So what is four square and why does your small business need it? Chances are if you are a small business owner and running your business like you should be, you probably have not heard about four square just yet, which is great! This is your chance to get in on it before everyone else is and be one of the early business’s to profit from it. I know your business will survive just fine without four square, but with a little bit of time and effort, there is a good chance it will help drive more traffic and customers to your small business.
So What is it?
Basically its a reward type of game that people love to get addicted too! People will go to various places and using their mobile phone (iphone, blackberry, droid, smart phone) and the four square app, will “check in”. What the phone does is figures out using GPS technology to figure out where you are. When you check in it will figure out what business you are checking in at. By going to various places, you will earn rewards or badges for achieving these. The great thing is that it becomes addictive to a lot of people who start using it. People can leave tips and notes about the places they check in to give others ideas or suggestions. The variety of ways that badges can be earned is vast. One of the great features is that the more you check in to one place, you can become the mayor of that location!
So How Can I Use This to Get More Customers?
Now you have to do some thinking. At a minimum you should log in as a business and make sure your business is registered, has the correct spelling and address. You will have to set up a personal account first to add the business, but that is no big deal. Just having it set up will also help drive website traffic and possible visitor traffic to your main website and give you some more SEO juice.
Creating Loyalty
Just by having your business listed will help, but think about taking it further. How can you go about getting more traffic by using this? Remember, people will search you out of they have a reason.
Here are a few thoughts:
1. Note on your profile specials for visitors who come and check in. Offer special deals that people will see when they look online. Just make your special an official offer on foursquare, people will see this in a box that pops up when someone checks into a business that is by your business.
2. Give the mayor something special! I’ve seen it where bars offer the mayor to drink free on wednesday or a free drink at certain times. When you think about it, this is great. You can only have one mayor, but how great is it having people coming to your business to compete for this. “No honey we have to go to this bar again tonight so I can become the Mayor”. More money in the door for you!
3. Tips. You can leave tips and info about good times to come, perhaps when celebrities might be by, when a popular server is working, etc. All this little efforts will provide more ways for people to see your business and want to interact with it. A lot of coffee shops have tips where electrical outlets are for people coming to do work. See, doesn’t need to be that complex.
One other purpose is that foursquare can help you keep an eye on your business. By watching the comments, which can be in real time, you know what customers like, dislike, and think about many aspects of your business. This can be a double edged sword remember, cause if you provide bad service or products, that will spread too.
Overall, I think spending a few minutes setting up an account and a little brain storming, you should have no problem coming up with a few good offers that might entice someone who happens to be by your business to come in and check something out!
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