How Foursquare Can Help Your Business: A Step-By-Step Tutorial - By Aimee Frey, Downtown Washington, Inc.

How Foursquare Can Help Your Business:
       A Step-By-Step Tutorial
      By Aimee Frey, Downtown Washington, Inc.

What is Foursquare?
• Developed in 2009, Foursquare is a location-
  based social networking website for mobile
  devices.
• Users “check in” at venues using text
  messaging, a mobile website or mobile
  application by selecting from a list of venues
  the app locates nearby.
• Users receive numerous check-in badges for
  various reasons
   o Ex: Explorer Badge for checking
     in to 25 different venues
   o Currently 166 active badges
      •   (www.4squarebadges.com/foursquare-badge-
          list/active-badges/)

Foursquare By the Numbers
• Community: over 30 million worldwide
• Over 3 billion check-ins, with millions
  more every day
• Businesses: over 1 million using the
  Merchant Platform

Foursquare has valuable data on consumer
behavior (i.e. what they’re spending money on
at what time of day), which it can channel into
aiding location-based advertising.

www.foursquare.com/business/

Foursquare Merchant
             Platform
• Step 1 – Claim your venue
  www.foursquare.com/business/merchants
• Step 2 – Create a Special
  - Start creating Specials to get new
    customers and engage your already loyal
    ones.
• Step 3 – Grow your business
  - Engage your customers, learn more about
    them and help new ones find you.

Step 1 – Claim Your Venue

• 1. Find your listing on Foursquare
   – If you are not already listed, go to
     www.foursquare.com/add_venue to create one
• 2. Claim it
   – Click the “Do you manage this venue? Claim
     here.” link on the right side of the page of your
     listing, or go to
     www.foursquare.com/business/merchants/claim
     ing
• 3. Verify that you’re the manager
   – Either by phone or mail (can take up to two
     weeks)
• 4. You’re ready to start running Specials!

Step 2 – Creating a Special
• You must have already claimed your venue,
  with approval, before you can create a Special
• The most successful Specials include:
   – A discount with purchase (spend $50, get $10 off)
   – Something for free (free item with purchase of item)
   – Special treatment (check in for free admission to an
     event)
   – Reward your best customers (free item on 10th visit)
• Your Special will be marked with an eye-catching
  graphic
• Your Special must not be something available to
  the general public

How To Create a Special
• Log in to your account that manages your venue
• Click the “Specials” tab at the top of the screen
• Click the “Create a Special” tab in the upper corner
• Foursquare will then walk you through a series of
  questions to set up your special
• Click the “Create Special” button to move to the
  final step of the process
• You’ll then see a preview of your Special. Use
  “Advanced Options” to schedule the start date and
  end date of your Special.
• When you’re ready, click the “Start Campaign
  Now” button to begin the listing of your Special.

Levels of Specials

The Newbie Special unlocks on a user’s first time ever visiting
your venue. This is the most direct way to drive new traffic to
your venue (ex. 25% off purchase if it’s your first visit)

You set the minimum threshold for a group of Foursquare
friends you’d like to reward for visiting your business together,
and the Special is only redeemed if that many friends check in
(ex. Bring in 4 friends and get a something free)

Getting its name from “Flash Sale,” you set the number of
Specials you want to unlock per day, then after that its first-
come, first-served. This is good for special limited-quantity sales
(ex. First 10 people get something free with purchase)

Levels of Specials (continued)
 This involves inviting lots of people to check in at the same time.
 You can set a minimum number of Foursquare users that need to
 check in within a 3-hour window to unlock the Special. It can only
 be unlocked once per day per venue (ex. If 10 people are in the
 store at once, everyone gets something free)
 This is the classic Special. It unlocks on every check-in, or on
 whatever conditions you apply. This is great for rewarding users
 on their routine check-ins (ex. Users take 15% off any item on
 Mondays)
 You can either reward a user every X times they visit, reward them
 for coming in X times in total, or reward them for being loyal
 within a certain period – X visits over Y days. The point is to
 encourage the user to come back (ex. On your 5th visit, receive
 something exclusive)
 Awarded to the Mayor of your venue. The Mayor is the most
 frequent visitor over the last 60 days. This is a great way to reward
 your best customer and encourages other users to compete for
 that title and prize (ex. Free item every day of reign)

Promote Your Special
• Your Special will appear on users’
  phones whenever they are in the
  vicinity of your business
• Don’t forget to use other social
  media outlets to let people know
  about your Special

Step 3 – Growing Your Business
• Once you’ve claimed your business, you get
  full access to real-time data about your
  customers on your Merchant Dashboard,
  including:
   –   Total daily check-ins over time
   –   Your most recent visitors
   –   Your most frequent visitors
   –   Gender breakdown of your customers
   –   What time of day people check in
   –   Portion of your venue’s check-ins that
       are broadcast on Facebook and Twitter
• You can use all this to tailor your Specials

Dashboard Tab
• The updated Dashboard presents the following
  data:
   – Key Metrics (overview of activity)
        •   Total check-ins
        •   Unique visitors
        •   Percentage of check-ins shared with Twitter
        •   Percentage of check-ins shared with Facebook
        •   Gender percentages of check-ins
   –   Top Visitors (3 listed)
   –   Most Recent Check-ins (12 listed)
   –   Detailed Information of All Check-Ins
   –   Time Breakdown (when users are checking in)
• Each data point can be viewed in various time
  periods (daily, per week, per month, etc.)

New – Foursquare Lists
• Allow Foursquare users to create
  lists that can be shared with their
  friends.
• The lists are literally lists of favorite
  places that users can click on to
  write reviews and add pictures of
  venues.
• Ex: Favorite Downtown Restaurants
  or Great Downtown Shopping

New – Explore Tab
• The Explore tab allows users to search
  their current area for a specific type of
  business, such as coffee shops or
  stores.
• It also allows the user to distinguish
  between places they’ve been and
  liked, or new places they’ve never
  been to.
• They can also see where their friends
  have been.

Connected Apps Platform
•   Brings content from other services into the main app
•   Apps with useful information that Foursquare can’t normally provide on its own can
    now show up as part of a check-in
•   Platform Partners so far…
     –   Eat This, Not That – tells you what dishes to order and what to avoid at restaurants when you
         check in
     –   The Winester Square – Carry your wine journal with you so you can easily add wines from new
         venues you visited
     –   Untappd – Shows recommendations from friends and others on which bars to visit and which
         beers to order
     –   Sonar – Informs you of your connections to interesting people nearby
     –   Soundtracking – Share and discover songs your friends have shared at a place
     –   Snoball – Trigger charity donations when you check in, and tells you about friends’ donations
     –   Foodspotting – See what dishes foodspotters, friends and experts recommend wherever you go
     –   Squaredar – Find out when far away friends are nearby
     –   GroupMe – Makes it easier to share your check-in with a group of friends
     –   Blue Legends – Notifies you when you earn extra rewards for checking into Lufthansa venues
     –   Instagram – Share your photos, which friends can see and tap through to the app
     –   Path – Share photos and text from Path, which tap through to the app
     –   The Weather Channel – Get the weather forecast with your first check-in of the day and when
         you check in to a new city
     –   Lanyrd – Get information about conferences and professional events when you check in
     –   Blue Legends – Collect unique badges and ranks for your flights

Helpful Websites
• Foursquare.com/about/
• Foursquare.com/business/
• Foursquare.com/business/merchants
  /specials
• Support.foursquare.com/categories/
  20060487-Foursquare-for-Business
• Support.foursquare.com/home
• Graspitmarketing.com/2011/07/four
  square-tutorial/

Aimee Frey, Event Director
 Downtown Washington, Inc.
123 Lafayette Street, Suite 100
   Washington, MO 63090

       (636) 239-1743
events@downtownwashmo.org
 www.downtownwashmo.org