Harmonic Aftershock

Beyond The Check-In: Foursquare Is A City Guide

There was something that Dennis Crowley, Co-Founder & CEO of Foursquare said at an AdClub event I attend in April of 2010. “We wanted to design a way to make cities, in general, easier to use.”

I liked that vision, but at the time I didn’t necessarily see it manifesting itself into the Foursquare app. For better or for worse, Foursquare was a bit typecast as more of a check-in/specials/loyalty sort-of-thing.

But then 9 months ago, Foursquare launched its explore tab, making it super easy for people to find specific kinds of places filtered by several dimensions of relevancy. As I’ve been traveling more a bit lately, this feature has become my best friend and companion.

When I got hungry yesterday, while in Paris, I clicked the explore --> Food button to reveal a bunch of places near my hotel.  I wanted something fast and not a sit-down kind-of-venue. I quickly found there was a “Cosi” (and wondered if it was connected to the U.S. chain).

The note that “this venue is popular on Foursquare” gave me assurance that it was a reputable spot. I also appreciated all of the tips that people left as it helped me to see some of the recommendations on the menu (and saw that it was, indeed, different from the U.S. chain).

Foursquare’s integration with Google Maps is a Godsend as with a mere click, I was able to plot my course to find Cosi through the streets of Paris.

And, upon arrival, checking-in was a breeze since I had the app already open.

I learned when I got there that this Cosi was, indeed, the inspiration used for the, now popular, Cosi franchise in the United States. There was something very warm, unique, vintage, and authentic about this place.

I used Foursquare similarly to find a good gym nearby and the tips in this case really made my decision for me – Which is yet another reason for brands (especially small businesses) to leverage Forusquare and their loyalists to, in effect, endorse the venue by providing helpful information to those yet to discover it – all thanks to Foursquare’s explore tab and its (well over) 10 million users.

 

What could be next for Foursquare?

An interesting interplay around Foursquare’s development strategy took place on Twitter Saturday evening when @Kris recommended to Dennis Crowley (CEO) and Tristan Walker (Head of Biz Dev) an idea that got the company’s leaders pretty jazzed up.

 

On one hand it’s fascinating to see Foursquare’s strategic decisions play out on the public social web. On the other hand, LBSN competitors like Gowalla could easily be monitoring the conversation in real-time and be first-to-market with any good ideas.

But maybe that’s smart on Foursquare’s behalf since they now have a publically documented account of their idea’s conception which only energizes their core user base and could help mitigate against competitive "copy catting."

What do you think? Should Foursquare keep a tighter lock on its development roadmap or be more open and public with what may be on the horizon?

The Power of “Social Currency”

Last week, I posted the results of Hill Holliday’s poll which sought to answer the question: “Why do we check in?” (on location-based social networks like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, MyTown, etc.).

Overwhelmingly, we confirmed that people are motivated to earn social currency (badges, pins, mayorships, etc.). They like the “competition” of it all and, apparently, the gratification it gives them (us).

 Here are a few of the “free form” responses that I didn’t include in the Hill Holliday post:

• The competition to receive badges and mayorship's has increased my curiosity
• competition with friends, accumulating badges, show people where I've been
• I liked getting badges
• It is fun to do, and makes a game of mundane tasks
• I use Gowalla because I like collecting things
• I'm really just in it to gather all of the items
• Out of boredom, to get badges and rewards
• Its fun to unlock different badges - gives some incentive
• Social Currency - I do it for the badges
• To try and win badges
• Competition!
• It feels good to become Mayor of my favorite places and broadcast that to my friends
• Fun, competion, see where others are
• To compete against friends - to get badges
• At first primarily for points, mayorships deals
• To earn badges (Foursquare)

There are a lot of other interesting data points (and maybe a few surprises) from the poll results including how location-based social network users feel about privacy and brands' involvement. So check out the full report on Hill Holliday’s blog.

[read the full report]

A surprise encounter on Foursquare

I’ve been tweeting and blogging about Foursquare quite a bit, lately, and with all of the buzz that the popular location-based platform has been getting this year, I shouldn’t be surprised that more and more brands and local businesses are jumping onboard. But I have to admit that I was extremely surprised (and delighted) when I had a Foursquare encounter this past week with a company I’ve been doing business with. Here’s the story:

On my way up to New Hampshire last Sunday for Easter, I stopped in at Newburyport’s Advantage Yacht Sales. Being (increasingly) Foursquare-obsessed, I’d planned to have to enter the company into Foursquare’s database myself but was surprised to see that they were already in there, so I was able to simply “check-in."

 On Tuesday morning, (less than 2 days after I checked-in), I received this email from one of the company’s owners:

From: Douglyss Giuliana
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 11:03 AM
To: 'Mike Proulx'
Subject: Foursquare

Mike,

You are the first customer to check-in with AYS on Foursquare! Thanks! We have a special gift for you for being such a trailblazer.

You can also find us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/advantageyachtsales

Thanks,
Doug
--
Doug Giuliana
Advantage Yacht Sales
T: 978-463-3663
 www.AdvantageYachtSales.com

Doug and I traded a few emails back-and-forth as I was intensely curious as to how he’d heard about Foursquare and why he decided to set up his own company. Since the business model of a boat dealership, inherently, yields very low frequency and consistency of visits AND customers tend to skew older (and therefore are likely NOT heavy users of emerging media), I wondered about Doug’s expectations and business objectives on Foursquare:

This was his response:

“Yes, for us things like Foursquare and even Facebook are not home runs given our demo and volume. But, it is inexpensive in dollar cost and we need to be primed as the current social media crowd ages INTO our key demo. And boating is one of those things where we are always selling the lifestyle more than the product. This gives another vehicle for promoting the lifestyle and making the lifestyle a larger part of our buyers’ lives.”

Smart (and strategic thinking) on Doug’s part on behalf of Advantage Yacht Sales (AYS) for a few key reasons:

1. AYS is establishing a footprint:
They are seeding Foursquare early while the barrier to entry is extremely low and new user growth rates are extremely high. As more AYS customers and prospects eventually sign-on to Foursquare, they will be met with an established presence and core (albeit nimble) user-base. And with the exception of a little bit of personnel time for relationship management (which they should be doing constantly anyway), being on Foursquare costs the company NOTHING.

2. AYS is NOT taking a “one size fits all” marketing approach:
The company recognizes that, while their core demo skews older, they cannot use the same marketing tactics to reach their younger demographic – and that this “younger” demographic will eventually become the older demographic so it’s important to engage them, now, in the spaces where their younger demographic is engaging, today.

3. AYS is thinking beyond just the dealership “check-in”:
This is the more brilliant part of Advantage Yacht Sales’ Foursquare strategy. Although “check-ins” to the dealership (once a customer has commissioned their boat) will be very far and few between, the places that the, now, boat owner goes with and/or because of their boat tie back to potential WOM for where they purchased their boat in the first place. This includes check-ins to marinas, ports, restaurants, yacht clubs, supply shops, gear stores, etc. all as part of the “lifestyle” of the boat owner.  It alerts the boat owner’s Foursquare friends (and, if configured, Twitter followers and Facebook friends) a constant reminder of their boat. And when the boat-owner’s web-savvy friends are in the consideration set to buy one themselves, they will most likely be approached about a dealer recommendation resulting in a qualified lead for AYS.

It will take a while for Advantage Yacht Sales to see any tangible benefit from their early social media marketing footprint but kudos to them for their forward-thinking “test and learn” attitude that serves as a great example from which other businesses can learn.