What Is foursquare

foursquare makes the real world easier to use for the social landscape. They build tools that help you keep up with friends, discover what’s nearby, save money and unlock deals. Whether you’re setting off on a trip around the world, coordinating a night out with friends, or trying to pick out the best local deal at a local retailer, foursquare is the perfect companion. 

They opportunity to drive traffic to your retail store, have "mystery "deals" when the check in and more, creates another weapon to integrate in your social strategy in today's "wired world"

Simple Ideas For Using Foursquare

• Create a branded home page that is relevant and reinforces your brand platform
• Update your profile with new photos, videos and live updates as necessary. Don't forget to keep the platform relevant by keeping it updated with your current promotions and more
• Create check-in specials on a weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly phase. Coordinate with your weekly promotions. make your audience aware that when they "physically" check in, there are "mystery shopper" deals that you only get when you're in the store: $X additional savings, BOGO, etc
• Do 1 to 1 marketing with followers and tip writers. 1 to many may work too, but make sure it is always relevant Immediately address problems, concerns, negative postings to show a potential unhappy customer you care...NOW...not a week from now. 
• Integrate this into all of your other social platforms
• We now have over 10MM users worldwide!  While they won't share specific demographic or geographic information at this time, here are some stats:
  
  + Over 750,000,000 check-ins total
  + Over 3 million check-ins per day
  + Over 10 million users
  + About 55% male, 45% female, approaching parity
  + About 50% usage in U.S., 50% international
  + Largest age demographic is 18-34 years-old
  + Over 500,000 businesses using the merchant platform
  + Over 10,000 developers/brands building off the foursquare API
  + Millions of Tips and To-Do's
  + Over 15 million venues
  + Over 70 employees between our headquarters in NYC and satellite office in SF
  + foursquare is available on every major mobile platform, including: iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Nokia S40, Symbian, Windows Phone 7, and many more.
  + foursquare is available in 6 languages; English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, and Japanese
  
  

• Give your Mayor special perks
• Offer discounts
• Let them earn points towards a reward for check-ins
• Promote a special for the first "x" customers to check in
• Treats for first-time check-ins
• Attract new customers with "specials nearby"
• Plan an event around Foursquare
• Use their new tools to track your customers
• Get more personal
• Check out what others are doing
• Have fun

How To Use Foursquare To Boost Sales At Your Retail Business

Location-based social networking apps like Foursquare are some of the hottest mobile trends of 2010. More than 500,000 people have joined Foursquare alone, and that number is growing fast.

But Foursquare is hoping the 1.4 million businesses it lists could end up the real winners.

How? Because apps like Foursquare are new opportunities to promote your business and build stronger relationships with your customers.

(Don't know anything about Foursquare? Click here to learn more about what it's all about.)

Rewarding returning customers is nothing new, but stamping that "frequent customer" card has never been all that fun.

Foursquare aims to take things to a new level. It not only lets you to offer promotions for new customers, frequent customers, and your best customer (the "Mayor") -- it encourages new business as your clients share their location and the sweet deals they've discovered there with their friends. And because it's on a cellphone, it's cool.

Not sure where to start? We've collected a list of ways to get in on this hot trend.

Click the image below for the article and more ideas and tips

More Info On How foursquare Works

• When you first boot up the app, you see _a list of your friends, and what they're up to
  
• Clicking on one of your friends will bring up their profile
  
• Press the "Places" button at the bottom of the screen and this will bring up this list of venues near you
  
• Click the venue you're actually in to bring up this screen; now press "Check-in here"
  
• That's it! You're in. You can see who else is in the same spot, and you will be awarded points for your check-ins.
  
• Look at a venue on Google Maps, and search for nearby tweets
  
• The 'Tips' tab shows you suggestions for what to do at this venue; you can also add your own
  
• You can earn badges based on your check-ins.
  
• Here's the game aspect: you can see a leader board of all of your friends and how many points they have this week
  
• Invite friends from Facebook or Twitter to add more people to the mix
  
• You can see what your friends have accomplished, what they like and more
  
• Foursquare can ping you when a friend checks in somewhere
  
• On the Foursquare Web site, you can keep track of tasks you want to complete, manage your friends, and review your stats.
  
• In fact, you can look very, very closely at your stats. A good way to learn a little too much about your going-out habits.
• Manage account settings to control what information Foursquare makes public, and when and where (Twitter, Facebook) it publishes your activity.