Location-based applications are the latest fad in social media. One of these applications, Foursquare, has seen rapid growth over the past year. A brief google search provides headlines such as, “Foursquare adding nearly 100,000 new users per week;” “Foursquare now seeing check-in each second;” and “Big reason Foursquare will be worth 100+ million,” to name a few.

Foursquare is a mobile application that aims to encourage people to explore restaurants and other venues, and then reward them for doing so. They do this by combining friend-finder and social city guide elements with game mechanics: users earn points, win Mayorships and unlock badges for trying new places and revisiting old favorites.

Foursquare can be used to engage increasingly mobile customers with Foursquare “specials,” which are discounts and prizes businesses can provide loyal customers when they check in on Foursquare at certain venues. Additional perks can also be available to each venue's Mayor. 

To use restaurants as an example, a great promotion would be to offer happy hour prices just for checking in. This broadens familiarity with the restaurant because when someone checks in, their Foursquare “friends” are able to see it. Plus, many people also have their Foursquare account linked to their Twitter and Facebook pages, so there’s potential to virally increase your restaurant’s exposure with each individual check in.

Locations could also create a single, large incentive for the “Mayor” (the mayor person who checks into a location the most number of times) so as to encourage people to both check out the restaurant AND to visit numerous times. This is also beneficial in that it allows businesses to track how they’re performing over time.

This is an effective marketing strategy for numerous reasons.

• First, it doesn’t cost any money. Foursquare is already there, so why utilize the opportunity to use it to your advantage?

• Next, implementing a Foursquare promotion requires no thorough action. All you’d need to do is create an incentive for those who check in at your venue.

• Finally, this kind of thing is definitely buzz worthy, susceptible to the likes of word-of-mouth conversation, social media discussion and possibly press coverage. There’s great potential to reach a huge audience.

There are many other ways Foursquare can help a business. What are some other ways it has helped your business?