Foursquare – is it on the road to nowhere?
I’ve been ‘using’ Foursquare’s location based application for about 9 months now. People ask me all the time WHY do I use Foursquare to let people know where I am at a given moment. My standard answer is that in order for me to understand how this technology might be useful I had to be a user and experience it for myself.
Well after 9 months of ‘checking-in’, having received 9 different ‘badges’, being the ‘Mayor’ of no less than 6 different places – including the Acela Club at Citi Field where I have been only 5 times, I am here to tell you that I personally don’t have any real use for Foursquare.
I have received comments from my Facebook friends (you can link your Foursquare status to FB); on different places I’ve been that they went to at one time or another – that’s a little bit cool. But I have yet to ‘check-in’ at a place and have someone nearby let me know that they are in the area and maybe we could get together.
Granted non-20’s people like myself (ok mea culpa I am more than double that), don’t normally go hopping around in the suburbs from place to place and when I am in New York City and check-in most of my Foursquare friends are either not in the city or not going to the same places that I am.
Occasionally Foursquare has offered me a coupon for an establishment nearby to the one in which I just checked-in and I even used a coupon one time just to test it (coffee). But as I wrote in a previous post, Foursquare’s GPS location is not very good and I can often check into no less than 15 establishments at the same time within as many as 1,000 meters (why it’s in meters I have no idea). In fact frequently it says that I am closer to a place down the street than the place that I am actually in.
An interesting article by Todd Woody in the NY Times from October 20 https://nyti.ms/dwjcRh did a nice job in linking Earthjustice – a non-profit law firm, to a campaign in which $ 10 would be donated to protect endangered species by ‘checking-in’ at Foursquare at ‘Earthjustice ad’. Clever campaign but I don’t know if that’s enough of a business model to sustain Foursquare. And now Facebook has been running its own location based platform – Facebook Places.
As far as I am concerned the road for Foursquare leads directly to be acquired by Facebook. And they better do that fast. Time is running out. You can check-in on that.
What do you think?
Category: Customer Engagement Marketing Technology
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About the Author: Mark Kolier
A member of Vistage for more than five years Mark is a partner in a new agency micro-network concept called www.moddern.com. With a particular expertise in direct and digital marketing, Mark has served both business-to-business and busine
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Mark, I shared your blog with one of my team members, Andrea Lamarsaude, who has been trying out Foursquare for awhile now. Her reply was the following… “my opinion there has been a lot of hype and discussion but not much ROI associated with location based marketing. That being said LBM is really in its infancy and at this point it is the early adopters that are taking it for a test drive to see what it can do.
I do see potential value in it for marketing of events. Getting attendees to “check in” at booths for the chance to win something or a treasure hunt of some kind is a way to draw them to the event (prior to and at the event) and to exhibitors. But a company would have to build a business model around that for it to become a reality.
I agree with Mark that we will see some shake out in the players. My bet is on Facebook as well. Also as Mark said the GPS technology needs to be tweaked more.”
Mark, I shared your blog with one of my team members, Andrea Lamarsaude, who has been trying out Foursquare for awhile now. Her reply was the following… “my opinion there has been a lot of hype and discussion but not much ROI associated with location based marketing. That being said LBM is really in its infancy and at this point it is the early adopters that are taking it for a test drive to see what it can do.
I do see potential value in it for marketing of events. Getting attendees to “check in” at booths for the chance to win something or a treasure hunt of some kind is a way to draw them to the event (prior to and at the event) and to exhibitors. But a company would have to build a business model around that for it to become a reality.
I agree with Mark that we will see some shake out in the players. My bet is on Facebook as well. Also as Mark said the GPS technology needs to be tweaked more.”
Mark,
I am in my 20’s and am constantly trying to stay up to date on social media. I came across foursquare about 6 months ago and have also been trying to figure it out how to use it to my advantage. What I have figured out is as a user Foursquare really has no purpose besides letting friends know where you are unless companies start using it in their social media marketing plan.
Here in San Diego, small businesses (specifically local restaurants, coffee shops and nightclubs) have started using Foursquare to gain brand loyalty among their consumers. I have seen an increase in usage and users are more willing to check in because they want to acheive the much coveted status of “mayor.” In order to get people to check-in, there has to be some incentive. I have seen restaurants give out free food and drinks to people who acheive mayor status. Also, I have seen deals for every 5th person who checks in at their location. I have seen nightclubs waive cover charges and give special deals to people who check in. If consumers are aware of these special deals for using Foursquare it might lead to a driving factor to get potential customers into these businesses. So I guess until local businesses create awareness for these promotions, location based marketing doesn’t really have a use.
Mark,
I am in my 20’s and am constantly trying to stay up to date on social media. I came across foursquare about 6 months ago and have also been trying to figure it out how to use it to my advantage. What I have figured out is as a user Foursquare really has no purpose besides letting friends know where you are unless companies start using it in their social media marketing plan.
Here in San Diego, small businesses (specifically local restaurants, coffee shops and nightclubs) have started using Foursquare to gain brand loyalty among their consumers. I have seen an increase in usage and users are more willing to check in because they want to acheive the much coveted status of “mayor.” In order to get people to check-in, there has to be some incentive. I have seen restaurants give out free food and drinks to people who acheive mayor status. Also, I have seen deals for every 5th person who checks in at their location. I have seen nightclubs waive cover charges and give special deals to people who check in. If consumers are aware of these special deals for using Foursquare it might lead to a driving factor to get potential customers into these businesses. So I guess until local businesses create awareness for these promotions, location based marketing doesn’t really have a use.
Sorry, I thought I could embed a video using Disqus, but here is the link to the video I was talking about.
http://vimeo.com/14553481
Watch it and let me know your thoughts!
-Benji
Sorry, I thought I could embed a video using Disqus, but here is the link to the video I was talking about.
http://vimeo.com/14553481
Watch it and let me know your thoughts!
-Benji