The Other Half Of Foursquare – Getting Businesses To Engage

I’ve been using foursquare for a few months and for the most part I enjoy it.

Except for one part…

I want more business to engage with us on foursquare, especially in the Nashville/Franklin area. This would help us all enjoy the full purpose of what foursquare is meant to be.

For those that don’t know much about foursquare, it is a geosocial network that seems to act like the offspring of facebook and twitter on a gps-enabled phone. On their site it simple says “Foursquare on your phone gives you & your friends new ways of exploring your city.”

You can check out foursquare here.

I like seeing where my friends are “checking-in” and giving tips as to what to try when they “check-in” at restaurants, coffee shops, retail stores, movies.. etc. but the whole experience would be so much more engaging if these fine establishments jumped on board and offered us up something creative.

Click here to see a great example of how a business can be using foursquare… they even have a cool analytics page for you to drill down on the buying trends of your customers.

Here’s a few ideas for businesses from the foursquare site:

• Mayor Specials: unlocked only by the Mayor of your venue. Who’s the Mayor?  It’s your single most loyal customer!(the user who has checked in the most in the last 60 days) (“Foursquare has deemed you the Mayor? Enjoy a free order of french fries!”)
• Check-in Specials: unlocked when a user checks in to your venue a certain number of times.(“Foursquare says you’ve been here 10 times?  That’s a free drink for you!”)
• Frequency-based Specials: are unlocked every X check-ins. (“Foursquare users get 20% off any entree every 5th check-in!”)
• Wildcard Specials: always unlocked, but your staff has to verify some extra conditions before awarding the Special. (“Show us your foursquare Swarm badge and get a free drink!”)

If businesses jumped on this fun little bandwagon then they would be encouraging people to come visit and spend money. The more you come back and check-in… the more you as the customer win with potential discounts or freebees and the establishment you have been visiting wins from all the business they are getting from foursquare users and those who are being influenced through foursquare. The business reaps the benefit of users seeing people check in multiple times at the same location… free advertising. You like free don’t you?

Add to the mix that you can connect foursquare to your twitter feed and facebook status and now the reach you have with foursquare is even bigger.

It’s a win for everyone involved and most of all… the process can be fun and slightly competitive if the business is creative with engaging their customers.

It’s time to take foursquare to another level don’t you think?

For all of you foursquare users, what do you like about foursquare and what would you like to see happen on foursquare?