This executive briefing on how organizations can best leverage the Foursquare social media platform was prepared by Macy Burke while an MBA student in the College of Business at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana.
Overview
In a society full of diversity, it is often difficult to find businesses that perfectly fit each customer’s needs. Our tastes are very different, so when searching for a company to visit, why should we all receive the same search results? The local search and discovery site, Foursquare, understands this concept and has made it their mission to match up each user with their unique tastes and interests to a desired business location. “Foursquare learns what you like and leads you to places you’ll love” (foursquare.com). No matter if the user is looking for a restaurant, hotel, or store, they will find several nearby locations and receive an insiders’ look at each. People are very indecisive these days and I think it would be useful to have a site to help make decisions on where to direct their business. Although shown to be very beneficial to customers, Foursquare has also proven to help many businesses prosper and succeed. Providing many opportunities for brand awareness, Foursquare strives to make business profiles easy to update and maintain, while also proving to be a valuable tool for companies to use.
The Platform in Brief
Launched March 11, 2024 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai, Foursquare is a location based social network to help discover interests such as food, nightlife, and entertainment locally. This social media site provides a way for customers to not only find a variety of businesses to choose from, but also to receive feedback (or “tips”) from other customers before they make a decision. Foursquare generates suggestions based off of where the customer has been and what they like. Customers are able to set up profiles and choose “tastes” they may be interested in finding such as pizza, live bands, parks, wine, etc. They can use these tastes to conduct their search or search by categories Foursquare provides. Some categories include food, nightlife, art, outdoors, and many more. Each business’ profile will provide the customer with basic information, such as address, hours of operation and their contact information. It also displays photos uploaded by customers and shows specials and deals that may be available. Foursquare users, as well as the business itself, are encouraged to leave feedback/ tips for others to see on the select business’ site. They may also save the business to their “to-do list” for a future outing.
Foursquare is based in New York City, NY and has over 170 employees. They are funded by Union Square Ventures, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, DFJ Growth, SMALLCAP World Fund, Silver Lake Waterman, Microsoft and a few other investors (foursquare.com). In 2014, Foursquare launched a second social media site in app form called Swarm. Swarm was created to provide a separate app to feature check-ins and real-time location sharing with friends. In terms of demographics, it has been shown that more females use Foursquare than males. School is the most popular browsing location of Foursquare followed by work and then home. The leading five countries to use Foursquare are divided as follows:
The Platform in Operation
Through Foursquare, companies are able to easily connect with their customers. They can use their company’s foursquare page to inform customers of what they are known for and to use it to keep them up to date on specials or events coming up. They can even offer exclusive Foursquare deals. An example could be that the customer will “get a free drink every third check-in.” Companies are encouraged to leave tips on their own page to customers. It highlights the human side of their business and shows their interest in helping customers (Honigman, 2012). They are also able to view feedback from their customers and use it to help improve the business. The social media site offers Foursquare ads, which will be suggested first when customers are searching near their location or search a common taste.
There are many stories of business’ success from using Foursquare featured on the site. One story that stood out to me was that of Manchester Pub, a small business in New York, NY that has seen a large increase in business since using Foursquare ads. Most people were not aware of their business until Foursquare started promoting them and helping people to find their hidden pub location. Foursquare also features some large business success stories such as one for a major clothing retail chain that wanted to increase store traffic, customer loyalty, and branding techniques. Through promotion ads and Place Based ad units, Foursquare incorporated a sweepstakes along with videos from their online campaign. The social media site was able to draw in a 60% higher action rate than the category average benchmark for that company (Foursquare.com).
Foursquare also has a new spinoff app called Swarm, which allows customers to check-in to locations and view where their friends are checked in. They also have made a competitive game out of it and award badges and “mayorships” to those who have checked in the most at one location. Those awarded with badges and “mayorships” are occasionally given special deals and freebies for their loyalty (Rodriguez, 2014). This feature can help promote a business by making it a competition with friends to visit their business more often.
The Platform’s Pros and Cons
Businesses and Customers may both find Foursquare to be useful. These are some of the pros and cons of Foursquare usage:
Pros for businesses
Cons for businesses
Pros for customers
Cons for customers
Analysis
I believe that Foursquare is an innovative site that will continue to succeed in the future. I think Foursquare will succeed because they make searching for business more personal and coordinated with your specific tastes. One of the best forms of advertising is word of mouth and Foursquare provides that word of mouth concept without any direct contact. I think that creating their new app, Swarm, shows that they are constantly working on new ways to improve their site and satisfy customers. Foursquare has a steep competition with the popular site Yelp, however, I think that if they continue finding innovative ways for businesses to connect with their customers, they will be very successful.
References
(n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/foursquare.com
(n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2015, from https://foursquare.com/
Chism, D. (2011, May 31). Should My Business Be on Foursquare? Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://www.adavidcreation.com/should-my-business-be-on-foursquare/
Honigman, B. (2012, November 8). 10 Ways to Market Your Business With Foursquare |. Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/foursquare-marketing-tips/
Parker, U. (2011, March 3). Still undecided about Foursquare? 5 pros and cons | memeburn. Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://memeburn.com/2011/03/the-good-the-bad-and-foursquare/
Rodriguez, S. (2014, May 15). Meet Swarm: 5 things you need to know about Foursquare's new app. Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-foursquare-swarm-app-5-things-20140515-story.html
Strout, A. (2014, April 3). Yelp Versus Foursquare? Who's Winning In Mobile/Local For Marketers? Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://marketingland.com/yelp-versus-foursquare-got-78227
In a society full of diversity, it is often difficult to find businesses that perfectly fit each customer’s needs. Our tastes are very different, so when searching for a company to visit, why should we all receive the same search results? The local search and discovery site, Foursquare, understands this concept and has made it their mission to match up each user with their unique tastes and interests to a desired business location. “Foursquare learns what you like and leads you to places you’ll love” (foursquare.com). No matter if the user is looking for a restaurant, hotel, or store, they will find several nearby locations and receive an insiders’ look at each. People are very indecisive these days and I think it would be useful to have a site to help make decisions on where to direct their business. Although shown to be very beneficial to customers, Foursquare has also proven to help many businesses prosper and succeed. Providing many opportunities for brand awareness, Foursquare strives to make business profiles easy to update and maintain, while also proving to be a valuable tool for companies to use.
The Platform in Brief
Launched March 11, 2024 by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai, Foursquare is a location based social network to help discover interests such as food, nightlife, and entertainment locally. This social media site provides a way for customers to not only find a variety of businesses to choose from, but also to receive feedback (or “tips”) from other customers before they make a decision. Foursquare generates suggestions based off of where the customer has been and what they like. Customers are able to set up profiles and choose “tastes” they may be interested in finding such as pizza, live bands, parks, wine, etc. They can use these tastes to conduct their search or search by categories Foursquare provides. Some categories include food, nightlife, art, outdoors, and many more. Each business’ profile will provide the customer with basic information, such as address, hours of operation and their contact information. It also displays photos uploaded by customers and shows specials and deals that may be available. Foursquare users, as well as the business itself, are encouraged to leave feedback/ tips for others to see on the select business’ site. They may also save the business to their “to-do list” for a future outing.
Foursquare is based in New York City, NY and has over 170 employees. They are funded by Union Square Ventures, O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Spark Capital, DFJ Growth, SMALLCAP World Fund, Silver Lake Waterman, Microsoft and a few other investors (foursquare.com). In 2014, Foursquare launched a second social media site in app form called Swarm. Swarm was created to provide a separate app to feature check-ins and real-time location sharing with friends. In terms of demographics, it has been shown that more females use Foursquare than males. School is the most popular browsing location of Foursquare followed by work and then home. The leading five countries to use Foursquare are divided as follows:
- United States: 23.92%
- Turkey: 14.21%
- Brazil: 10.61%
- Indonesia: 5.48%
- Mexico: 3.91%
The Platform in Operation
Through Foursquare, companies are able to easily connect with their customers. They can use their company’s foursquare page to inform customers of what they are known for and to use it to keep them up to date on specials or events coming up. They can even offer exclusive Foursquare deals. An example could be that the customer will “get a free drink every third check-in.” Companies are encouraged to leave tips on their own page to customers. It highlights the human side of their business and shows their interest in helping customers (Honigman, 2012). They are also able to view feedback from their customers and use it to help improve the business. The social media site offers Foursquare ads, which will be suggested first when customers are searching near their location or search a common taste.
There are many stories of business’ success from using Foursquare featured on the site. One story that stood out to me was that of Manchester Pub, a small business in New York, NY that has seen a large increase in business since using Foursquare ads. Most people were not aware of their business until Foursquare started promoting them and helping people to find their hidden pub location. Foursquare also features some large business success stories such as one for a major clothing retail chain that wanted to increase store traffic, customer loyalty, and branding techniques. Through promotion ads and Place Based ad units, Foursquare incorporated a sweepstakes along with videos from their online campaign. The social media site was able to draw in a 60% higher action rate than the category average benchmark for that company (Foursquare.com).
Foursquare also has a new spinoff app called Swarm, which allows customers to check-in to locations and view where their friends are checked in. They also have made a competitive game out of it and award badges and “mayorships” to those who have checked in the most at one location. Those awarded with badges and “mayorships” are occasionally given special deals and freebies for their loyalty (Rodriguez, 2014). This feature can help promote a business by making it a competition with friends to visit their business more often.
The Platform’s Pros and Cons
Businesses and Customers may both find Foursquare to be useful. These are some of the pros and cons of Foursquare usage:
Pros for businesses
- Good brand awareness (Chism, 2011)
- Provides business with customer feedback
- Growing in popularity (Chism, 2011)
- Track customer statistics
- Allows check-ins through Swarm
- Allows for smart advertising (Strout, 2014)
Cons for businesses
- Usefulness depends on the company
- Cannot delete negative feedback
- Negative feedback lingers
- May not be loyal customers, but competitive ones
Pros for customers
- Personal recommendations to local businesses
- Check-in and meet up with friends
- Find deals, sales, and events
- Tells you friends that have visited and how many times
- Made like a game (badges and mayorships)
- Provides you with feedback/ allows you to leave feedback
Cons for customers
- Many businesses have no feedback
- Not the first site to come up regularly in organic search (Strout, 2014)
- Safety issues
- Lack of long, well thought out reviews (Strout, 2014)
Analysis
I believe that Foursquare is an innovative site that will continue to succeed in the future. I think Foursquare will succeed because they make searching for business more personal and coordinated with your specific tastes. One of the best forms of advertising is word of mouth and Foursquare provides that word of mouth concept without any direct contact. I think that creating their new app, Swarm, shows that they are constantly working on new ways to improve their site and satisfy customers. Foursquare has a steep competition with the popular site Yelp, however, I think that if they continue finding innovative ways for businesses to connect with their customers, they will be very successful.
References
(n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/foursquare.com
(n.d.). Retrieved February 2, 2015, from https://foursquare.com/
Chism, D. (2011, May 31). Should My Business Be on Foursquare? Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://www.adavidcreation.com/should-my-business-be-on-foursquare/
Honigman, B. (2012, November 8). 10 Ways to Market Your Business With Foursquare |. Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/foursquare-marketing-tips/
Parker, U. (2011, March 3). Still undecided about Foursquare? 5 pros and cons | memeburn. Retrieved February 4, 2015, from http://memeburn.com/2011/03/the-good-the-bad-and-foursquare/
Rodriguez, S. (2014, May 15). Meet Swarm: 5 things you need to know about Foursquare's new app. Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-foursquare-swarm-app-5-things-20140515-story.html
Strout, A. (2014, April 3). Yelp Versus Foursquare? Who's Winning In Mobile/Local For Marketers? Retrieved February 2, 2015, from http://marketingland.com/yelp-versus-foursquare-got-78227
Contact Information
To contact the author of this article, “What You Need to Know Foursquare: An Executive Roadmap for Social Media Success,” please email the author at [email protected].
The mission of the College of Business at Southeastern Louisiana University is to provide educational experiences for personal, professional and intellectual growth, enable the creation and sharing of knowledge to enhance learning and to advance the practice of business, and engage communities through service to positively impact their future. The Accounting and Business programs in the College of Business are accredited by the AACSB International.
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