Posts Tagged ‘Foursquare’
Having blogged about it a couple of times, I have also been ‘using’ Foursquare’s location based platform to ‘check-in’ over the past five months. I am dubiously proud of being able to claim that I am the ‘Mayor’ of the Acela club at CitiField in New York.
And I have been to the Acela club exactly three times this season which leads me to think that people who visit the Acela club do not subscribe or care about Foursquare. In fact the few people I asked who work there had never even heard of location based services like Foursquare. As Acela club ‘mayor’ I have not been offered the key to CitiField or even a free drink – alcoholic or not.
In an article in today’s NY Times http://nyti.ms/aDGgmn, it was noted that Loopt is offering people a mobile game that rewards people for checking in frequently to particular places. And as such one can become ‘boss’ of certain locations – sort of like being the mayor. The key thing is that companies like Gap, Burger King Etc., plan to use Loopt Star to reward loyal customers. Foursquare is also working with its partners to offer real-time rewards for check-ins and frequencies of visits.
One thing the article fails to mention is the vagaries of GPS check in on these platforms. I know for example on Foursquare when I attempt to ‘check-in’ I am given a list of nearby locations even if I am smack in the middle of one on the list. (Somehow I find it really odd that if I am sitting in a Starbucks it tells me that the one I am sitting in is somehow 137 meters away). But I can also check-in to any of these GPS-enabled locations whether I am actually physically there or not.
GPS technology is set to make a major leap forward with the advent of High Accuracy-NDGPS which will enable accuracy to the centimeter level. This will be a critical enhancement since it appears that I can check in at any number of places simultaneously/concurrently (or at least in quick sequence), so that I could gain reward points at places I actually never visited.
Think about it, you are sitting at coffee shop in the middle of the city, but you check in at Burger King (for the third time that week) even though you have been to the Burger King. Now Burger King sends you a coupon for a soda with a sandwich purchase. Retailer margins will be squeezed. People will game the system – that can be guaranteed.
I understand that companies can counter that talk about the fact the patron actually purchased something, but at the same time product is being given away for nothing. And how is that a good idea?
So join up now and get free stuff – while you can.
If the darling of 2010 applications is to truly take hold Foursquare still has some work to do. A location based mobile application; the mobile marketing community is watching Foursquare’s adoption and usage with great interest.
It’s pretty simple. You put the app on your Smartphone and it links with GPS (and even Facebook if you want it to) and wherever you are you can ‘Check-in’ to let fellow Foursquarer’s (my term not theirs) know where you are and even invite them to ‘Swing-by’ (their term). These ‘updates’ can also be posted on Facebook automatically.
So say you are in Manhattan at your favorite watering hole. You check in to let your friends and followers know where you are so they can stop by if they are nearby. You can also make comments on whatever establishment you are in – good or bad. If you are the person to visit a particular establishment more than anyone in the network you are then deemed ‘Mayor’ of that establishment.
You gain ‘badges’ for checking in the first time and when you check in more than 3 times per week at a location you then get a ‘local’ badge. I cannot resist the temptation to think ‘we don’t need no stinkin’ badges’..but that’s not apparently how the folks at Foursquare feel.
The marketing implications? I’m not sure just yet. A few of my marketing associate friends are using it probably out of the same curiosity that I have – to learn more and see how people use it. But the whole check in thing while ok can be a bit much. There’s no way to not invite someone to ‘swing-by’ so wherever you check-in you invite people to swing by. This may not always be the way you’d want to go. If you check in when going home do you really want people to swing by?
One way Foursquare could be used is by companies that have sales and other employees on the road visiting clients and prospects. If integrated with a platform like Salesforce.com Foursquare would be able to show that the agent was at the location on the sales report. GPS is a wonderful thing – and big brother like at times as well.
At present it seems to me that Foursquare is primarily an urban-oriented tool. So that people could actually ‘swing by’ if they are in the neighborhood. Suburbanites and those in even more remote locations won’t immediately have as much use for it. But for some reason I think Foursquare is going to take hold and be a big-time force in the future. I’ll let you know if I figure that out and if you have any ideas on that I’d love to hear them.
Two articles today one in the NY Times and the other in the Wall Street Journal cover location based mobile advertising.
Using a tactic called Geo-Fencing a company called Placecast (http://www.placecast.net) has a platform of ‘location-triggered’ mobile marketing solutions. They ‘fence’ areas in cities and if you walk inside the fenced area and have signed up to receive messages from a marketer (in the case of the NY Times article the retailer The North Face is used as an example) the marketer by the use of the platform can text message offers, events and promotions. Visit http://nyti.ms/a5xLoR for the NY Times article.
The Wall Street Journal article also covers the combining of social media and marketing. Using a variety of platforms retailers can offer one-day promotions and offers. Visit http://bit.ly/9a1MKx for the Wall Street Journal article.
A 2008 start-up called FourSquare (www.foursquare.com) is a free application that allows participants to ‘check-in’ via a mobile application to essentially let their friends know where they are and in addition to racking up ‘points’ with individual retailers they also can be rewarded for frequenting eating and drinking establishments – even becoming ‘mayor’ if they go there enough.
I will readily admit that I don’t personally see the value in alerting my friends to where I am at any given moment. But I don’t live in the city and have not for some time. And when I was living in New York I was often surprised to run into people I knew at places and on the streets – not necessarily something one would think in a city of 8 million people.
For me I also don’t see myself signing up with retailers/merchants to receive offers from them when I step inside their geo-fence. But then again I’m a buyer not a shopper. And I personally am not so brand-driven but understand that I am in minority there.
Yet in terms of overall marketing strategy and engagement I think all these location based services are interesting, relevant and will shake out such that a few will emerge as regular every day parts of people’s lives – first primarily in cities but it will evolve beyond that as well to include people outside of cities.
2010 may not end up being the year of mobile but that ‘year’ is getting closer and maybe it does not make sense to anoint a year at all. After all why would we really care about which year is the year of mobile anyway?