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June 4th, 2010
Posted by Megan Green

As with many social mediums, it starts as a simple, fun network but ends up inventing yet another new way for businesses to attract and advertise to customers. Case in point: Foursquare.

Foursquare was launched in 2009 at SXSW and quickly had a large following. The application was designed for people and friends to literally check-in to venues, keep track of friends, and add a status and location update to both Twitter and Facebook.

Among other things, users are awarded badges for things such as visiting new places, checking in late night, checking into more than one venue per hour, and even being dubbed mayor of a venue for the most number of check-ins (speaking of, guess who’s mayor of Click Here and The Richards Group? I can sign autographs later).

Less than a year later Foursquare has blown up. According to an article by Mashable this year on March 29, Foursquare was up to 725,000 users with more than 22 million check-ins since the company started.

With the sudden rush and excitement that Foursquare has given to thousands of users, it’s only logical that businesses and advertising companies join the location-based bandwagon and use its capabilities to drive traffic and awareness to their venues and products.

Perhaps one of the most notable campaigns incorporating Foursquare, and the most talked about, is the newest application, CauseWorld. AdAge wrote an article on the application which allows users to check into jars of Miracle Whip, boxes of Tampax and packages of Gillette razors, to name a few (P&G, Kraft and Citi have all partnered with Foursquare).

When a user checks in to one of the products, they earn points, or “karmas,” that add up to real money to give to a charity of their choice. Since the launch in December of 2009, users have donated more than $200,000 per month.

Other businesses are using Foursquare to entice customers to visit. For instance, The Doubletree Hotel Crystal City in Virginia offers 20% off an entrée to all who check in and mayors receive 20% off their total bill.

Café Brazil in Addison, TX has offered the mayor 50% off their bill each time they visit. Club India in Edinburgh, UK offers a free drink after every fifth check in. Whole Foods in Marlton, NJ is offering a free small gelato or sorbet for the mayor of the store (to find an entire list of stores participating in special offers with Foursquare visit http://foursquare.com/businesses/).

No wonder many businesses have started looking at purchasing Foursquare to use as a potential location-targeted ad platform. Offer a free drink, a percentage off items, and advertise an event, and clients will have one dandy new revenue service to play with.

Not only does Foursquare entice people to visit, it also starts a conversation. With the ability to see where your friends are, and ask their opinions on a place a user can see they visited only a few short hours ago, consumers are able to get the most out of the places they visit.

The best part is – it’s incredibly easy for businesses to sign up and use the capabilities of the newest social network to promote their company. Foursquare recently launched a dashboard on March 8 that gauges where clients are coming from, how often they are visiting a venue, tips consumers have written on the venue and where they are going next.

Of course, with Foursquare being so new, there have been a few glitches, for instance, check-in cheaters. Some Foursquare users have been checking into venues and not even entering them. Users drive by and check in, visit a venue close to another venue and check in without entering, or even *gasp* sitting on their couch and logging in because their phone does not have GPS.

Fortunately, Foursquare has come up with a “cheater code” to combat these check-in cheaters and therefore, they are not given the points to cash in on businesses’ offers and promotions.

As Foursquare continues to grow, more and more businesses and products will start to offer promotions and the more creative it will get. And then I can ask, CEO Stan, what do I get for being the mayor of not one, but two of your companies?