This year, Social Media is all about localization and relevancy. Believe it or not, people are willing to share their whereabouts and happy to tell their friends and family where they are almost instantly thanks to applications available on smart phones like Android phones (I use a Nexus One myself for 2 weeks now), iPhone, Blackberry and others.
The concept is simple. Your mobile device can tell the world where you are located and you can "check in" in places you are right now. Usually people are willing to share interesting places like restaurants, bars, hotels, attractions but also less interesting places at first like airports or train stations. Eventually you might find that another friend of yours is also at Heathrow Terminal 5 so why not having a cup of coffee rather than being on your own waiting for the boarding gate.
Today, there are 2 clear players in the localization based online services: Gowalla and Foursquare. Both companies almost started around the same time. If you want to have some background about how these two companies were created and how their founders Josh Williams and Dennis Crowley found the idea, I would advise to read the story on the tech magazine Wired in here.
I have been experiencing myself Foursquare for more than 2 weeks since my acquisition of a Nexus One which runs on Android, the mobile phone operating system engineered by Google.
And I have to say I got used to the application very quickly and "checking in" seems natural to me now. But my wife keeps telling that I am a geek so maybe Foursquare is not for everyone for sure.
It doesn't mean that you - hoteliers, restaurant owners, bar owners - shouldn't pay attention to this new social networking site (remember how we didn't pay attention to Twitter before).
The reason: a phenomenal growth in the last 12 months that doesn't seem to slow down (2 million users this month). See stats from Compete.com below.
But also Foursquare (and probably Gowalla) brings greater proximity with your customers and has this megaphone effect which leads for the operator to offer these guys something special if they keep coming back to your property.
Also bear in mind that Foursquare is also a bit of game for users to keep checking in. You can collect badges and become a Mayor of a specific place if you checking in often in those places.
So while studying a bit more what Foursquare could really do to hotels, restaurants, I have discovered that Foursquare allows business owners to register themselves. This is how it works.
#1 Find your property
#2 Have a look at how many people checked in and what they say about your property (see the little note about blueberry muffin from Dj J.)
#3 Register your property on the right side that says "Do you manage this venue? Claim here"
You would need to register first on Foursquare.
First what are the benefits fort the hotel, restaurant, bar owners?
#4 Follow the steps to register your owner property and make sure you use a professional account and not your personal Foursquare account. Otherwise all your colleagues or your customers would know what you do on the weekends and so on.
So in no more than 15 minutes, I would believe you can create your account, register your property and start creating offers and all this for free.
Feel free to share your experience with Foursquare. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback and be patient as this company is still young and the audience is relatively small for now.
If your hotel are in places where Foursquare is used quite extensively like London, New York, San Francisco...give it a try now. Don't wait until your competitor does it.
Disclaimer: I don't work for Foursquare neither have shares in the company even though I am happy to receive some (Dennis, are you listening?)
Recent Comments