The CCgroup team likes to get to know new communications platforms. We also like to share. This is one of a series of 'one-pagers', also available for download as a PDF. Feel free to share this document!

foursquare... what is it?

Touted as ‘the next big thing’ in social networking, foursquare is a social network, online game and location based app. Just one year from start up, Yahoo! is said to be courting foursquare for a $145 million sale. Users are predominantly urban professionals; city based, well connected and tech savvy.

foursquare has over a million users (11.05.10) and numbers are growing daily. foursquare is available on iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre.

How does it work?

 

To sign up, simply download the app and create an account. You can then ‘check-in’ to places, add new places, share tips, unlock badges, become ‘Mayor’ of places where you are the most frequent visitor and gain points for all activity with foursquare.

Additionally, you can add friends and see where they last ‘checked-in’. Hundreds of thousands of individuals, businesses, retailers and offices are currently signed up to foursquare and this community is growing constantly.

What should you do with it?

As a B2B tech company, the strategy we recommend is simple: protect then enhance.

Protect

Add your office locations in order to

• Maintain control – ensure correct address & description details are used & maintained. This makes sure you are visible on the service and avoids any mischief-making

• Meet stakeholder needs – many of your employees, customers, prospects & suppliers will use foursquare, or will be inclined to at least experiment with it. Providing the ability to check in demonstrates you understand the social media space

Enhance

Now is the time to start thinking about how foursquare can be used to engage further. Here are a couple of ideas:

• Promote sign-up to newsletters, company news etc

• Drive booth traffic at trade shows and other events where check-ins mean prizes

• Add your other social media information to your profile… Twitter IDs, LinkedIn profiles, YouTube channels… demonstrate a cohesive & coherent strategy

If you’d like to talk further about how and why you might integrate foursquare into your communications programme, please drop us a line at social@ccgrouppr.com.

Last updated 20/5/2010.