While the rapid adoption of smartphones may have put social and location check-in tools such as FourSquare, Yelp, or GoWalla on the map, most businesses are still challenged to find appropriate business uses for this, the latest social and mobile craze.
For me, it’s complicated to assign business value to these services. While I enjoy using these services personally to "check-in” (or in the case of Yelp, to review a restaurant or a yoga studio), I wouldn’t exactly promote them as necessary for building a healthy channel. In fact, in 2010 a Forrester Research titled “Location-Based Social Networks: A Hint of Mobile Engagement Emerges,” strongly advised marketers to wait until adoption rates on these services increase before launching a campaign with them.
While I believe channel vendors shouldn’t ignore these services completely, I do believe that they should understand what opportunities exist in geo-location before signing up.
Create “Tips” for Your Followers
In many ways, geo-location services are just offering another channel through which companies can reach their fans, remind them of their brand, and have them engage with it in their daily life.
One way brands are engaging their audience is to “ping” them with creative content in the form of “tips”. For example, once you’ve created a FourSquare account, you have the option to leave tips on selected locations. If one of your followers “checks into” that location on FourSquare, they’ll receive a notification on their phone containing that tip. Non-followers checking into a location won’t receive a “ping”. However, they can also view your tips (along with everyone else’s) in the tip section of the FourSquare app.
Add Your Event on FourSquare
For those of you who just want to create some more buzz around a trade show or an event you’re hosting, you probably just want to take a few moments to add an event on FourSquare.
Why would you want to do this if the venue is already listed? For one, FourSquare is a GPS-based service. When users go to check-in, they get a mini-list of all of the venues in the vicinity that they can check into. Since it’s likely that your event venue is already listed, you’ll want to create an event page, too. It’s the difference of seeing your friend is at the “Hynes Convention Center” or the “Channel Maven Consulting 2010 Conference.” You’ll want users to share that they are at your conference specifically, not just the venue.
Remember, the more people who check into the event, the more likely the event will “trend”; when this happens anyone on FourSquare in the area of your venue will see your event name displayed predominantly.
Benefits of Claiming Your Event
Several companies are already working these location based services to create fun activities and interactions with their brand based on people “checking-in” to their venue. For example, retail chains with several physical store locations like Gap or Ann Taylor have worked with FourSquare to offer deals to customers who take the time to become mayor of one of their locations.
Once you’ve created your event on FourSquare, you can also “claim it” using the button link in the top right corner of the venue. This unlocks the ability to create engaging specials (based on mayorship, checking in, etc) and post them to your venue’s page predominantly.
Create a Badge for your Event
Another meaningful way to use geo-location services such as FourSquare is to work with the app’s team to create a special badge as a reward for checking into an event.
If you want to see some examples of FourSquare event badges that have been created, take a look at this list.
These are just some of the ways you can currently use these tools to engage with your event attendees or fans of your brand. However, I do want to add that these services are still relatively young and there is no telling how they might develop in the future. Like most social services, they are just one tool in your tool box; as always, if you do experiment with it, it should be used in coordination with your other tools for maximum effect.