Foursquare this afternoon launched a new and improved section of their site for businesses looking to partner with the service. The new pages help explain to businesses the options that are available to them for connecting to their customers and followers. It’s broken into two sections: merchants and brands.

The merchants section explains exactly how to claim a venue, start a special, promote it and monitor venue statistics. While including much of the same information as the old business page, it’s easier to read and goes into much more detail. It addresses some of businesses’ biggest concerns like adding coupon codes for cashiers and shows what the unlock screen looks like so businesses can educate their employees.

The brands section is entirely new, covering the ways that brands without locations can connect with their customers through branded pages and badges. While it says a self-service tool for brands to claim their own branded pages is in the works, it does offer a form where brands can apply to get a branded page created manually. It advises brands on the best ways to add tips to their pages so they’ll be seen by their followers and offers a form where they can request consideration for a branded badge.

For the first time, foursquare’s criteria for adding branded badges is spelled out on their site. They say badges should meet the following criteria:

1. Earned reward. People should be excited to earn your badge. The badge alone isn’t the reward; it’s the journey that your followers took culminating in “unlocking” your badge that counts most. Unlocking a badge should create a ping of delight and accomplishment in your followers!
2. Do it again. Unlocking badges should reward a behavior pattern from your customers, not just one action. Getting a badge just for showing up is too easy to be fulfilling.
3. Relevant to lots of followers. Your badge should be unlockable by a wide audience; it should appeal to users in Kansas and California, not just New York or Paris. After all, Partner Badges are only available to your followers.
4. Plan ahead. Badges take time. From a technical perspective, we need a considerable amount of time to get a good badge into the system.

Badges can’t be offered to every brand, of course, but foursquare pledges to review every submission through their form and respond within two weeks if they feel it’s a good fit.

This new section will definitely be a help to foursquare in attracting business partners and explain the processes for claiming venues and brand pages. They provide much more information in an easily digestible format than was available before.

What do you think of the new pages for businesses?

No related posts.