. They can reward loyal customers, lure in new ones and promote specific offerings or slow days.

I’ll be looking forward to hearing what you come up with!

Drew

As far as the cheaters, I think there will be a self-policing aspect that will naturally occur. Gamers will eventually be found out and word of mouth/SM may take care of this problem.

I am very excited for our B2C customers (mainly restaurants) to use Foursquare. I think businesses will understand the “turn your social life into a game” more readily than they understood how to use Twitter. This may be the app that pulls a large portion of B2Cs into the SM space.

As always a great post and very thought-provoking.

I couldn’t agree more. I think right now, it’s a case of the newness and people haven’t figured out how to self-monitor/regulate the activity.

I was in Vegas last week and thought I had disabled the Update Facebook option. So I went exploring one night and ended up hitting about 8 or 9 locations in a few hours. Unfortunately, I peppered my Facebook friends with all of that activity. (Several were worried about the volume and speed of my drinking!). I’ve since adjusted the setting so I don’t subject anyone to all of my wanderings again.

For me, it’s like people who just broadcast all of their Tweets on Facebook etc. Bottom line — you have to be considerate of your audience. Otherwise, as you suggest — you’re just creating noise.

Drew

I think this is so new that the possibilities haven’t even been discovered yet.

Much like Twitter’s early days — it will be the users who eventually evolve the tool. I’m looking forward to watching it. As you say — we’ll see how it works!

Drew

Agreed – the uptick has been very noticeable in our neck of the woods. I’m hoping that early adopters (businesses, not users) are very quickly rewarded with lots of traffic AND some buzz among the influencers. I can see Mars Cafe jumping all over this, can’t you?
w
I’ve been wracking my brain to come up with some B2B examples or possibilities but I have to admit, it’s been much more difficult than the easy B2C offerings.

Drew

I couldn’t agree more — this is a local business’ dream. It works equally well on locals as well as visitors and depending on your willingness to get creative — you could really create a ton of buzz with very little expense or pre-planning.

I’m hoping that businesses that have felt left out of the social media hype will now see that there’s a very viable option for them — and try it!

Drew

I hadn’t heard of your offering — I’m going to check it out! What do you think is the biggest difference between yours and Foursquare?

Drew

I’ve been adding a lot of venues here in Des Moines too. Part of the fun for me is seeing other people begin to use the venues I’ve added. I know…geek.

This is a natural for loyalty programs — I agree. I think the other place we’re going to start seeing it get active is in the events/conference space. How cool would it be to create some buzz around a specific booth or presentation via Foursquare?

Drew

I don’t think that every social media tool is equally suited for all audiences. Maybe Foursquare is more of a B2C tool.

Of course, in the beginning we couldn’t imagine Twitter having any functional B2B purpose either. Time will tell.

Just for clarification — Foursquare has an app for iPhone, the Droid phones and Blackberry — so it’s reach is widening!

Drew

Thanks for jumping in. Who do you think will object to the non-regulatory nature — the business owner who is offering the promotion or the users?

Do you think people will game it just for the Mayor title or only if there’s a worthy prize?

Drew