In the past couple of months, the Web chatter on foursquare has increased steadily, with recent rumors suggesting that Yahoo is considering buying the company for $100 million. Though foursquare launched its iPhone application at the 2009 South by Southwest Interactive Festival, the location-based social networking platform seemed to take off at this year’s conference. While there is certainly potential to use foursquare for advocacy communications, organizations often face resource challenges that force them to make strategic decisions on where to develop messages and outreach programs. This is especially true with social media outlets that generally require regular attention. As such, consider these four things before embarking on a foursquare outreach plan.
- foursquare is still a new platform with a relatively small user base. In Amanda Phraner’s post on K Street Cafe, she accurately notes: “Right now it is hard to believe there are enough users for Foursquare advocacy to be effective, but at the rate social media networks are growing, it may only be a matter of time.” The first half of this sentiment is what I’d urge organizations to consider. In setting up my foursquare account, I opted to import my Facebook and e-mail address book into the system to find any friends that may be using it already. The result, from well-populated address book and over 750 Facebook friends? 15 connections on foursquare. While it is certainly possible that foursquare will continue to grow, it is much smaller than other platforms. While Alan Rosenblatt is correct in noting that foursquare’s integration with Twitter and Facebook allows you to reach the audiences you have on those networks, organizations may be better off focusing on Twitter, Facebook and Google strategies while monitoring foursquare’s growth.
- foursquare is built primarily for smart phones. While you can check-in to foursquare using simple text messaging, you need access to the Web to see what other users are doing. Currently, the foursquare application is available for Blackberry, Android, the Palm Pre and the iPhone – but without one of these expensive phones or a data plan that gives you access to e-mail, you won’t be able to see what other users are doing. For organizations, this automatically limits your audience – you’re only able to reach individuals who can afford the mobile Web.
- foursquare emphasizes the “social” in social network. foursquare is explicitly about “helping you find new ways to explore your city.” It is intended to be a platform to help friends meet up and find each other around town at bars, restaurants and retail outlets. This is great for businesses – and many of them are taking full advantage by offering special deals for frequent foursquare users and making a game out of using the platform. But if you’re an advocacy organization, offering these kinds of incentives are more difficult. Without a location or event where supporters can organize or engage with you in person, foursquare may not be ideal for you.
- Twitter, Facebook and Google may squash foursquare’s growth if they add functionality. If you think the major players in social networking aren’t paying attention to foursquare’s rising buzz, think again. The Yahoo rumors are only part of this picture. Currently, Twitter and Google both allow you to identify your location on your updates, and Facebook is following suit very soon. These are massive companies with existing relationships with retailers, and I’d be surprised if you don’t see them integrating and expanding on the rewards-based features that are building foursquare’s following. Why create a new account on foursquare if you can get the same (or bigger) benefits on an existing network with a larger user base?
If you’re considering using foursquare or any other social network, ask the same key questions that are a part of any strategic communications planning effort: who are you trying to reach, what are you trying to achieve, and does that social network provide an avenue to accomplish those goals? Answering these questions first will ensure that you’re making the right move for your organization as you explore the rapidly evolving social Web.
UPDATE (4/14/10): Be sure to read Brandi Horton’s post on potential benefits of integrating foursquare into your advocacy efforts.
[...] Read more here: Four Facts to Consider Before Using foursquare for Advocacy … [...]
Chris,
I agree that Foursquare is no panacea. But though it has a small internal audience, what I like about it is the ease with which you can share where you are and what you are doing with your Facebook and Twitter audiences. Then you are potentially reaching a very large audience.
Additionally, because Foursquare saves the address info for a location/event in its server once someone adds it, others on Foursquare can easily grab and share that location with their Twitter and Facebook audiences.
So the big advantage of Foursquare is streamlining the work it takes to post where a protest or rally or townhall is and invite folks to join in.
It isn’t a vast array of advocacy tools, but it does offer some added value.
Alan –
Great to have you here. I was excited to see the K Street Cafe posts on foursquare, as it is something we’ve been chatting about at Vanguard for a couple of months. Your insights are always appreciated and welcome, and I think the way you’ve discussed using Twitter hashtags in foursquare is a great idea.
I hear you with respect to the addresses – definitely a cool user-based functionality. I’m very curious to see where foursquare goes as it continues to grow. Do you suppose they will have to standardize how users contribute addresses or business names? Perhaps by integrating more completely with Google Maps and their business listings? I believe foursquare provides a style guide for adding new locations to their database, but I can’t imagine that works 100% of the time. Cleaning that database up has to be a challenge.
Any thoughts on where Google/Facebook/Twitter might be headed with their location-based services?
Integrating with Google Maps would be a key upgrade to ensure standardize address formatting and to help people find the location.
In general, as all of these social network tools start emulating Foursquare (Going Out already does), the key would be to include the ability to cross-post on other social networks (esp Twitter and Facebook). Not only does this allow people to expand the reach of their check-ins, but it also helps promote whatever service they are using to check-in.
I agree that foursquare’s ability to streamline location-oriented posts across social networks is a great function. I’m a fan, no doubt. I’m really interested to see how the use of the tool evolves, especially how the non-profit community might use foursqure to start raising funds. Since neither Twitter nor Facebook has been hugely successful at fundraising, I wonder if the sponsorship model – partnering with a successful corporation that has built a foursqure community – might have some teeth.
Hmmmmm…. How about using Foursquare for a fundraising crawl. Get everyone to post there location in a succession of stops. Then offer prizes for the first new people to join at each successive location.
[...] meeting is held on Wednesday afternoons. Indeed, see past InSites posts from Brandi Horton and Chris Connelly looking at the applications of Foursquare for advocacy work. All this “checking-in” has lead [...]
[...] and its value has been explored in various InSites blog posts (see thoughts from Brandi and Chris on the application). Does this new development mean that the two-to-three million foursquare users [...]