Foursquare Includes Advertising Options

Bea Halstead - July 31, 2012

When you think of social networks with local impact, think Foursquare.   In a previous post we outlined a marketing strategy for local businesses to participate in this mobile centric based social network.   The popularity of Foursquare boasts an active user base of over 20 million, and has been making updates recently to the app’s design and functionality.  Foursquare just announced it launched an advertising program allowing businesses to create promoted updates for local marketing campaigns.  These promoted updates will be seen based on a store’s location, Foursquare specials, and a personalized algorithm created especially for the functionality of the Explore tab in a recent release.  In Foursquare’s blog they describe it as, “The [promotion] update can be a money-saving special, an update on a new fashion line, or a photo of their [the businesses] latest dish.”  In the screenshot below, you’ll see examples of how these offers appear in the Explore tab.

Members of Foursquare will notice these promoted updates will be personalized recommendations based on criteria like:

• Places they have visited before.

• Places that are on their lists.

• Places based on the time of day.

• Places in relevance to the neighbor they are in.

• Places they have liked or marked as a favorite.

• Places their friends have checked in at or endorsed.

This type of personalization will ensure that the offers are shown to members who would be genuinely interested in them and therefore have excellent targeting and acquisition potential.

To view more examples of partners already participating in promoted promotions on Foursquare, check out these Foursquare business pages:

Otto Las Vegas
B&B Ristorante
Best Buy
Dave & Buster’s
Gap
Hilton
jcpenney
Lowe’s
Old Navy
Starwood Preferred Guest,The Standard Miami
Walgreens