Foursquare’s Ubiquity

Foursquare might just be the next Twitter. My initial research focused on social media platforms Yale Rep had a legitimate chance of using this year. Since we didn’t yet have a Facebook page, Foursquare didn’t exactly make the cut. None-the-less, I’ve been curious to see if any theatres are doing cool stuff…

For those who haven’t started playing with this app yet, Foursquare bills itself as 50% friend finder, 30% social city guide, 20% nightlife game. Specifically:

People use foursquare from their smartphone to “check-in”, which is a way of telling folks your whereabouts. When you check-in someplace, Foursquare tell your friends where they can find you and recommends places to go & things to do nearby. People check-in at all kind of places — cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices. You can also leave notes for anyone at any of these locations.

Every foursquare check-in earns you points. And as you start checking-in to more interesting places, you’ll start unlocking badges. There are badges for discovering new places and for traveling to far away places. Spending too much time singing karaoke or been hitting the gym consistently? Yes, there are badges for those too :)

And that’s where things get pretty interesting. People who earn the most points of anyone else checking in to a particular location become the “mayor.” Local businesses are already offering free stuff to these mayors (and occasionally discounts for anyone who checks in). See where I’m going with this?

Recently, Foursquare became available worldwide, and opened up its API to developers. Which means developers can build their own apps that use all of that Foursquare data (which is how Twitter has become virtually ubiquitous). Mashable’s listed 6 apps they want to see developed, and one of them got me thinking:

EventSquare: Teens and party-going twenty-somethings have plenty of disposable income to make this app worthwhile. Build them an application that shows where the nearest parties, concerts, or events are going on at any moment, based on their location. Great for those bored Friday nights, this app could really help you find something to do any time you want.

Not that you should be developing the latest app (because I know you totally have the time and skills), but you should know that foursquare exists, and apps like the one mentioned are coming soon.

Like Twitter, your audience is already talking about you on Foursquare. They’re giving each other advice about

• where to park
• what to order from your cafe
• which bar won’t have a line during intermission
• when your PWYC nights are
• and which shows are a ‘must see’

And competition to be a Mayor has become fierce.

You could think of Foursquare as virtual postering. If there’s a popular restaurant nearby, you can bet people are checking in. If you make special offers available to folks on fourquare, the company will reward you by promoting your venue to anyone checking-in nearby.

It’s also a dead simple way to reward loyal customers, and you can tailor it any way you want: anyone who checks into the cafe 5x gets a free drink, mayor of the 2nd stage gets a free ticket to bring a friend, anyone who checks into the gift shop gets 10% off, the staff member who checks into the office the earliest this week gets a day off next week (if only wishing made it so!)

And don’t forget that audiences aren’t the only ones checking in — so are guest artists, admin staff, and vendors. And some are linking their foursquare activity to their facebook and twitter pages. So whenever they check into a foursquare location, they’re also promoting that venue to all of their facebook friends and twitter followers.

There are a few issues already cropping up. Since anyone can add locations anywhere, some theatres already have multiple listings (with slightly different name spellings). And if your theatre venue has a different name than your organization, which should you use? It’s also not that difficult to check in someplace without actually being there (essentially overriding your GPS).

But here’s the thing — you spend 10 minutes making sure your theatre is listed on foursquare with the right info, think about adding a reward for the Mayor, tweet about it a few times, and see what happens. Let the users do what they do best: promote your brand for you.

So if I still haven’t convinced you, maybe this guy will.

And now for the data. By this time, you know the drill: I’ve stuck with the 76 LORT theatres. Of them:

• 51 are on foursquare (meaning at least 1 person has checked in, regardless of whether the theatre has any idea)
• 734 people have checked in to one of these theatres
• There’s an average of 22 check ins per theatre, but this is largely driven by Guthrie, Lincoln Center, and Berkeley Rep’s high numbers
• The average person has checked in to a theatre 1.3 times, but Portland Center Stage is averaging more than 4 check ins per person.
• 23 theatres have Mayors (and 75% of them are male)
• Kansas City Rep is offering rewards for their Mayor

If you want to see details, I’ve added a foursquare tab to my social media raw data.

What do you think? Any ideas for other ways theatres should be using foursquare?

UPDATE: And now Tech Crunch brings us more numbers:

• Foursquare’s traffic is now averaging a check-in a second
• Only 200,000 are estimated to be currently using foursquare, but these early adopters are a valuable customer segment

UPDATE #2: Tasti D-Lite launches a loyalty program via Twitter and Foursquare