The Sunday brunch line at Miss Shirley’s Café’s two locations in Baltimore often stretches to two hours or more. Since April, they’ve offered to let their foursquare mayor jump to the head of the line.
The competition for that coveted honor has been fierce. According to Ryan Goff of agency MGH, Miss Shirley’s has seen a 427% increase in foursquare checkins since the special launched. They’ve heard several anecdotal reports of people visiting more often just to try to earn the mayorship.
As you can see in this chart showing the checkins at their Roland Park location, activity increased dramatically in April.
Goff says, “Miss Shirley’s wanted to engage their customers on a different level by creating this sense of competition. It has turned dining there into this competitive game in which Shirley’s fans are pitted against one another.”
Miss Shirley’s promotes the special with signs and cards stuffed into every check holder that describe foursquare and alert visitors to the offer.
While Miss Shirley’s has been unable to tie the special to an increase in business, they have seen a good bit of positive press, blog posts, tweets, etc. If nothing else, increasing the number of checkins has increased the number of mentions on Twitter and Facebook as users share their checkins with their friends on those networks.
What do you think of Miss Shirley’s mayor special? Would it encourage you to check in more to try to oust the mayor?
/photo on yfrog by @maxwellzorick
#1 by ack154 on July 27, 2010 - 2:26 pm
TWO HOURS FOR BRUNCH?!
I don’t care how good the place is, no f’ing way.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s awesome to see this kind of result from 4sq. But these people are ALL nuts.
#2 by Mica Knibbs on July 27, 2010 - 3:10 pm
I love the fact that a business has found a way to use foursquare properly as a marketing tool. Of course there is the fun and competitive aspects of it, so as a business, why not use that as an advantage?
#3 by Stephen on July 27, 2010 - 7:25 pm
This only goes to show people game the system to become mayor. There is only “anecdotal evidence” of increased traffic into the store, but check-ins have gone way up. This is precisely why mayoral specials tend not to work with the presence of cheaters.
#4 by Chris Thompson on July 27, 2010 - 7:42 pm
The more likely answer is that the number of foursquare users has increased thanks to the signage and receipt stuffers. I don’t think this showing mayor “gaming” in any way.
#5 by Shirley Villalba on July 29, 2010 - 3:39 pm
As I become a member of that company? .. LOL
#6 by Jill McFarland on July 31, 2010 - 4:11 pm
I agree that this is a great way to create buzz but I think what Brinker has done at Chili’s, offered a special for those that check in and tying it to a promo code is a really smart idea. At least they’ll be able to track sales and there is no benefit for gaming the system. Glad to hear about smaller businesses getting on board though!
#7 by AGuyNameJay on August 1, 2010 - 3:47 pm
I saw this article and just recently had breakfast there and the food is AWESOME!!! I could see why they wait for 2 hours.