Overview of how Foursquare works plus information on how businesses can benefit from Foursquare. Also includes case study results from the Foursquare crowdsourcing experiment with the launch of Vancouver.
2. About Me Chris Breikss President, 6S Marketing Founded 6S in 2001, 24 employees Expert in SEO, SEM, Social Media Worked With 400+ Clients Speak, Sponsor & Attend Industry Events Across North America Helped launch the first city crowdsourcing experiment with Foursquare in Vancouver
3. Friend Finder The premise of Foursquare is simple: "Tell Foursquare where you are and it will tell you who and what is nearby.“ "Going to be bigger than Twitter" Robert Scoble aka @scobleizer
4. Social City Guide The process of telling Foursquare where you are is called "checking-in" When asked to locate themselves, users are shown a list of nearby venues (based on GPS)
5. Users “Check-In” to Places To broadcast their location to their friends To update their Twitter + Facebook status To bookmark or remember where they've been
6. Check-Ins Earn Points +5 pts for discovering a new place for going out two nights in a row for four stops in a night for bringing six friends +2 pts +4 pts +6 pts Users compete on a Leaderboard that resets weekly
7. Mayors "Mayors" are those who check-in most often at a given place Mayor ship is triggered when a user visits more than 2x within 60 days
8. Special Mayor Offers These "Mayors" titles are used by local merchants to reward locals and regulars Offers need to be unique and interesting to engage Foursquare users A 10% discount is not compelling enough
10. Tips Venue Get tips from other users that have been to the venue Users create Twitter-style recommendations: "Go here, try this"
11. Tips Nearby As users check-in at places around the city, Foursquare throws these recommendations back to the users Find out what’s hot, right now!
12. Tips Search Nearby Find out what’s hot around the neighbourhood Users share short, quick tips that are not like Yelp reviews
13. To-Dos Add places to go and things to do to your list Handy for remembering new restaurants that a friend told you about Earn points when you cross to-dos off your list
14. Badges The more you explore, the more you unlock Badges are tied to time, distance and location You may unlock one for staying out past 2am on a school night or for checking-in with 3 members of the opposite sex.
15. Integration Foursquare integrates with Twitter and Facebook platforms Add friends from Gmail, Twitter, Facebook (using Facebook Connect)
17. Measurement Tools for businesses are being developed See patterns when people check in, group size etc. Reward loyal customers during slow periods
18. Platforms New version of iPhone App 1.4 released in Sept. 2009 Android compatibility launched in Sept. 2009 First Blackberry App to be released early Oct. 2009
19. Etiquette NO, do not check-in at: your workplace, your home restaurants, cafes, hair salons pubs, bars, nightclubs parks, libraries, airports YES, check-in at:
20. Envision 100musers in: 21+ American cities + Amsterdam + Vancouver Who’s Playing Foursquare? Most popular in NYC where Foursquare is based.
22. Why Vancouver? The huge Vancouver social media community campaigned Foursquare to launch in Vancouver Chris Breikss + 6S voluntarily coordinated the Vancouver launch with the Foursquare founders (no $$) The Winter Olympics are occurring in Vancouver Feb. 2010
23. Vancouver Launch 1 week from concept to launch 200 attended Launch party at V Lounge Yaletown 112 users checked in at party, received free cocktail
25. Vancouver Crowdsourcing Results Vancouver was the first city to populate location data via a crowdsourcing experiment on September 9, 2009 In the first week 1100+ Vancouver users contributed 2400+ venues "Vancouver crowdsourcing experiment = HUGE success” “1000+ venues, 700+ users in 24 hours" Dennis Crowley, Foursquare Founder
26. Foursquare Financing On September 4th 2009, it was leaked that Foursquare received VC funding $1.35 million was raised by Union Square Ventures (Fred Wilson) , O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures “We finally get paychecks!” Dennis Crowley, Foursquare Founder
27. What’s Next for Foursquare? More cities. Foursquare explodes when there are 100+ cities. Critical mass is key. 10,000 users needed per city More business tools + revenue model = happy investors Vote for your city @ http://foursquare.com/help/ Will International cities be crowdsourced based on Vancouver’s success? Probably? Toronto soon? Maybe
28. Why is6S Marketing Involved? 6S is a Internet marketing consulting company that specializes in innovative Internet marketing. 6S can help businesses with their Foursquare promotions and leverage loyal customers. Foursquare will soon have reporting and analytics that allow businesses to capitalize on the platform. 6S wants Foursquare to expand into other cities.