<h3 style="text-align: justify;">What is FourSquare?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The best place to begin is with <a title="What is foursquare" href="http://foursquare.com/overview" target="_blank">understanding what foursquare is</a>. It’s a new website which lets you “check in” to stores, bars, restaurants, and other places. When you “check in” to a new place, foursquare will update your friends of where you are.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It’s addictive because as you start to explore new places or do specific things you start to <a title="Foursquare badges" href="http://www.foursquare.com/help/badges" target="_blank">unlock badges</a>. So if you go out to the same place every night you might unlock the “local” badge.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-877" title="Foursquare Marketing" src="http://newweb.amazingbusinessresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/foursquare.jpg" alt="Foursquare Marketing" width="500" height="282" /></p>

<h3 style="text-align: justify;">The Shift in Strategy</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Foursquare embodies the shift from our immobile computer to mobile Internet. Consumers are connected all the time. Twitter began the mobile trend and foursquare is continuing it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Since more consumers are using the mobile social web, brands are able to connect with consumers within their stores. Marketers can create incentives and contests to drive customers into a business.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The continuing trend towards mobile Internet is a huge opportunity for brands with physical stores and offices.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Introducing the Microcommunity</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">With the mobile Internet comes changes in user behavior. The most prominent change is the idea of privacy. Although we know privacy is an issues on sites such as Facebook, foursquare opens up a whole new set of problems.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Most foursquare users are extremely wary of who they add as a friend. People are worried about letting strangers know where they are or where they aren’t.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Because of this selectivity, mobile communities are most likely to be much smaller than our normal friend lists. These smaller groups of friends can be defined as microcommunities. I think it will be rare to see a foursquare user with hundreds of friends like we see on Facebook.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Instead of being able to reach a huge following online, brands will have to target multiple microcommunities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If you get one person to Tweet about your store, 5000 people might read the message. If you get one foursquare member to “check in” to your store, maybe only 25 people see that update.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">However, since the foursquare user has only added trusted friends we can assume that the update has a greater impact than a Twitter message. This increased trust but decreased size will have major implications on future social media marketing strategies.</p>

<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Final Thoughts</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It seems interesting that as social media and mobile Internet matures, brands have to continue becoming more personalized. As microcommunities start to gain in popularity, our marketing strategies might change from targeting groups of 50,000 followers to groups of 50 friends.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I’d love to know what you think about mobile Internet, social media, and foursquare. Want to learn more about how we can improve your results? Give us a call today or request a personal consultation!</p>