How Foursquare can help your business through game theory

Skrabut's Foursquare account

Last night while at dinner with friends, I checked into Foursquare as I usually do. As a result, Foursquare entered the evening conversation and I explained what it was and how I enjoyed participating. I also explained how Foursquare has been beneficial to businesses especially establishments that serve food and beverages.

Foursquare is a location-based mobile application that allows participants to share their location with friends. Individuals earn points and virtual badges for “checking in” and can leave tips and suggestions about businesses they frequent. As you can see from my Foursquare account, I have 283 check-ins and unlocked 9 badges.

Foursquare is successful because it focuses on game theory to make routine tasks just a little more fun. There is a more efficient way to put balls in a hole, yet, people still play golf.

To help you understand more about Foursquare, I have created a learning guide.  This guide explains the concept of Foursquare and lets you know how you can get the most out of it for business, education, and non-profits, as well as, ways to use it to support events.

I am getting ready to go to a conference and take some vacation, and I plan to use Foursquare extensively. Keep an eye on the miserable time I will be having 😉

Leveraging Foursquare in downtown Laramie

Presentation on Learning the business rules of Foursquare

Yesterday morning, I had the fortunate opportunity to talk to the Downtown Laramie Business Association about using Foursquare for business.

This was the first time speaking with this group and I think it went well. I did learn a couple of things:

1). Ensure that everyone is clear on what is needed for the presentation. I thought I was clear on my need for a projector; however, most of the discussion focused on an Internet connection which could not be provided (Banks are rather strict regarding access to Web sites). As a result, we were scrambling around to find a projector.

2). Confirm the length of the presentation. The day before I was advised on the length of the presentation. Once again, this could have been identified with better communications up front.

3). Always have a plan B and C.  I am glad that I burned my presentations to a CD-ROM and a USB flash drive, I was not able to rely on my Dropbox account.

All in all, the board members seemed to be interested in the subject and had a number of questions. I expect to see more Foursquare usage from a business perspective in Laramie.

Here is the presentation, it is posted on Slideshare.net.

There was one question for which I did not have information. A board member asked about the demographics of Foursquare. After a little research, I was able to find only a couple of sites. Here is one called Foursquare Demographics – Age, Gender, Education.