Every Wednesday that freshSPRING remains the ‘Mayor’ of our local Dominos Pizza on FourSquare we get a free Pan Pizza. For the record, Pepperoni or Meat Feast is our preference.
What is FourSquare? I want Pizza!
FourSquare is at the forefront of location-based offers, mainly focussed on GPS-enabled phones (“Smart Phones” and other devices that can let it know where you are in the world.
Locations are -for example- local café’s, transport hubs and businesses that have a physical presence are on these maps, sometimes added by the business, sometimes by a FourSquare user and you can see tips like “try their Flat White, best coffee I’ve ever tasted outside New Zealand”.
You ‘check-in’ to a specific location to let it know you are there and gain points and sometimes badges for achievements like lots of checkins into café’s or restaurants. If you check-in the most to a particular location then you become the ‘Mayor’.
The killer-feature as it might be known is that business can offer a deal, eg. “10% off your order” or offers only for the ‘Mayor’, eg. “20% off drinks at Wetherspoons (pub)” is a current offer at time of writing. For the most part you just show your offer on your phone (eg. an iPhone, Blackberry or Android device) to the staff, though as it is a bit new you might still need to ask for the manager in some cases.
The benefit to a business is that you are attracted to come into their venue as opposed to a competitor and it generates loyalty. Dominos offer a free Pan Pizza if you are the ‘Mayor’, which happens to conveniently be somewhere we pass (and also buy from) quite a bit. There is another Pizza shop next door but this helps to keep us at Dominos. If only Wednesday’s came round more often 
What should you do?
There will always be some other social network that seems ‘cool’ and interesting. If you have a business, charity or other kind of brand then consider registering your name just for protection.
However, pay more attention to Facebook Local which has just launched (past week or two) and may well do the same kind of thing but reaches a much wider user-base. However this won’t necessarily be the death-knell to FourSquare as it has a large user-base and will either adapt or excel in the location-area (maybe even someone will buy them).
In the meantime, we’re going to enjoy our pizza!
