In the most simplest of terms, Foursquare can be described as a free app that helps you and your friends make the most of where you are. Foursquare, a location based social media app for mobile phones, actually allows users check-ins at various places and also gives them personalised recommendations. The places which one checks in also gives offers and discounts to people depending on the number of check-ins, user points, badges, etc. Currently, Foursquare has about 20 million registered users worldwide and about 2.5 billion check-ins.
In India, Foursquare is still very much in its nascent stage. While Twitter and Facebook are highly popular and have become an integral part of digital advertising, social networking websites including Foursquare and Pinterest are still finding their way into the consumers and marketers? scheme of things.
Says Zafar Rais, founder and CEO of digital agency MindShift Interactive, ?Foursquare has yet to come of age in its Indian brands chapter, but then again, the graph will head for the heavens eventually. With brands working towards pioneering the social media space, it makes sense to opt for alternate platforms alongside and create benchmarks within them. The numbers will follow.?
Cafe Coffee Day in India was one of the first brands to have used this medium and has about 15,000 followers on Foursquare today. Says K Ramakrishnan, chief marketing officer, Cafe Coffee Day, ?We have mapped all our outlets on Foursquare and due to its ability to offer location specific offerings, we have attempted to use it as a kind of external loyalty programme where we reward customers based on their visit behaviour.?
The most important quality of Foursquare is that it focuses on store footfalls, which could be of utmost use to marketers.
As Rais points out, some of the main advantages Foursquare offers brands include increasing the brand recall by being present on platforms that are frequented by their customers. ?By establishing a brand presence on Foursquare, the brands can connect with their followers through the platform community. For marketers, Foursquare offers a unique and compelling opportunity to use geo-location based services to promote their brands in real-time,? he says.
According to CCD?s Ramakarishnan, being in the retail business, the future is going to be around location based social networking. Therefore Foursquare allows brands like CCD to have programmes that will encourage repeated visits and check-ins.
Already, many local brands in India have leveraged Foursquare to their advantage. Rais talks about some. Kiehl?s, a luxury brand from L?Oreal, ran a offer on the social networking site during the week of their new store launch, giving away free lip balms to every check-in. Underdoggs, a pub and restaurant located in Vasant Kunj in Delhi campaigns aggressively by offering fresh new deals to users for their various menu items, just for checking in. Timberland?s store in Delhi offers a special edition t-shirt free on the fifth check-in at the store.
Another non-location based brand to have used Foursquare to its advantage is The History Channel which launched its Foursquare page in April 2010. ?When a user checked into some particular historically important locations, they got a feed on interesting facts about these places via The History Channel. They gained over 2 lakh fans very quickly despite not having a location of their own,? says Rais.
Currently, 4.5% of Foursquare users come from India and they generate 4.8% of the page views on Foursquare, which translates into 8-9 lakh users. Rais thinks that this number will increase with more and more people switching to smart-phones and tablets and local brands enticing users to check-in to take advantage of discounts. CCD?s Ramakrishnan adds that the increase will depend on the increase in penetration of smartphones or GPRS enablement, awareness and usage.