Find Yourself on Foursquare

With Foursquare getting its own Potty Posting, it’s clear that the service has officially arrived. Oh, and they did get the TV commercial shown to the right, too. But c’mon, a Potty Posting! As a follow-up to our coverage of Foursquare and other location-based social networks, we’ve compiled a whole slew of marketing applications below. (We’ll touch on some competing services, as well as a big watchout, in our next post.)

For starters, let’s talk about that Bravo spot. It calls attention to Bravo’s Foursquare-based iPhone app, which highlights over 500 venues that are featured on their educational programs like “The Real Housewives” and “Kell on Earth.” Want to know where that muppet from “The Millionaire Matchmaker” likes to eat? Nah, me neither. I’d rather seek out Zagat’s “Foodie” badge, which can be earned by checking into Zagat-rated restaurants in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and other major cities.

Foursquare is also an absolute duh for event marketing. The connection is so obvious that a whole bunch of marketers have already figured it out:

• For those attending the Winter Olympics, The New York Times used Foursquare to offer recommendations on restaurants, attractions, shopping and nightlife.
• Lucky Magazine offered a similar option to attendees of the New York Fashion Week, pointing Foursquare users in the right direction for drinks, WiFi, coffee, and more. (A related Lucky badge highlights the almost 700 stores that make up Lucky’s nationwide “Shopping Directory,” and the magazine intends to create the shopping equivalent of pub crawls in the near future.)
• To promote the release of the movie Valentine’s Day, the studio offered a badge that collected 50 “Romantic Tips” around the cities that the movie takes place in: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, LA, and Boston.
• A venue in SF is offering anyone who checks into the venue on Foursquare $2 off their ticket. Why? Well, if you saw 15 of your friends were checking into the same venue, wouldn’t you be curious?
• Scoping out what developers are already doing with the Foursquare API hints at the potential for these kinds of services. Since Foursquare’s public (or can be) and tied into sites like Twitter (or can be), a third party can target everyone at a given location and message to them at once.

Need more examples?

• Current or prospective Harvard students can get a collection of campus tips through the university’s new Foursquare partnership.
• We mentioned one of the Explore Chicago badges in the Potty Posting, but they also have separate collections for blues joints and Chicago style hot dogs. Presumably, there’s more to come (like the best places to work in Chicago, for instance.)
• The local deal-finding service Yipit has also teamed with Foursquare. Whenever you check in to a business, Yipit automatically records that in their database, and they’ll notify you the next time that venue is having a deal.

Still have questions? Shoot us a note, or start sifting through the customer support community for Foursquare.