http://foursquare.com/
foursquare has been creating quite a buzz of late among many- is it the new Yelp? The new Twitter? The new Loopt?
Whatever it is, it is NEW. And in that sense, I don’t believe the small business online marketer should be spending that much time with it…yet.

foursquare is a location-based social network that offers points, badges, and “mayorship” as an incentive for staying active with the system. It really requires a smartphone equipped with GPS to participate, though you can work with it from the web. As you go about your day, you just hit a few buttons on your phone to “Check-In” and thereby let foursquare and your friends know where you’re at. You can “tag” locations to describe them, such as ‘pizza’ or ‘airport’ and add tips like “the chicken garlic is to die for” or “I got food poisoning and so will you. “

The interface makes this kind of geotargeted update really very easy to publish, but the points system creates a larger incentive to make users excited about publishing their locations and opinions via foursquare. One can earn points for checking in throughout their day, traveling to different locations, adding new locations, and more. The most intriguing aspect foursquare the ultimate prize – becoming the mayor. Anybody on foursquare can become The Mayor of a location like a coffee shop or pub by checking in the most times at that venue. Much like king-of-the-hill, the coveted status can be easily taken by somebody else by simply checking in more often. Some hotspots have taken to offering free drinks or other promotions to The Major of their venue- creating a virtual contest to see who can frequent their establishment the most. Finally, the shout function allows somebody to broadcast a message to all of their foursquare friends. These updates as well as check-ins can be fed out to Twitter and Facebook at the user’s discretion.

I see foursquare as having huge potential for generate buzz and popularity for chic / boutique type businesses in the near term. Partially that is due to the early adopter factor, but also because the realities of the app needing a smartphone has some socioeconomic constraints built in. Clubs, high end grocers, movie theaters, coffee shops, bars, and of course restaurants are the obvious benefactors here. Necessarily, service-based (we’ll come to you) businesses don’t have an opportunity to capitalize on fourquare, but that applies to much of the local search world.

In the long term, foursquare could be a major social network for all types of businesses to need to understand and exploit. Much how Yelp reviews can make or break a business, the possibility of real-time reviews creates a whole new dimension to online reputation management. Businesses could make spontaneous events and draw larger and larger crowds through foursquare working in conjunction with Facebook and Twitter. Venues could offer special badges or points for purchasing certain items. Ultimately, the question of “where should I go out to eat?” could be less about looking for coupons and reading online reviews and more about finding where friends are and what they are saying about different restaurants via foursquare.

Many vastly smarter bloggers than I have written reams more about the possible uses and implication of foursquare for local business. I just want to note that for most of my clientel, foursquare isn’t something to actively worry about at present IMHO. The adoption is just a small fraction of that of Twitter, (admittedly, foursquare is less than a year old). It is definitely one to keep an eye on, but until you see a mass of 50-somethings posting tips about their dentists on foursquare, I don’t think it should be huge concern for the majority of business owners. That is of course, unless your blog is flourishing, you have a massive opt-in database, you’re rocking the social networks, you’re all over online reputation management, you’ve got a ton of video content flowing out there, and you have a steady diet of analytics to prove the value of your efforts and guide your next actions. If you can do all that and still have some free time, have a ball with foursquare, it is pretty fun after all.

I am The Mayor of Spokane’s iconic Parkade, a distinction I’m quite proud of…