How to Use Foursquare Effectively for Your Business

Foursquare is a social media channel with tremendous potential to attract customers. It is very effective for your business and will definitely contribute to your business's success.

Foursquare allows you to know where your customers are at any given time. This deepens the connection that you have with them. This connection gives you deep insight into your customers. It can also help you to identify the thinking of your customers through their visiting patterns.

Additionally, Foursquare will allow you to track what your customers are saying about your brand. This is vitally important because you gain customers through word of mouth connections and the people who are paying attention to your brand and your business will tell their friends, who will tell their friends, etc.

Engaging your customers

Foursquare helps you to engage your customers, especially those customers who are on the go a great deal of the time. It is much easier to communicate about all of your offerings if your messages reach your customers wherever they may be instead of having to wait for them to read your messages at the end of the day or at the end of their business trip. We are now in the age of instant gratification and instant information. Foursquare really helps make that easier for you as a business owner.

Enticing your customers

The Foursquare premise is based on checking into places around the neighborhood and within your online communities. When your customers check in, they are rewarded. The concept is often referred to as a game.

The following are some tools that will allow you to connect easily with your customers through Foursquare:

• Mayor specials: These specials can only be released by the Mayor of that particular community. The Mayor is your most loyal customer (you determine this by identifying the user who has checked in the most in the last two months). Once you have identified the Mayor, you should reward him or her with a special little gift.
   
• Wildcard specials: Wildcard specials are always available. However, your customers have to qualify before they can take advantage of those specials.
   
• Check-in specials: The specials are not released to the customer until they check in a certain number of times (you can set that number).
   
• Frequency-based specials: These specials are released every certain number of check-in times.

Communicating with your customers

When you are reading the customers' comments, you will be able to glean a lot of value that you can apply to your business. It is very important for you to interact with your customers after you have become aware of how they are thinking and feeling. However, before you do interact with them, it is essential that you really listen to what they are saying.

That customer feedback will contain information on what your customers want and need from you. The more you pay attention to the needs and wants of your customers, the closer they will feel to you and the stronger your relationships with them will become. You can use Foursquare as your vehicle to keep in touch with your customers and to continue strengthening your relationships with them.

Measuring the success of your business on Foursquare

You can monitor the total amount of people who check in, the users who share updates on Twitter and Facebook and the number of unique visitors. Also, you are able to track the demographics of the users on Foursquare.

Once you are armed with that information, you can use it to reward your loyal customers. When you reward your customers, they want to be in a relationship with you. Everyone loves to be rewarded. The stronger your relationships become with your customers, the more those customers will tell other people about your business and recommend that those other people also become your customers.

Foursquare gives you a very good opportunity to increase the visibility of your business online, to strengthen your credibility, increase brand identity and awareness, and give your customers the feeling that they are important to you.

Exploring the neighborhood

With Foursquare, you are rewarded for checking into your community. As people build their communities on Foursquare, the interactions become more and more interesting. The more they check in, the more they are rewarded. The incentives make them want to keep interacting. When your customers check into a certain location, they will see which particular promotions you are offering. Everyone loves to get something for nothing or at least for doing very little.

Conclusion

Foursquare is an effective way of doing business and it is a great way to get your customers excited about your business and your business offerings. Your customers will find the Foursquare approach fun, interesting and entertaining. Because you have their attention, they will be connecting with you on a regular basis.

About the Author

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications, a consulting company specializing in developing communication strategies for small businesses that require expertise in promoting a unique business voice and vision on the Internet.

Article Source: Article Base