Foursquare is swamped by business requests right now; companies are looking to add specials, badges and brand profile pages. Much has been made of their lack of responsiveness to media buyers and representatives of some of the biggest brands, but foursquare already provides two tools that brands can use to get started today: tips and the foursquare API. Neither one requires any help from foursquare’s small staff.
Add Value with Tips
Tips are the quickest and easiest way for brands to get started on foursquare. Any person — or brand — can add tips to any venue in foursquare’s database with just a regular user account. Foursquare users can see those tips through their mobile app or on the foursquare website. Even better, users who add your brand as a “friend” will see a pop-up on their screen when they check in at or near one of the venues where you’ve left tips. Read Write Web has dubbed this feature “Location Layers.” It’s been available to all user accounts since late last year and to brands since February.
For most brands, tips are a way to boost the brand’s visibility by adding value for foursquare’s users. With a little creativity, you can come up with a list of relevant tips for just about any brand.
Both Visit Brasil and Red Bull are using foursquare’s tips feature from regular user accounts. Red Bull has used their account to provide tips on bars and to create a sort of scavenger hunt through New York City with the Red Bull Air Race gates. Visit Brasil offers tips on venues throughout Brazil, like this one at Pedra do Arpoador:
Enjoy at least one sunset from this spot. It will be unforgetable.
The primary difference between regular user accounts and brand profiles is that users need to click the “Add as Friend” button instead of “Follow.” The brand’s manager will need to approve each friend request, unlike follows which happen automatically. If Red Bull’s 1600 “friends” are any indication, Foursquare users have proven they’re not shy about adding brands as friends that can add value to their experience. Additionally, user profiles lack the fancy branded header and description box that appear on branded profiles.
Showing foursquare that your brand knows how to use tips to add value to their user experience could help your chances at getting upgraded to a full brand profile — or to offering badges — in the future.
Build on top of the robust API
Tips are an expected part of any brand’s involvement with foursquare, so to stand out from the crowd you have to do something a little different. Building something on top of Foursquare’s robust API provides that opportunity.
With a little creativity and a savvy developer, just about anything is possible. Here are some things brands have already built on top of the foursquare API:
- The Brooklyn Museum uses the API to feed a page on their site that shows their past mayors and people who’ve earned their BK Art Star badge, along with people who’ve checked in to the museum and the tips they’ve left on the museum’s venue page. They also feature a map that shows tips created by their staff on venues throughout the surrounding neighborhood like restaurants, bars and hotels.
- VisitMilwaukee features a page on their site that shows their “friends’” checkins on a map.
- FiddMe and Foodspotting have integrated foursquare’s checkin functionality into their iPhone apps.
- Intuit’s Love a Local Business campaign lets visitors nominate local businesses simply by choosing a venue from their foursquare history.
Conclusion
You’ll learn a lot about foursquare just by setting up an account and seeing the service through a user’s eyes for a few days. Use our Foursquare 101 guide to help get you started. Think about the kinds of tips or applications that would add value to other users’ experiences.
Whatever you do, don’t be “spammy” and add tips that aren’t relevant to the specific venue where you’ve added them. Foursquare users will take notice and even the appearance of spam could be damaging to your brand. Do it right and you can get your brand in front of thousands of users for just the cost of a little creativity and a little time.
