In The Power of foursquare webinar, best-selling author and business communications expert Carmine Gallo demonstrates the ability to create creative promotions through locational social media app foursquare. ——————– When fashion designer Jimmy Choo created a competition called “catch a Choo”, he had 4,000 people running around London chasing a shoe. The foursquare promotion was part of the company’s marketing campaign for a brand new shoe, called a trainer. It’s kind of a classy sneaker—a $400 sneaker. Choo was a fictional character checking into different hot spots around London. If you checked in on foursquare within 15 minutes of when the Choo physically checked in to that particular location, you would win a new pair of trainers. The trainers were literally in a bag, sitting there, in a hotel lobby or wherever. Here’s the point: they had 4,000 people on Foursquare chasing a shoe around London. But how did they measure their success? Sure, Jimmy Choo gave away some expensive shoes, but because of the promotion, they received thousands of free blog posts about their new product. Author Carmine Gallo explains:
“People were blogging about it, tweeting about it, and linking to the promotion. Plus, sales in London went up 33% in the two-week duration of the promotion. In the U.S., an ice cream chain called Tasti D-Lite found that 20% of their customers are on foursquare, and most people share their check ins. They wanted to reward their customers with check ins. Every time someone checks in they get a discount on their ice cream. The person who has the most check ins at any venue, or in any given amount of time, is called the mayor. That’s where the game aspect comes in. Tasti D-Lite does something very simple: they give the mayor a free cone, and sometimes they actually post the mayor’s picture on the foursquare account or on a digital sign in the store. They find this to be very successful, because more people are checking in every week, and they go back because they want to be the mayor of that particular location. It’s a simple game, but it’s very effective. People want to be famous, if only for a few minutes. There are other ways to reward customer loyalty and get people to frequently visit. For example, a “friends special” means that if you check in with three of your friends, you get something for free, or the whole table gets something. A “flash special” means that you get a reward if you check in during a particular time frame, and “loyalty specials” can be set up to give customers something on their third check-in, fifth check-in, etc. It’s up to you. You can create anything you want and turn it on and off whenever you want. But the most powerful is the “mayor special” because the person who checks in the most at your venue is your most loyal customer. They’re not only visiting you, but they’re also checking in every time they visit you. For this reason, a lot of the successful businesses have different tiers of specials with something on top of that for the mayor.”
Some business owners may be skeptical of these silly foursquare promotions and games, but people are crazy about the gaming aspect. Even if you’re a business owner who’s not into this kind of stuff, your customers are! And that’s what matters. There are so many different ways of using foursquare to engage the people in your business. You connect it to your brand first and be consistent with your brand premise, and you have to understand what you can offer that goes above and beyond your particular product or service. 
Listen to The Power of Foursquare webinar from On-Demand Learning. Or, click here to securely purchase Carmine Gallo’s book, The Power of Foursquare. This article was co-authored by Elizabeth Rowe. Elizabeth graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (English Literature) at the ANU and a Masters of Media Practice at the University of Sydney. She is currently completing an internship with the Australian Businesswomen’s Network.
