Foursquare – Check Out the Perks of Checking In

When you’re a business looking to break into social media marketing, the first place you probably think of going is Facebook. It’s what everyone talks about, so it must be the holy grail of all that is known as social media marketing, right?

I know what I’m about to tell you may shock you more than a taser to the face, but as much as Facebook wants to rule the world, there are actually social media sites that do a few things better than Facebook.

In this case, I’m talking about Foursquare and check-ins.

For those of you who might not know what a check-in is yet, it’s when someone using a smartphone tells all their friends where they are via an app or site like Foursquare and Facebook.

Why do people do this?

Pretty much just for bragging rights or to appear that they have a much more exciting and fantastic life than you do.

So if you’re a business why should you care about check-ins?

Well, because these can basically be used as free or very cheap word-of-mouth advertisements for your business and you’re not even doing the work! Once someone checks-in at your business, all of their friends see that they’re there and hopefully say to themselves “That place must be freakin’ awesome if Joe is there! I should check it out too.”

If you want more people to check-in (which means even more people see your business) you can even offer an incentive once someone checks-in, like a coupon or 10% off.

This is where it becomes helpful to understand the difference between check-ins on Facebook vs. check-ins on Foursquare. Although Facebook made it possible to check-in and share your location with friends:

• Facebook doesn’t have a neat and tidy way of tracking the data for you (especially if you have multiple locations).
• You can’t post special offers for people to see when they’re checking in (unless you post this on your wall and just hope people see it and remember later on).
• Not as many people even realize that this option is available on Facebook.

But with Foursquare:

• Everyone knows the option to check-in is available on this site, because it’s the only thing the site does!
• You can post a special so that when people begin to check-in to your business, they automatically see it. It’s also an incentive for them to come again and tell their friends.
• They keep track of all your data, such as how many people check-in and how many people accept your offer.
• It takes only minutes to create a special offer, so it’s not time intensive.

The moral of the story here is to go the Foursquare route if you want to promote check-ins. It’s probably a good idea to let your Facebook audience know that they CAN check-in and also that you have a special offer running, but it’s well worth your time to take a few minutes to hop on over to Foursquare and create a special on your page. You’ll be pleased with the results.