Using Foursquare For Business
Although we’d be first to admit that Foursquare isn’t for every business, it can be a great tool for places of interests and hospitality businesses, like:
- Hotels
- Restaurants
- Bars/pubs/ Cafes
- Local Attractions
- Entertainment Venues
With over 50 million users around the world, it’s possible to reach potential audience using new, unique channel and showcase your business it in a new light.
So what is Foursquare?
In short Foursquare is a local directory that provides personalised recommendations businesses to its users based on previous destinations, likes and browsing history.
Consumers leave brief tips and photos of local businesses to let others know what they like (or don’t) about the place. As a business, you can listen to what your customers have to say and use Foursquare’s tools to join the conversation.
Setting up Foursquare is easy
Like most social platforms nowadays setting up an account is as easy as entering your Business Name and Location and selecting claim. The trickier part comes to when you want to verify your listing.
The benefit of having Foursquare business means that you are able to gain insights of Foursquare users and offer response directly to consumers under the business name. Foursquare’s service allows you to analyse the demographics of your business and consequently become more familiar with the profile of your audience.
Further benefits include:
- Edit listing details;
- Create special offers;
- Post tips for customers;
- Run ads to promote the business.
Foursquare Best Practices
There are a variety of ways for a business to use foursquare to bring in more customers and keep people coming back, but we have narrowed it down to some proven methods.
- Offer foursquare users exclusive gifts or benefits
In the case of a restaurant, if you posted “claim a free starter when you tell the waiter ”foursquare wins” this encourages interaction with your establishment, possibly drawing in new customers. Once people arrive it is up to you to make sure their experience is as good as possible, doing so will encourage newcomers to become regular customers. Each business can offer something exclusive to drive repeat visits and encourage social sharing.
- Listen to what people are saying
People are there writing their personal opinions about your business. Whether they are positive or negative you need to be listening. If a group of people like a particular aspect of your business make sure you showcase and share it via social media. If you receive negative feedback through Foursquare, take it as a free feedback or focus group. It’s better to know where you or staff members are can improve rather than continue on oblivious. Learn from client’s experience and thoughts and improve your business over time. This will encourage people to leave feedback more often and interact with you, because they feel they are valued as a customer.
Swarm
Swarm is a Foursquare connected app. It primarily facilitates the use of check-ins and geo-tags. This app turns local experiences into a game; earning points, rewards and seeing how far away your contacts are. The swarm App allows you to create events and make ad-hoc plans with friends that are “just here” (within 500 feet).
As a business using Foursquare for promotion you want to make sure that people are seeing you listing with a number of interactions and tips from others. This encourages a better relationship with your customers and affects their decision to visit your establishment.
Get the Swarm App Here
Summary
Using Foursquare has it benefits for hospitality businesses as long as you make sure you maintain a consistent social interaction with your customers and you listen/learn from their feedback. Nearly all mobile users (95%) rely on their devices for local search, so increase the chances of ranking by covering all the relevant social and local platforms.
