Ways to Use Foursquare to Promote Your Business

If you own an online business or are a brick and mortar business owner Foursquare is a online tool you should be aware of and that you can use to your advantage to build your business.   This free online tool is a great addition to your marketing plan to promote your business.   

A lot of brick and mortars already use foursquare to connect with customers, do promotions and give discounts or coupons.  The exciting thing is this can be a great tool for those of you who own an online business as well. 

So what is Foursquare?

Foursquare is a year old free social networking site that has already grown to 275,000 users.  The site provides microblogging capabilities like Twitter but the thing that Foursquare has that makes it unique is the Geolocation feature along with your status update.   Foursquare uses the Geolocation feature to establish where a user is through your mobile device.   That feature allows you to see a variety of business that are in the area and you can then select the business you are at and “check in” on your mobile phone.   When you “check in” you provide a status update like you would with Twitter.   Along with your status update is a map showing your location.   Along with “check ins” you can receive awards and badges when you check in at certain locations or complete a milestone.  Foursquare almosts makes the status update like a game so it can be a lot of fun.

Here are some ways you can use Foursquare to build your Business:

Incentives for your customers- One of Foursquare’s features is for someone to be crowned  “Mayor” of  a location they frequently visit.  Some brick and mortar business have figured this out and give discounts to someone who is a mayor of their business.  Obviously this works out great if you are  a brick and mortar business that your customers can come visit.  An online business can do this too you just need to be a little more crafty and go where your customers are.  Through Foursquare you could make an annoucement as to where you are going to be and that you will be giving away product samples or discounts on your products to the first 10 people who show up and repeat to you a catch phrase that you set up.  To make it fun you can change your location every couple hours and share your new location on foursquare.

Set up a Customer Appreciation Meeting- This idea is a great way to connect face to face with your customers and show them your appreciation.  Set and choose your day and start promoting the meeting to your customers ahead of time.  Let them know they can find the location of the meet and greet only through Foursquare so they will have to connect with you there.    You could do a meeting at a local coffee shop, do a happy hour, meet at the beach, have a day of fun and games, you can really be creative here and have a lot of fun.

Have a meeting to share your products- Find a  location near you and send out the message on Foursquare that you are going to do a  product demonstration or consultation session.

Do a scavenger hunt-This is a really fun way to promote your product and get your customers involved.   You could set this up with local businesses who are willing to hand out items to your customers at their business.  Give customers clues and hints on Foursquare as to where they can find the product you have placed or give them instructions they have to complete at certain locations to get the product.  Give your customers small rewards at each stop and maybe have a grand prize for the first person to finish the scavenger hunt or complete the most tasks.  You could be very creative with this idea and come up with some fun ways to do this.  If you really wanted to make it big see if you could get local media to cover the scavenger hunt.

You can obviously have a lot of  fun with Foursquare and turn doing business into something fun, different, and exciting.  Using this free tool you have a very unique way to promote your business.

I would love to hear if you use this tool, if you have done anything similar to this and what your results were.  Leave me a comment and let me know.

Please feel free to share this with your friends on social media.