Foursquare has a lot of things going for it, but one of their greatest assets might just be their rabid fan base. Without any prodding on foursquare’s part, more than 100 local user communities have popped up all over the globe simply to promote the service and connect like-minded users. Today foursquare has channeled that passion into their efforts to recruit more local business partners with the introduction of the foursquare Ambassador Card program.

It’s become more and more common for users to try to recruit their local restaurants into offering specials or stores into monitoring their analytics through the foursquare platform. The Ambassador Card is designed to be a “leave-behind” when users talk about the service with the managers of the businesses they visit. It helps to remind them of the conversation later in the day when they’re not inundated with customers and offers some of foursquare’s key benefits and a quick path to get them started.

Each card offers a unique URL and points to foursquare.com/ambassadors, where foursquare has set up an overview page that gets the manager started in the process of signing up for foursquare, claiming their business and offering a special. By guiding businesses through the process in this manner, it should help to ensure that they won’t get confused and back out part-way through.

For users who hand out these cards there’s a benefit as well: when a business signs up through the URL on their card, that user gets credited with the conversion. Foursquare has posted an application form where you can tell them why you think you’d be a good fit for the program. Once you’re accepted, they’ll print cards with your custom URL and send them to you free of charge. And given foursquare’s knack for encouraging user behavior by offering badges, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a badge in the future for users who sign up enough businesses.

Signing up local businesses is one of the keys to foursquare’s future. More verified businesses offer the opportunity for more specials, which in turn drives more user signups from people looking for local deals. Foursquare’s move to leverage their passionate userbase is a great way to get the upper hand on Facebook Places since you don’t typically find their users out touting the benefits of Facebook at the places they visit.

What do you think of the Ambassador Card program? Is leveraging passionate users on the ground the key to foursquare’s future success?

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