Mar
4
2010

Cleveland Restaurants: Why Must You Ignore Foursquare? [FOURSQUARE TIPS]

Last night, I was ousted as mayor of one of my favorite local establishments, and I was mad. Mad enough that I had my keys in my hand to drive over there. At 10 p.m.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, you’re one of many people out there in the Internets not using Foursquare.

Foursquare, at its core, is a location-based service/game against your friends and city to generate as many points as possible each week. When you “check-in” to a venue, you get points based on it being your first time to a venue, entering a new venue, multiple stops, bringing people along, etc. You become “mayor” when you have the most check-ins at a venue, and “ousted” when someone else has more check-ins.

To make check-ins easy, Foursquare has multiple applications for your specific phone (e.g. iPhone, BlackBerry, Android) as well as a mobile-friendly site (m.foursquare.com). The great thing about the Foursquare apps, is that it’s getting smart enough to know which places are around you based on your phone’s current location. Whereas the game was only in certain cities last year, it is now available to play just about anywhere.

At 10:05 p.m., with my mayoral campaign at the local tavern in shambles, I realized I hadn’t lost out on much, just my pride. But I should have, and did not because the majority of Cleveland-area restaurants aren’t using Foursquare effectively.

As someone that goes out a lot, it’s too bad that some of the more marketing-savvy restaurants, bars, gyms, salons and libraries are not utilizing Foursquare in the Cleveland-area. This morning, I asked via Twitter for some locations that are using location-based services effectively in Cleveland. While I am certain there must be more out there, I received only one response (thanks @JDDrake): Taste in Cleveland Heights. The only other Cleveland/Foursquare deal I could find was at the Cleveland International Film Festival.

I get it that I’m a social media nerd, and I don’t expect every restaurant to be doing this. I also get that venues are leery to jump on another social media bandwagon. But to those I say: Foursquare isn’t new anymore. It has received plenty of publicity, significant funding and significant partnerships in the media. Even if Foursquare goes away, location-based and mobile applications have been a large focus of the tech community for six months, and marketers should be figuring out how to use these for their benefit.

That said, even if this stuff isn’t for you, here are some very basic things your venue could be doing:

Give back to your mayor or frequent visitors
If you own a restaurant or handle the marketing for a certain location, trying to get people to return is THE most basic objective you have. Foursquare can be used as the most basic thing you can do to reward return visitors. For example, if they become the mayor, give them 20% off of their bill or on your 10th check-in you get free drink or a complimentary size upgrade or a free week of service or whatever. Taste gives users 20% off on your 10th visit.

Use to recognize people and get feedback
Because Foursquare is so closely tied to Twitter, it can be easy to view people that are at your location and as well as their Twitter handle. How beneficial would it be to thank people after they visited and get some feedback on their experience? Yelp and Urbanspoon aren’t the only places people go to give feedback.

Tie Foursquare to your Web site, social media accounts
If you are a Foursquare-friendly joint, tell people when they visit your site (button or image) and on social media. Better yet, use that voice to promote your Foursquare deals (and get it on your Foursquare venue page). Next, spread that same message (and specials) on OpenTable. I promise I am not the only person in Cleveland who will visit social media-friendly places.

Encourage “Tips” and “To-Dos”
Every Foursquare user can add “tips” and “to-dos” to venue pages to alert others users of what they should eat. Again, it is no different than other calls to action on your site or landing page, if you don’t ask or direct people towards a certain action, they’ll never do it.

Again, these are just the basics. If you are interested in what we can do for your company, visit our social media marketing capabilities page. If Cleveland wants to be a foodie town (and it’s getting there), restaurants need to a be a bit more savvy to generate more interest with the social media community. Being on Twitter is no longer enough.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be at my local establishment trying to regain my mayorship. I hope they have WiFi.

So what do you think?

Cleveland Restaurants: Why Must You Ignore Foursquare? [FOURSQUARE TIPS]

  • http://Www.Twitter.com/mikebender Mike bender

    I’m glad to hear that taste is utilizing the foursquare promotions, but I agree with you that local businesses are missing an opportunity for promotion that has a very low barrier to entry. I imagine we’ll see people get on board soon as foursquare becomes more popular in cle. I noticed the proximity deals in foursquare a lot while walking around Brooklyn a few weeks ago.

    I definitely feel you on the call to action you inherently feel when you get that notification that you’ve been ousted as a mayor of a restaurant. @jddrake kicked me out of lopez this week and I had a trip planned over there by the end of the night.

  • http://www.pointtopoint.com Dominic Litten

    Thanks Mike. I think a lot of people view some restaurants as “their place” and take it personally when some person they don’t know ousts them. Places need to take advantage of that and encourage their regulars to join and check-in.

  • http://twitter.com/brucedouglas Bruce Douglas

    I have seen instances of this online in so many other cities, and it makes me beg the same question. Taste is great, but what about the approximately 7 million other restaurants we have? (#HappyInCLE) Does this require some sort of agency buy-in to the service that doesn’t yet exist? It seems like everyone is talking about how great Foursquare is for marketing, but no one has really shown how to use it effectively yet.

    When I joined Foursquare during its first week in Cleveland, my friend list and the city-wide list were almost identical. For how much it has grown since then around here we need to see this. If you want to see some truly fierce mayoral battles, keep an eye on the buildings on the Case Western Reserve campus!

  • http://twitter.com/dlayphoto Dave

    Up until recently, I was an active user of Foursquare, until this cheater showed up and started ruining the fun:

    http://foursquare.com/user/-188452

    I’ve since started using Gowalla, which because of its GPS integration, requires you to be physically *at* the venue in order to check in.

    Until Foursquare is more aggressive with policing cheaters, I’ll be using it far less frequently.

  • http://blog.robpitingolo.org Rob

    Dominic, while I understand where you’re coming from and generally agree with you, I think many restaurants have a long way to go before they can even be at the point where Foursquare will be part of the conversation. Check out http://www.cedarlee.org, for example – half of the restaurants/bars on the street don’t even have a website! And a few that do have something that look like it was designed using a Geocities pagebuilder circa 1999 (Taste is an exception, as you note). If a restaurant/bar owner is doing good business as is, I think it’s hard to convince them that something like Foursquare is as valuable as the hype.

    On a related note, social media just doesn’t seem very popular in Cleveland. Look how few reviews many establishments have on Yelp. In another city, the same places would have dozens or hundreds of reviews.

  • http://www.pointtopoint.com Dominic Litten

    @Bruce: The cost of engagement in Foursquare is nothing. It takes no funding whatsoever to add your deal. In fact, Foursquare is highlighting all places that DO have a deal on their site.

    @Dave: Human nature, people are going to cheat. Not sure how to combat that, other than hope that Foursquare gets similar GPS functionality.

    @Rob: I agree, many restaurants don’t even have a website, however, new restaurants that want to be found WILL. And if they are, Foursquare is an easy extension. Even if they aren’t developing a new site, the barrier to entry is so low, shame on them for not actively searching ways to promote themselves. Thanks for the feedback.

  • http://blog.robpitingolo.org Rob

    I, like Dave, used to be a lot more excited about Foursqure than I am anymore. I think it boils down to a few things that have started to bother me:

    1) People who check into their home. Because the way I understood Foursquare is that it’s supposed to be a tool to let your friends know when you’re going out, not staying in.

    2) People who check into their work. If the bartender at your favorite place checks in every time she has a shift, it would make it nearly impossible for any customer to ever attain mayorship status.

    3) Cheaters. In the anonymous world that is the internet, I’m actually surprised there aren’t more.

    4) People who check into pointless places. Does anyone care when people check into the BP gas station or the parking lot at the airport?

    5) The foursquare database is terrible. There are tons of duplicate businesses, wrong addresses, etc. I would like it a lot more if it were linked to a database like Yelp.

  • http://www.ketterick.com/dan/blog/ Dan

    No restaurant I’ve been too has known what the heck 4square is. And, they really don’t care b/c they don’t realize how people use the mobile web.

    And @rob — I agree, I see 4square suffering b/c of noobs who check into home or work for the points. I always think “Congrats, you’re where you’re supposed to be. Now tell me when you do something I care about.”

    Also, @rob, you’re right about social media uptake, or lack thereof — many are on Facebook, but no one is using other tools to the degree that they could.

    We’re still access-challenged on the north coast, it seems.

  • http://www.phoenixcoffee.com Sarah Wilson-Jones

    We just started posting who the current foursquare mayor is at the Phoenix Coffee on Lee Road. Shortly after, our former mayor, Rob, got ousted! Sorry, Rob! We are hoping to figure out a discount program, too, but for now we’re excited to just recognize folks. Plus, I enjoyed meeting Rob for coffee the other day, as a way to recognize his mayoral status and also to have a better connection with what his impressions are of the cafes. It seems to me like we’re just getting started with Foursquare.

  • Dominic Litten

    @Sarah Thanks for the comment, like I said earlier, there is no cost to start or try this, unless of course you count the paper in printing ink (or dry erase marker or chalk or whatever). I’ll try making it in sometime and taking Rob’s mayorship as well.

  • http://twitter.com/jpearlstein Joshua Pearlstein

    Just your opening paragraph should be a must read for all restaurant and bar owners, who are confused by Facebook. Your real-life example gives justification to Foursquare as a marketing tool.

    You should checkout SinglePlatform. We are a social media and marketing platform specifically for restaurants and bars, and we are already working with thousands of restaurants across the country.

    Please feel free to contact me anytime, I would love to discuss more later.

  • http://www.pointtopoint.com Dominic J. Litten

    Thanks for the comment Joshua, while your tool is probably great, I'd love to see restaurants get websites without PDF menus. If you can help me in that quest, I would be eternally grateful.

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  • http://twitter.com/jasonmmurphy Jason Murphy

    Start using Yelp, Foursquare is not and will never be relevant for small business. It’s becoming a short-term analytics tool to evaluate engagement with one-off events and promotions.

    Yelp actually provides real content, which drive website visits.

    Being a mayor is cool and all but that does very little to drive quantitative results to business owners. Which is why they have been reticent to jump on board and rightfully so.

    I realize this post is a few months old. Have you changed your position on this at all given recent advancements in Geo?

  • http://www.pointtopoint.com Dominic J. Litten

    Hmm. No conflict of interest regarding Yelp vs. Foursquare? (wink, wink)

    My position, almost a year later, hasn’t changed. The ability to incentivize people to give up their data is the goal of geo apps. Foursquare does this. Yelp and Foursquare are two different animals, with Yelp giving more interactivity with the data but also moonlighting as search spam. There is good and bad with both.