Posts Tagged ‘ Foursquare ’

Foursquare’s University Badges Now Available at All Colleges & Universities

Foursquare has just announced that its “Foursquare for Universities” program is now available at every college and university around the world.

That means the new-to-many-campuses university badges can be unlocked by any relevant checkins at any college or university campus around the globe.

Foursquare’s collegiate checkins program began about a year ago with a partnership with Harvard. At the time, the idea behind the partnership was to help students connect with colleagues, friends and professors through the app and to help campus visitors find their way around interesting and useful on-campus locations.

Last fall, Foursquare launched Foursquare for Universities, an official program to partner with many different schools. The program, which also made way for custom badges for each school, eventually grew to include more than 100 colleges and universities.

Since the Foursquare for Universities launch, more than 25,000 university badges were unlocked, and Foursquare said it received more than 1,200 requests from non-partner schools to bring the popular app to those campuses, too.

Now, university badges will be available at any campus around the world. Also, all students are encouraged to sign up for the startup’s ambassador program, which will give participants free Foursquare gear and tools for spreading the word about the location app.

The standard university badges (pictured in order below) include Bookworm Bender (for checking into a library or study area after midnight), Smells Like School Spirit (for five checkins to a sports venue), Quad Squatter (for 10 checkins at a common area), Munchies (for checkins at five separate campus dining facilities), and College Explorer (for checkins to any 10 different campus locations).

http://mashable.com/2011/01/31/foursquare-colleges-universities

2011
02/04
CATEGORY
Location Based Services
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Checking-in on Your Local Listings Across Growing LBS Apps

Checking in or tagging locations on location-based social networks like Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter is no doubt the hottest phenomenon today (besides possibly grabbing daily deals).

Location-based service (LBS) sites allow consumers to share extensive detail about your business from their mobile devices and give you the opportunity to engage with and attract new customers. LBS growth continues for consumers and businesses alike as mobile search grows.

Take Foursquare for example. It exploded onto the scene last year and now has 5 million registered users. Foursquare allows users to check-in to a location, share details with friends, and provide “tips” about your business.

Gowalla provides a similar service and now has more than 700,000 registered users. And, this doesn’t begin to cover the specialty niche LBS sites like Foodspotting and ShopKick.

With all of these new social-local-mobile apps, businesses must create a strategy for establishing their local identity and building visibility to take full advantage of their viral nature. And, with their open-social creation of content, it’s important for businesses to pay attention to the following guidelines.

1. Conduct Searches on LBS Sites to Assess Your Identity

Start by finding out if and how your business listing exists within LBS apps. If your listing isn’t included, you should start by claiming and owning your listing.

Many LBS sites offer a specific page within their website for uploading business information or you can rely on a partner for providing such information.

2. Make Sure Name, Address, Phone Number (NAP) and Other Basic Listings Content is Correct

In a recent JiWire Mobile Audience Insights Report, 61 percent of respondents said that merchant location data is the most important location-based feature. This demonstrates that your NAP is the most sought after detail for consumers.

Given this, it’s crucial that listings are correct so that consumers can find your location, contact you, and make a purchase.

3. Monitor Sites to Ensure Your Business Has One, Consistent Identity

Most of the LBS sites allow users to create and sometimes edit merchant details — including your NAP. This is valuable for users, but can be challenging for you if multiple identities are created for your business.

This can create a negative snowball effect because future users can then check-in to and post information on a wrong location. Monitor your local business presence on these sites regularly and be sure to report multiple identities if they exist.

4. Engage Users Through Promotions, Discounts & Dialogue

LBS present opportunities to reach your current and prospective customers through promotions and incentives. For example, Foursquare users that check-in to American Eagle Outfitters receive a 15 percent discount at any of their 950+ stores nationwide.

Deals allow users to check-in and be rewarded with discounts. This keeps customers coming back to your business, as coupons have proven to be an effective form of marketing and customer engagement. A highlighted coupon on an LBS site might also attract a “nearby” customer to your business, who is actually checking in at a merchant next door.

5. Urge Loyal Customers to Upload Meaningful Content

New LBS apps are launching daily allowing users to share photos, videos, and reviews of your business. You should encourage your “regular” customers to participate in social forums for more exposure and search engine optimization (SEO) visibility.

Based on your line of business, this might be asking for a video post to your hotel’s Facebook page, a great Yelp review if you’re a hair stylist, or a photo of a worthy dish uploaded to Foodspotting for restaurants.

Customer who are happy with the service you provide are often willing to connect and post about your business on social forums. You might even reward these customers with a special incentive or coupon.

Summary

As LBS begins to drive more local searches, it’s critical for you to first establish your anchor NAP information, so that your business can be found and additional content can be linked to your online identity.

Also, based on increased adoption of LBS sites, take time to interact with these forums so you can leverage social engagement and increase visibility for your business online and, ultimately, make sure that consumers are checking in and out.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3641792

2011
01/30
CATEGORY
Location Based Services
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Extreme Sports + Foursquare = Charity Win

xgames image

Now you can watch people get hurt do cool tricks at the Winter X Games and give money to charity by using Foursquare.Sports Authority has teamed up with Foursquare to help support the fight against breast cancer at the 15thWinter X Games, which run from today until January 30. Sports Authority has promised to donate $1 for every checkin to “Sports Authority at Winter X Games” at Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, Colo. The money will go toBoarding for Breast Cancer, one of Sports Authority’s non-profit partners. Sports Authority will donate up to $1,000 per day until the games end.

Although the X Games weren’t involved in planning the campaign, the games have long been proponents of giving back, including the “Get Caught Recycling” initiative.

Given the popularity of the X Games — an annual tournament similar to an Olympics for extreme sports like skateboarding, freestyle motocross and snowboarding — it’s likely that Sports Authority will hit its $1,000 cap each day. Despite its trappings, the campaign is actually similar to traditional types of fundraising. Social media isn’t integrated so much as it’s a way for Sports Authority to track how much it needs to donate. The question is whether Sports Authority could raise more money and spread awareness by better integrating social media tools.

One step in the right direction is the use of the #Xcellent hashtag to create a larger conversation and community around breast cancer awareness.

Will you participate or check in? Do you think Foursquare is popular enough to pilot a campaign like this? Sound off in the comments below.

http://mashable.com/2011/01/27/xgames-foursquare-charity

2011
01/28
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Foursquare Stats of 2010

2011
01/27
CATEGORY
Location Based Services
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Foursquare grows 3,400 percent, showing strength of location services

Social check-in service Foursquare released some numbers today on its blog — including the fact that the company has grown around 3,400 percent, showing that despite stiff competition in location-based services, the company isn’t going anywhere.

A big spiffy infographic on Foursquare’s blog shows some other interesting, choice data. The biggest news, however, is the fact that there were 381,576,305 check-ins made in 2010 last year, and that someone has used the service to check in to every single country on the planet — and one location off of it (not to leave you in suspense: it was the International Space Station).

Not up to speed on the whole location-based services (LBS) bandwagon? It’s basically a group of apps for mobile devices that use GPS technology to let you share your location with others. It’s called “checking-in,” and you push a button in the app when you patronize a business or arrive at a certain location (Dodgers Stadium, for example, but anywhere, really). You can share the information with friends who use the service, as well as through other social networking sites. With Foursquare, checking-in to a location more than any other user results in your becoming “mayor” of that place, and using the app can earn you virtual rewards in the form of badges, commemorating your “achievements” — like checking into three locations in a single night, or traveling more than a few miles in a certain time limit to make check-ins.

Needless to say, that’s a whole lot of check-ins. And Foursquare is just one service; it has a big competitor in Gowalla. Facebook also allows check-ins with its “Places” feature through its iPhone app, and Google (GOOG) recently launched Google Places with the same idea. Foursquare has been pushing to work with local businesses to offer deals to people who use the check-in service, and especially to people who take the time to become mayors of certain locations. Starbucks offers deals to mayors, and some Fat Burger restaurants where I am in Los Angeles offer discounts for Foursquare.

But while Foursquare is getting a lot of people using it to check-in, the business-to-app connection seems slower. Meanwhile, Groupon offers basically the same service — driving customers to local businesses, only by providing group-buying deals and coupons — and is raking it in, purporting to be worth $15 billion. And Google is looking to compete in that space, as well, along with a bunch of other services, like LivingSocial, that carry similar services to Groupon.

The point? All these services live and die by their apps, which are the GPS-enabled mobile interfaces for the services. LBS apps allow for check-ins and group-buying apps use GPS to show users where different deals are taking place near them, or to allow users to flash their coupons without having to print them.

If LBS was a big deal last year, you can be sure that it’s about to become a huge deal, given how much money Groupon has available to it, and how much interest there is from big players like Facebook and Google. Foursquare and its competitors might have a different focus from the group-buying guys — they’re more about social networking, it would appear — but as the market becomes more flooded, they’ll need cool new ways to stay competitive, or to diversify their services from the ones that are more about linking up with local businesses.

Foursquare, for its part, seems to be doing a pretty good job of it — the company released an update that allows for persistent check-ins not long ago. Still, expect to see the service looking to further revolutionize itself this year to stay differentiated from, and ahead of, Google and Facebook. There’s going to be even more competition between LBS services for space on your iPhone, so expect some great new features to come out of these apps, as well as more money to be saved for downloading them.

 

2011
01/27
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Location Based Services
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