Foursquare - Be There or Be Square

Back in April, we ran a piece in this blog about Foursquare, the location-based mobile application that allows users to see where their friends are hanging out and pick up tips from them about the best places to eat, sleep, take the family, watch a film and so on.

Since then, many businesses in the UK have realised the enormous marketing opportunities available through social networking apps like Foursquare, Gowalla, Rummble and their ilk. For example, Domino’s Pizza has launched a Foursquare promotion that encourages users to check-in at its takeaways. The franchise gives away free pizzas to the Mayor of each of its outlets once a week as part of the scheme. In fact, every Foursquare user is allowed a free side dish when spending over £10. Likewise, the Mayor of Debenhams Oxford Street is entitled to free coffee whenever he or she pays a visit – an offer likely to extend to its other UK branches in the near future.

The latest British name to catch on is Glacéau Vitaminwater, which is conducting a treasure hunt in cities throughout the UK (including Liverpool and Manchester) over the next two weeks, where locals are invited to monitor the Company's Twitter announcements for Foursquare check-ins and “i spy with my little i” clues to help track down prizes (ipads in this case).

Similar sales’ generating schemes are taking place in venues of all sizes up and down the country as geo-social services - which combine the GPS systems inside smartphones with real-time updates - generate a colossal amount of interest.

LDS Tourism Services has recently launched Foursquare UK pages on both Twitter and Facebook, which provide up-to-the-minute information for British fans of this fast-growing geo-social craze. Here we announce the creation of new badges, publicise offers available to users in the UK and keep everyone up to date with all the latest news about the game.

If you need help promoting your enterprise on Foursquare or other important social media networks, we are here to help. Simply allow us to create a unique and reasonably priced Social Media Starter Package for your attraction, restaurant, pub, hotel, event or any other business and we will gladly take the stress out of generating digital chatter about your project or organisation.

You can drop us a line at marketing@ldsts.co.uk.

Image: ©Foursquare