Welcome to Foursquare!

Functional

As already mentioned, Foursquare – is a social network application that runs on mobile devices (IPhone, Android, BlackBerry, palm, Ovi Nokia and others), and in the web.

Now Foursquare has mobile applications for operating systems such as iPhone, Symbian, Android, webOS, Windows Phone 7 and BlackBerry. These applications help you connect with your friends, keep track of their location and update own. You can get the site with a usual phone through your browser, as there is a mobile version of the site, which has a fairly simple design, but it is functional.

Find Friends

When registering the service offering to find friends through accounts in Google Contacts, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter or via email.

Find places

The application can determine your location, which is very useful if you need to find the nearest gas station, cafe, hospital, etc. Reading the rating, you can choose your favorite places to come and check-in. For institutions – it's a big plus to have a profile in Foursquare, because more and more people use it, to choose where to go.

You can find a place for specific keywords: typing “pizza”, search will give you a list of places to eat pizza. Again, you can choose detailed reviews and tips.

Check-in

It's almost meaningless to use Foursquare at home. The site is used to look for, reviews, to make friends, and add locations to which you want to go in to do-list. In order to participate in the game, you need a phone, preferably with GPS for precise positioning.

So, coming to a place, you need to select Check in, and the application will give you a list of institutions that are close to you. If there is no place you are, you can create a page for this institution. In this case, you can leave a review about the institution or prompt (tip), for example, work time, where to park, what is better to order, etc.

To all your chek-ins appeared on Facebook and Twitter, you need to select the appropriate option to create your profile. Then all your friends will know where you currently are.

Mayor – it sounds good!

If you have registered with an institution more often, you can get the title of “mayor” of the place. Mayor becomes a user with the largest number of days with chek-ins during the last 60 days. One more thing – the mayor can only be a user who has a photo in his profile. Some institutions offer discounts or other special offers to their mayors, so you need to keep track of such marks when you chek-in nearby.

Badges

Badges – another way to encourage participants to chek-in. For each chek-in you get points, different amounts depending on the kind of mark: standard, first in one place, for the first day, the second on the same day in the same place, with the addition of a new location, the institution that you previously added to the to do-list. A huge number of badges, their collection is constantly updated. There are special awards from certain companies and Foursquare brands partners.

Company doesn't disclose methods for making badges and this is heated interest in the game, creating a buzz around the most famous representative of the world's geo-social network Foursquare.

!By the way, friendship in Foursquare – only mutual. Your watch over some person movements – he watches over you. Well, you understand, the model is not self-centered.

Foursquare in beta launched two new features for owners: Last Updates and Promoted Updates – tools for advertisers.

Last Updates allows business owners to quickly update a company profile and deliver their news directly to a user's phone having checked in their institutions. This functional is for free.

The second Foursquare feature was called Promoted Updates. It is a set of tools for advertisers, allowing to place in the service paid advertisements in the tab “research”. This tab shows places that are next to the user, so the ads will appear only at the right time and with a high probability to “lure” users at the right institution.

Payment in the new advertising service is for users' action, the main one is chek in the advertiser's institution and the secondary – the use of a proposal specified in advertisement. But for now only a limited number of companies belonging to a group of beta-testing can advertise.

How Foursquare can help

However, Foursquare has many advantages for owners of restaurants and shops.

I. Advertising Opportunities

For major retailers and just for neighbor stores, Foursquare is a great tool to attract customers. The more your site is visited, the more you get popularity. In addition, we can offer a variety of promotions and discounts for users of social services. But remember, you need to create your business page on Facebook and Twitter.

II. Discounts

Who wouldn't like to use the product for free or for half price, or at least enjoy it for a discount! Social service gives you this incredible opportunity that will attract new customers. In addition, those who regularly visit a cafe, may be rewarded a free cup of coffee or a coupon for lunch. So this is not just a high ranking in social networks, but also to obtain a loyal customer.

III. Tips for others

If you are not a merchant or a business owner, then one of the most enjoyable features of Foursquare is revising the advice of other members. For example, if you're wondering whether the good Chinese restaurant nearby, you can check out the reviews of former guests and choose the best and cheapest place. Tips – these are the most frequently used services on the social network.

IV. Keep track of your spending

Foursquare allows you to keep track of all your purchases, providing any information you need. So you can understand exactly where your salary is spent every months and avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.

Examples of using the service:

PepsiCo has developed an application for the iPhone, which allows to Foursquare users send messages if there is a place where people can buy Pepsi drinks.

McDonald's has increased the attendance up to 33% (!) with joint action with the service Foursquare. The essence :visiting Foursquare, McDonald's visitors had the opportunity to become owners of 100 gift cards, each of which cost 10 or $ 5. 600 000 people took part in the campaign, due to them McDonald's attendance increased, the costs of this action have been about $ 1,000.

Starbucks offered a discount of $ 1 for any size frapuchino for “mayors” and in the results the number of chek-ins reached 50%.

You can offer a small discount, a glass of beer, a cup of hot chocolate, even a special “badge” in Foursquare, the idea is to ignore your customers. These may be special offers for “mayors” or chek-in places for the frequency of check-ins and group deals.