I have a feeling we’ll be hearing this question a lot over the next few weeks. Many people will be getting their first taste of Foursquare specials with the nationwide rollout of the Starbucks mayor special on Monday. Mayorships will take on a whole new meaning once money is involved.
When you look at a Foursquare venue page, you’ll notice a box showing the current Mayor and a box showing “Your Visits.” When you mouse over the photo of the Mayor, you’ll see their name and their number of qualifying checkins. These numbers are often a source of confusion because they are calculated quite differently. “Your Visits” is your total number of visits to the location all-time. The number of qualifying checkins is used to determine the mayorship (Foursquare’s calculation is almost never wrong). To be a qualifying checkin, it must be:
- Within the past 60 days
- Your first checkin that day
- A valid, points-earning checkin
- Shared with friends (as opposed to an “off the grid” checkin) (Updated 5/17/10; see comments for more info)
Multiple checkins on the same day will count toward “Your Visits,” but are not considered qualifying checkins for mayorship. The same is true for visits that were flagged either as “a little too far away” or “rapid fire checkins.”
Be the Mayor is a helpful tool for finding your number of qualifying checkins and how many more you need to become mayor. All you need to do is enter the venue ID of the venue in question and you’ll be directed to log in to the site through Foursquare. It will then provide a report with everything you need to know to become mayor.
Two other notes about becoming mayor:
- You must have a profile picture.
- You can’t become mayor on your first visit. It must be at least your second qualifying checkin, even if the venue has had no other visitors.
Have fun competing for mayorships, but don’t let it stress you out when you don’t get one. Keep checking in (on separate days!) and you’ll get there eventually!
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#1 by ack154 on May 14, 2010 - 1:53 pm
I really wish they’d change that checkins number when you go to the venue page. If they’d set that to the “qualifying checkins” number, there would be SO much less confusion.
#2 by LLamx on May 14, 2010 - 2:38 pm
I’ve noticed that at some venues it is likely that the Mayor is an employee due to the large number of check-ins.
#3 by ack154 on May 14, 2010 - 2:49 pm
That could be resolved by someone “claiming” that business as the manager. They would then be able to designate users checking in as employees so customers can be mayor.
#4 by kris on May 15, 2010 - 8:56 am
Is the “off the grid” rule new? I am mayor of a couple of places where I regularly check in “off the grid”.
#5 by Spam on May 17, 2010 - 1:47 am
kris is right; unless something was changed very recently, you can still earn a mayorship with “off the grid” checkins.
#6 by Chris Thompson on May 17, 2010 - 10:46 am
I was under the impression that this post from Foursquare’s community manager had been implemented already:
In my testing this weekend I found that you and Kris are correct, however. You can earn a mayorship with an off-the-grid checkin. I’ve corrected the post.
#7 by Anon on June 4, 2010 - 6:44 pm
Please make easier to see how many checkins the mayor has on the iPhone.
#8 by Sammy on December 8, 2010 - 8:24 am
I noticed I may have been blocked from becoming a mayor? I say this because while checking via Bethemayor.com it shows I have a negative check in to become mayor…..that means I already reached “0″ checkins and I still wasnt the mayor.
#9 by Chris Thompson on December 8, 2010 - 8:37 am
Are you using the mobile web site? It appears foursquare has changed their policy and will no longer allow mobile web checkins to count toward mayorship.
#10 by Bongers on December 9, 2010 - 7:05 am
I have the same problem as Sammy.
I’m using mobile web to checkin…
#11 by sammy on December 9, 2010 - 5:53 pm
Well for some I have been using the web. But this one venue that doesn’t even have a mayor, I’ve been checking in with the app on my phone and I’m still not mayor-5 checkins already and still not mayor
#12 by JCB on December 17, 2010 - 2:36 pm
I haven’t been able to become mayor of a venue that I frequent a lot and the venue has no mayor! What is going on? And I notice that if someone is mayor, it is not telling you how many days away you are from being mayor.
I am using the foursquare app for the Droid.
Looking forward to some responses on this one.
#13 by Chris Thompson on December 17, 2010 - 3:38 pm
The only thing I can think of: does the venue have a manager on foursquare? It’s possible your mayorship was revoked/banned permanently. Otherwise I have no idea.
#14 by Doc on December 31, 2010 - 1:32 pm
I am having the same problem as JCB. I frequently visit several venues with no Mayor and haven’t gotten anything.
I also am noticing that I am getting duplicate check ins and some times triple and haven’t figured out why.
#15 by JCB on December 31, 2010 - 5:10 pm
@Doc – Turns out you have to share your check-in with your friends on foursquare in order to become Mayor and/or see how days away mayorship is.
Also, you can’t just check in and tell Twitter or Facebook unless it includes again, foursquare friends.
#16 by Alex on January 11, 2011 - 12:33 am
I am new to foursquare, only using it for about a week. It is troubling that I have to search up how the whole mayorship works and that by going “off the grid” or choosing not to share with friends disqualifies myself from the running. The reason I do not “share with friends” is that I don’t want to clutter twitter or facebook with the foursquare posts. Also, another question is why is that considered “off the grid”? Foursquare still can verify that I am at the location with coordinates through the mobile phone I use right?
#17 by Chris Thompson on January 11, 2011 - 7:44 am
Off the grid is only for when you don’t want to share with your foursquare friends. Twitter and Facebook are separate options that you can turn on or off for each checkin. Don’t worry about cluttering your friends’ foursquare feeds with checkins. It’s expected that you’ll check in wherever you go and they have tools to turn it off if they get annoyed by it.
Off the grid checkins count toward mayorship, but you can’t actually earn the mayorship while checking in off the grid. If you have enough checkins to be mayor, you’ll earn it the next time you checkin in on the grid at that spot.
It’s a nice privacy feature. I use off the grid checkins while checking in at my daughter’s dance class. I don’t want to be the mayor of the place and have it plastered in public, but I do want a record of those checkins for the future.
#18 by Andy Wright on March 1, 2011 - 5:38 pm
Has there been a change to the way Foursquare is calculating check-ins for Mayorship? Reason I ask is I’m having a back and forth ousting between a co-worker and myself over the Mayorship of our company we work for. Today I ousted him first thing in the morning. He came in and ousted me. At lunch I came back in and ousted him. He ousted me shortly thereafter. I ousted him and then he ousted me – all in one day. To make matters even more confusing I am listed as having 45 checkins over 60 days and he has 32 over 60 days. Seems like something is flakey.
#19 by kim on April 22, 2011 - 10:08 am
I have a question: I just got mayorship at my place of employment yesterday and today I was ousted! To add insult to injury, I have to check in 9 more days in order to even qualify again. How is it possible that the new mayor has 9 more check ins than I do after only one day?
#20 by Chris Thompson on April 22, 2011 - 10:52 am
Well, it’s possible that the new mayor has been checking in off the grid and then checked in on the grid yesterday. All those off the grid checkins count toward the mayorship, but it’s not actually earned until you make an on the grid checkin.
#21 by kim on April 22, 2011 - 11:17 am
Ahhhh thanks. I understand now. Not happy about it, but it makes sense to this foursquare newb!
#22 by whistler on May 6, 2011 - 8:04 am
I had a similar problem. I lost a mayorship, 20 minutes later I checkin and I’m instantly 9 days away from being mayor. WTF.
Is it possible to trick 4sq into letting you check in either multiple times a day or from a distant location and still get credit for it?