Foursquare 3.0 – So What?

Foursquare is stepping up its game with new features that make it an even bigger player in the social media arena. The two year old platform now boasts over 15 million venues and more than 1/2 a billion check-ins amongst it’s 6 million users. And it is definitely something we should be talking with our clients about.

Here's a breakdown on two of the new features – the Explore tab and new Specials – and what they mean for the marketing professional.

Explore

The new Explore tab allows users to, wait for it, explore the area around them based on some different criteria. By selecting what you’re looking for, either by choosing a category and searching or by search alone, Foursquare will return a list of suggestions. According to the Foursquare blog, the list is compiled from a number of things:

• Places you’ve been
• Places your friends have been
• Places that you are loyal to
• The types of places you go
• How popular each place is with all users
• What day/time you are exploring
• What tips each venue has

Foursquare then takes it one step further by showing you the reason why that particular place would be of interest (you've been to related places, your friends have been here, etc.).

So what? 
The most common question people asked me about the "old" Foursquare was "what's the point?" And beyond showing off where you've been and maybe some friendly mayorship competition, there really wasn't one. But people value good recommendations – especially  recommendations that are tailored to their preferences, so this added functionality has the potential to draw a lot of new users. And an increase in new users will also increase the activity amongst existing users, meaning more users will see (and hopefully interact with) your company's Foursquare program.

New Specials

As I alluded to above, the key to Foursquare’s initial “mainstream” success was the Mayorship special that rewarded users for being the most frequent visitor to a particular venue. Now Foursquare has rolled out five new types of specials and a new interface to make the platform more valuable to businesses.

These new specials include:

• Flash specials – The first 3 people to check in get X. A typical door buster deal.
• Friends Special – check in with a certain number of friends and get X
• Swarm Special – check in with a large enough “swarm” and everyone gets X. Different from a Friends Special in that the other users don't have to be your Foursquare friends.
• Newbie Special – check in for the first time and get X. Great way for businesses to attract new customers.
• Check-In/Frequency/Loyalty check-ins – Get X every time you check in/Check in Y amount of times in a week and get X/Check in X amount of times and get Y on your return visit, respectively.

So what?
There are now several more ways to get people in the door. These new specials allow for more creativity, and a really creative special can increase word of mouth buzz around your business. Plus, on the Places screen in the app, users now see a list of all the Specials nearby, so new customers are more likely to see your business's special and visit your venue.

The business end is also becoming more streamlined. Businesses will now have access to an analytics dashboard, which displays all of your information, gives you the ability to manage and run multiple specials at once, and allows you to track performance both during and after a special is run. Running and managing specials at a business remains free. With all the new options available and the ease with which a business can implement them, it’s likely that even more brands will come on board.