Foursquare Meetup

A new social media trend has been taking on followers for both individual users and local businesses around the world, Foursquare. Don’t let the name fool you, it’s nothing like the childhood game you used to play with friends, this is a new social tool designed with smartphones in mind. The application allows the user to “check in” to the places they visit and allow friends to track where they frequent, if said friend allows the person to view where and when they were at the establishment. The application does allow privacy settings, so the user doesn’t have to let people know when a person is out of their house and how far away they are all the while allowing a little friendly competition to spice things up.
Foursquare application users can find themselves competing with other users to frequent certain establishments the most in order to become the “mayor” of that place. For instance, in Saint Augustine, at the Flagler College Proctor library, users of Foursquare can check in there as many times as they enter. The user who visits the library the most will become the” mayor” of that location, just until someone beats them with more visits, but that user has the bragging rights for the time being.
The application also allows users the opportunity to earn all sorts of different badges (over 200) from “Adventurer,” meaning you have checked into more than ten venues, to “local,” meaning you’ve checked into the same place more than 3 times in one week. To see a list of all the possible badges a user can earn, check out http://www.4squarebadges.com/foursquare-badge-list/ . Earning more badges will obviously give the user more bragging rights, offering an even bigger competition aspect to the application.
Foursquare isn’t just for users to try and beat their friends in badge counts, business are getting into it, too. Some businesses offer certain deals for “checking in” to their establishments. Some retail stores will offer discounts on merchandise for checking in on a certain weekend, while restaurants will offer discounts off the entire purchase to a free appetizer or drink for the application users. Foursquare even promoted their meet up day this year on April 16th this year.
The website promoted April 16th as their “Foursquare Meetup Day.” As a play on the title, the website chose 4/16 because 4 squared is 16 (April 16th). The site encouraged users to promote a local place in their city to meet up on that day and have a good time. Myself personally being a Foursquare member chose Local Heroes here in Saint Augustine as a meeting place, being that I’m the bartender over there so I could organize to give a free beer or soda out to members who checked into the bar. Although I did not receive a huge turnout on the day, I did get a few members of the site who came in with their smartphones ready to check in and receive their reward. It was funny to see people talk about where they have been and how many badges they’ve earned so far.

Although Foursquare is just catching on, I have a feeling it could be a new fun thing to do – even to get out of the house and try to earn some badges, while also serving as a great tool to promote local businesses and have fun while doing it.
Joey Metz
Flagler College