Heard of FourSquare and wondered what the fuss is about?

I’ve been using a location sharing based application by the name of FourSquare on my IPhone for around 2 Years now. Its a cool tool/application for sharing your location with friends, competing for ‘Mayoralty’s or Badges for various locations that you ‘Check In’ to, plus being a great source of ‘Tips’ from others that have been to that location also. 

The kind of ‘Tips’ you’d expect to find are often suggestions on dining ideas at a restaurant, seating suggestions at a venue, cool things to do close by to a place where you ‘Check In’ and sometimes ‘Tips’ on things to avoid.

In a World where ‘Social Proof’ or the opinions of others matters more to us than glitzy advertising I think Four Square has found a great niche and poses an exciting opportunity for almost any business to become ‘Mayor of their Patch’ rather than Mayor of a single location on Foursquare.

Let me explain further.   I’ve this morning returned from a trip to the USA. As I travelled across the United States I used Four Square to ‘Check In’ to many of the places that I visited. With each ‘Check in’ you receive some great tips and possibly some great offers from nearby businesses and can even achieve some cool absolutely pointless ‘badges’ as an acknowledgement of your travels and check ins.  But what I’ve learned is that the real power of Four Square is  the sharing of information and ‘Tips’.  Through my work I’ve befriended a large group of trusted friends across the world who also use FourSquare and regularly share their tips of good and bad experiences at various venues they attend.

The nett effect of this is that when people share ‘Tips’ on each place they ‘Check In’ it means that when if and when I ‘Check In’ I am in turn given that ‘Tip’ on my Iphone screen. Its the old ‘word of mouth’ now turned into ‘world of mouth’

Many businesses are now even taking the option to advertise ‘ their ‘Specials’ when you ‘Check In’ to a geographical location close to their venue/business. Eg: :Last week I ‘Checked In’ to a Hotel in New York. On my screen flashed a ‘Tip’ from a friend on the best local Irish Bar and their happy hour half price deal.. But also a local Italian restaurant flashed a ‘Special’ up on my Iphone offering me 50% off  dining with them that night if I showed them the ‘Voucher’ that appeared on my Iphone Four Square ‘Check In’. So all of a sudden I wasn’t a stranger in New York. I now had an Irish Bar recommended by a trusted friend to drink in, and a half price e-voucher from a local restaurant (which also had 27 positive tips from other diners on its FourSquare page) Nice social proof provided by a friend and a nice discount. #winning  :)

FourSquare and I became even closer friends over the last 2 weeks and I’ve now joined in the ‘Tip Sharing’ and left dozens of ‘Tips’ across the USA for my FourSquare friends and others to take advantage of.

So, while all this new ‘Four Square’ adventuring was going on across the USA I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of hours with Matthew Shadbolt from The Corcoran Group in New York. Corcoran’s is without doubt New York’s Premier Real Estate Brand. Over 1,500 Agents spread over 4 floors of a Madison Avenue Office Block. I reckoned this would be a cool way to spend 2 hours… and it was!!

Matthew shared an immense amount of information with me including how the Corcoran Group have embraced Four Square into their Real Estate business. Corcoran’s have invested very heavily in social media and building a brand that is very much as being a ‘Helper Agent’. Matthew and his team have now shared over 1,800 ‘Tips’ on Four Square across the markets that they work in across New York City and beyond. What I found was that it was nearly impossible to ‘Check In’ in anywhere in New York without getting a ‘Tip’ from the Corcoran Group on what is the best place to eat, which bus to catch, which bar to drink at, which school has the best reputation, etc etc.

Matthew and the Corcoran Team are all about being the ‘Mayor of the patch’ on Four Square, but also ‘Mayor of their real life patch’ by building a genuine sense of community and being the trusted source of excellent community information.

Since flying back into Brisbane this morning I’ve happened upon 2 excellent pieces about Four Square and location based marketing that you might enjoy. I did.

Here’s a few words from Gahlord Dewald

Here’s a few from Katie Lance

Please take the time to check them out and get to understand how Four Square might work for you and your business. I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you might make Four Square work for your business. Why not download the App to your smart phone and start ‘Checking In’. I think you’ll like what you find!