If you haven’t heard of FourSquare yet, then you simply must go and check out their website immediately. FourSquare is a restaurateur’s dream because it turns visiting your establishment (and hopefully eating there) into a social game which is played between friends. These friends “compete” to see how many places they can claim to have eaten at (or visited in general).
It’s also a great way to offer loyalty points to your best customers so that they’ll keep coming back again and again. Here’s what you need to know:
Like Facebook for the Physical World
Facebook has become the digital meeting place for the world, with people getting together at the website to talk about their problems and to ask their friends questions about the best places to go to eat. However, it has a single flaw – it doesn’t translate well into the physical world.
Enter FourSquare instead. FourSquare is a website which is designed from the ground up to provide for a social networking experience which works in the physical world. The program is basically a mobile app designed for the iPhone or Android phones which can be used to allow a person to tell his or her friends that they are currently at a particular location.
More Than Just Where I Am Now
However, the site is much more than just “where am I now.” It’s also about who has visited the most locations and who has spent the most time in a particular location (FourSquare will declare people a “mayor” of a particular location if they spend enough time there).
How You Can Benefit
Get a FourSquare logo for your restaurant and arrange to display it prominently so that people know you participate. Then, offer a discount for those who show you that they’ve registered on FourSquare as being at your restaurant. It’s a simple and powerful way to gain lots of new customers.
Jim Balis' Blog 