07 Apr 10

Foursquare and online innovation in 2010

by Laura Fenton, Trainee Digital Planner/Buyer

Providing comprehensive geo-location services for their consumers, companies such as Foursquare have really taken off in 2010. During March, Foursquare grew by almost 100,000 users in just 10 days – taking the total number of global users to approximately 750,000. Arguably a more significant statistic, the year-old company recently revealed there have also been over 22 million check-ins by its users.

For those less familiar with the company’s services, Foursquare enables users to earn points by “checking-in” at various locations in your city using a mobile device with GPS functionality. If you are at a coffee shop for example, Foursquare can alert you to which of your friends are nearby and ask them to join you, rewarding you with more points. If you also check into the same coffee shop multiple times, you are eligible to become the mayor of that spot, until someone else frequents the place more than you.

The real value for businesses however can be found in Foursquare’s real time updates with the names of locations where people check in. The service is also integrated with Facebook and Twitter to ensure further social network reach. Businesses can utilize Foursquare check-ins to get people talking about their brand and reward customers for their loyalty through discounts and incentives - especially for repeat business.

These geo-location services offer a unique opportunity for hyper geo-specific marketing and a new way to attract consumers’ attention, with the competition aspect of Foursquare encouraging more frequent check-ins by users, and in turn more online (and free) exposure for brands. Tailoring adverts to individual consumers’ needs will more than likely increase user numbers as people will be more willing to provide their location to advertisers. With Foursquare’s numbers growing as they have over the last month, I think it would be fair to say that we should expect to see the arrival of new location-based services over the coming year.