This is a guest blog post submit by Joe Gustav. I was contacted by Elizabeth Johnson, Assistant to the Editor for the site My Dog Ate My Blog about a guest blog post. After some talk about a potential topic, we decided that a post about location-based marketing would fit my blog.
-Jeff Gibbard
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If 2009 was the year of Social Media hype, then 2010 has most certainly been the year of Location Based Marketing. If you haven’t heard of Foursquare by now, you have certainly been hiding under a rock. Foursquare is an application that utilizes the widespread availability of GPS due to increased smartphone adoption. Users “check in” to locations such as restaurants, bars, museums, events, and virtually any another of kind of business and earn points for doing so. Aside from points, Foursquare has created other gaming elements such as the acquisition of “badges” for checking in at promoted locations, frequently visited locations, or other certain locations at a specified time of day. If you visit a location more than anyone else over the course of 60 days You can earn the exciting distinction of “mayor” of that location.
Though not as popular as the more established Social Media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, Foursquare is quickly growing in popularity, even being used by large entertainment and retail companies. For instance, MTV uses Foursquare to incorporate the physical locations of their programming, such as the nightclubs of Jersey Shore. Each time a user checks in at these locations it reinforces the MTV brand.
But how can small business owners and fundraisers, without widespread brand recognition, use Foursquare to drive event-based marketing activities? Foursquare is a hyper-local platform, which provides an advantage to smaller businesses as they can now market to potential customers in the immediate vicinity.
Geo-location services, like Foursquare, can enable others to spread the word for the business thereby reducing overall marketing expenses. Like Yelp, users can add tips and reviews of their favorite businesses and restaurants. This location-based reviewing system has already helped numerous small businesses.
The check-in game has the potential to increase traffic dramatically. The promise of a rare and coveted badge can draw huge crowds of Foursquare users. Another tactic to further increase traffic, is to offer Foursquare-exclusive offers and discounts. This can increase walk-in traffic and draw in brand-new customers that are in the area. Beyond traffic these deals raise awareness about the business or event and potentially draw customers away from competition who are not offering their own incentives.
Further increasing the reach of Foursquare, it integrates with established social media platforms. Users have the ability to broadcast their checkins and badges to Twitter add/or Facebook status. This features essentially, extends the capacity to be virally recognized on Facebook and Twitter as well.
The beauty of social media is that when done correctly, businesses and event planners have to do much less work to spread the word about their events. Instead, users who support a cause or are fervent supporters of a business can tell anyone paying attention on the internet themselves. Foursquare demands physical participation, and the added gaming element combined with discovering special offers, participation is likely to increase even further.
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Joe Gustav is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on Online Schooling for Guide to Online Schools.