The Foursquare Guide for Business

Foursquare is the social network par excellence when it comes to geolocation . Existing since only 2009, there are currently more than 25 million users worldwide.

The app lets you tell your Foursquare friends where you are. You can get badges and points for each visit, in addition to having a chance to become mayor of a place. It is also one of the very good first examples of gamification in social networks.  

For businesses, FourSquare gives its users the ability to take control of existing place pages or create them.  It is possible to modify the information and create specials on the companies page. Specials are special offers within the Foursquare app that reward site visitors. These will be explained in more detail later.

We'll show you how to use FourSquare for your business  , starting with the reasons to incorporate Foursquare into your strategies. Then we will explore how to take control of your place, create specials, create your Foursquare page and create lists, to finish with the creation of badges.

WHY GO TO FOURSQUARE?

Foursquare currently reaches over 25 million users worldwide. There are more than 40 million places on the application. If you use Foursquare, you will find that few places are not listed. Additionally, approximately 30% of socially active mobile users use Foursquare. Its popularity is no longer to be discussed . It is an important discovery tool for certain industries, such as the restaurant industry. 

Even in Quebec, we are noticing increased use of the network, even if it is still marginal since we are talking about approximately 1% of Internet users according to CEFRIO . 

You can test your popularity on the tool by trying to find you on its search engine . 

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR PLACE FOURSQUARE

Once you have searched for your place, you will be able to see if it already belongs to someone. If you're the first in your business to do the research, chances are the location isn't claimed yet. To claim a place , simply go to the page of its place and click on “Claim here” located at the bottom in the right column. 

Verification is mainly done using a call instead. The number on the page must therefore be the latest updated number. Be sure to speak with the receptionist if the number is not directly at your office.

Taking control of your page mainly allows you to have access to statistics concerning visits to the premises.

Here is an overview of the statistics available:

If you have space available in your business window, feel free to encourage people to register their visit to your business on FourSquare by posting a sticker . The social impact of a visit can be important if users decide to share it on their other networks.  

PRACTICAL TIPS

Once your location has been claimed, you will be able to send messages to nearby users from the FourSquare.com site on your computer.

THE CREATION OF SPECIAL OFFERS

A special offer is an offer that will be displayed on the user's mobile device once a condition has been met . It could be a free coffee, free parking or discounts on the main course. Foursquare does not put a limit on the special offer; it's up to you if you want to do it and what you will give if you do.

The choice of triggering offers is like this:

• First visit: On first visit
• Visit: At any visit to the site
• Group visit: After a certain number of visitors at the same time on the place
• Visit with friends: When visiting the location with a number of friends
• Limited number: Offer an offer to the first people who will visit the place
• Loyalty offers: After a chosen number of visits
• Mayoral Offers: Offer a special to the mayor only

When creating the offer, it is possible to modify everything that will be displayed to the user as shown in the following example:

FourSquare specials are still underused, but can often be a great way to bring some attention to your venue.

PRACTICAL TIPS

It is very important to inform their staff if you decide to make an offer. These should know what to do once the user shows the special on their phone. It can also be advantageous to display in the window that there is a special on FourSquare.

CREATE YOUR OWN FOURSQUARE PAGE

Creating your Foursquare page is not directly related to your location page on FourSquare. The first page makes it possible to manage several places and to be more present on the network . FourSquare users can decide to like the page to be aware of the latest trade news and to see the tips present on it. A tip is an advice or tip left by a user on a place. 

The page allows you to interact on your own places and on the places of others. So if a page leaves a tip about a place, all users who follow that page will see that tip the next time they visit the place.

Pages don't need to have a physical location to be a Page. We can take the example of AskMen which leaves a lot of tips across the city of Montreal for its subscribers.  

It is therefore advisable to display the presence of your Foursquare page on your website to attract visitors and perhaps new subscribers!

Here is the link to create a page: https://fr.foursquare.com/create_page . 

PRACTICAL TIP

FourSquare offers official buttons to add to your website at: http://business.foursquare.com/brands . 

CREATE CONTENT FOR PLATFORM USERS

It is possible, as a page, to create lists of places and FourSquare advice.

FourSquare place listings are used to communicate a series of places that are of interest to users. You can therefore use the tool to position yourself as an expert in a certain niche by displaying your favorite places there. People can save the list to remember to visit places. It can be advantageous for a company to make a list of its points of sale, for example.

Tips allow you to give tips for future users who will check in instead. For a company, the advice can be displayed to everyone who subscribes to the page, hence the importance of attracting people to this platform.  

Advice can be of any type, whether it's about the place in general or about having a particular dish.  It is advisable not to go too far with a temporal advice, because these remain displayed forever. Keep in mind, however, that it is always possible to delete a tip. You can also add check-in to any venue by heading to the venue's FourSquare page.

PRACTICAL TIP

These tips demonstrate your expertise in a particular area. This can extend outside of restaurants. A fashion company could add tips in different fashion stores on which brands to buy.

CREATE A FOURSQUARE BADGE

A FourSquare badge is a badge that is displayed on the user's profile upon specific check-in. There are badges created by FourSquare and badges created by companies.

We can see the example of RunKeeper which gives badges on FourSquare once certain race lengths are reached.

You should know that to create a badge, FourSquare requires a minimum commitment of 3 months at $25,000 per month. If you are interested in creating a FourSquare badge, simply complete the Partner Badge Application . 

MANAGE WITH THE THUMB

FourSquare also launched a new business app a few weeks ago to allow businesses to use FourSquare from their iPhone or Android phone .

The application allows to create updates and share them at the same time on Facebook and Twitter. In addition, it is possible to manage its specials and see the statistics in real time.

One of the interesting features of FourSquare is that most of the actions you take stay on the site indefinitely, which makes it worth investing in . If you add tips or create a list, they will then remain permanently on your page. 

To learn more about FourSquare and business, you can visit their Business Help Center at http://business.foursquare.com/ .