State of Foursquare 2010
Content
social marketing software
The State of Foursquare 2010
Statistics and Insight into the Rapidly Growing Location Based Social Network
An Industry eBook from Awareness Creators of the Social Marketing Hub @awarenessinc | awarenessnetworks.com
Perspectives on Foursquare
State of Foursquare
Foursquare Overview
Foursquare is a social network focused on connecting users and allowing them to broadcast their locations using mobile devices including the iPhone, Blackberry phones, and Android phones. The unique thing about Fourquare that makes it attractive to brands is it allows marketers to tie marketing programs to physical point of sale activities – something that has proven to be difficult to accomplish in the broader social web. In the last year, the popularity of Foursquare has grown and the network currently boasts close to 1.6 million users who have collectively made 22 million check-ins (http://mashable.com/2010/03/29/Foursquare-growth-numbers/). With the growing popularity among users, brands have been trying to figure how they can leverage the site as part of their marketing mix. Several brands have run programs on Foursquare featuring branded custom badges, unique check-in tips, and custom landing pages featuring lists of to-do items.
“The popularity of Foursquare has grown and the network currently boasts close to 1.6 million users who have collectively made of 22 million check-ins.”
- Foursquare’s Growth Not Slowing, Mashable, 2010
Foursquare itself is based both on connecting and competition, making it one of the more “sticky” and viral networks available. Part social network, part virtual game, Foursquare’s users are rewarded by receiving points and badges when checking in to physical locations. Additionally users compete with each other to become the Mayor of each location. Mayor ship is earned when a user has the most check-ins to a unique location over the course of 2 months. In this eBook we will discuss Foursquare and how brands can leverage the network as part of their marketing mix. The report features data gathered over the course of the last two months and observational analysis of key brands running marketing programs through the channel.
1. Mashable, Foursquare’s Growth Not Slowing Down: 725,000 Users, 22 Million Checkins, Ben Parr, 3/29/2010 http://mashable.com/2010/03/29/Foursquare-growth-numbers/
www.awarenessnetworks.com
1
State of Foursquare
Understanding Foursquare
Foursquare plays on the growing trend for people to “lifestream” or document each and every moment of their life. The tremendous growth and willingness of individuals to share “status updates” in platforms like Twitter and Facebook has grown to include “location” and “venue” specific information in Foursquare. In Foursquare, users broadcast not only broadcast their statuses but also share their physical locations. In Foursquare, this act is called a “check-in”. A typical Foursquare “check-in” could be a user checking into their local Starbucks and leaving the comment (known within the system as a “Shout”), “Having my morning Latte Grande”. Once checked in, the users location is broadcast to their connections within the network (For example, “Bostonmike has checked in to Starbucks”). For many people, the idea of sharing their precise location with the world seems a bit strange. Some analysts have suggested it’s nothing more than a sophisticated form of exhibitionism or an invitation to stalking. So the question is, “why do people do it?” The short answer is that Foursquare is fun. It feeds on people’s desire both to connect and to compete. Some users do it to “name drop” prestigious locations they are visiting while others do it to declare their loyalty for a brand or
"Foursquare has 4,153,790 Venues and that is growing at approximately 38k p/day. Once obvious duplicates are removed, there are about 3.85 million venues (as of June 2010)."
specific venue. Some users do it just to let their friends know where they are while others are attracted by the competition of the game. In addition to connecting with friends, users can become “mayor” of locations as a reward for having the most check-ins. Points and badges also serve to reward user participation for various activities. For example, if a user checks-in to a bar several nights in a row, the user unlocks the “Bender” badge which will then be shown on their profile. As of June 3rd there were 174 separate badges available within Foursquare, of which 72 are active. (Complete badge details are taken from http://www.4squarebadges.com/Foursquare-badge-list/) Offering more and more badges is another effective way Foursquare has interacted with brands. For example, Bravo offered Foursquare users the ability to earn badges and special prizes by visiting locations associated with Bravo TV shows including The Real Housewives, The Millionaire Matchmaker, Top Chef, Kell on Earth, Top Chef Masters and Shear Genius. Foursquare has also recently allowed the owners of the physical venues to make special offers when people check-in, or specifically to the mayors of these locations. As an example, Starbucks recently offered a dollar off to “mayors” of the various Starbucks venues. There are currently 10,000 mayors at 13,167 Starbuck locations in Foursquare. One of the most compelling features for brands in Foursquare is the ability to associate “Tips” to specific venues or locations. Tips can be created by both
www.awarenessnetworks.com
2
State of Foursquare
brands and individual users. For example, checking into a location nearby Fenway Park in Boston may spawn the pop-up “Since you are close to Fenway Park BostonMike suggests having a Remy Burger at Jerry Remy’s Bar and Grille on Landsdowne Street”. Other brands have become even more creative with their use of tips. For example, as part of a national advertising program in support of their latest documentary “America: The Story of Us”, The History Channel created tips on Foursquare that share historically significant facts with users when they check into locations of note, for instance the first building that bought an Otis elevator. This helps to provide location-specific content that coincides with the launch of a television program.
About Venues in Foursquare
Foursquare has 4,153,790 Venues and that is growing at approximately 38k p/day. Once obvious duplicates are removed, there are about 3.85 million venues (as of June 2010). The rapid increase in the number of Venues is occurring mainly from the growing popularity of Foursquare; however, people are also creating personal destinations for the fun of having these destinations in their profile. For example, someone may create the venue “Middle of Nowhere”, “Tony’s Apartment” or “In my car”. These are not that hard to identify since their number of unique check-ins are fairly low (usually 1 person). The venues to watch are those with a high number of check-ins, a high number of unique visitors, or a high ratio of repeat visitors. Venues with the most check-ins fall into three categories (1) Airports, (2) Sports facilities/stadiums, (3) popular tourist destinations (Disney World, Times Square, etc). Fact: Less than 2% of the venues in Foursquare have greater than 100 Check-ins Chart: Number of Venues by Total Check-ins
www.awarenessnetworks.com
3
State of Foursquare
Top 50 Venues by Unique Check-ins
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Title San Francisco International Airport (SFO) Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK) Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS) New York Penn Station LaGuardia Airport (LGA) Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) Denver International Airport (DEN) Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) (Shibuya Sta.) (Shinjuku Sta.) Newark Liberty Int'l Airport (EWR) Orlando International Airport (MCO) AT&T Park Senayan City Union Square Yankee Stadium Pondok Indah Mall 2 MoMA - Museum of Modern Art Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) Apple Store Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) San Diego International Airport (SAN) Disneyland Central Park Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) Bryant Park Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport (BWI) Wrigley Field Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) (Tokyo Sta.) George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) Austin Convention Center JFK Int'l Airport - Terminal 5 - T5 Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) The High Line Cilandak Town Square Madison Square Garden Minneapolis - St. Paul Int'l Airport - MSP Citi Field Fenway Park Portland International Airport (PDX) Mineta San José International Airport (SJC) Shake Shack Terminal C - Newark Liberty Int'l Airport (EWR)
Unique Checkins 21417 20121 15542 13334 11725 11592 11445 10626 9823 9411 8316 8291 7922 7120 6992 6781 6571 6565 6427 6354 6311 6234 6090 6049 5931 5786 5695 5688 5683 5659 5607 5261 5224 5210 5204 5004 4875 4726 4723 4631 4490 4484 4484 4465 4383 4316 4255 4233 4227 4163
State/Prov CA CA IL GA NY NV NY NY WA CO TX MA AZ TX Japan Japan NJ FL CA Indonesia NY NY Indonesia NY IL NY VA CA CA NY PA NY MD IL VA Japan TX TX NY NC NY Indonesia NY MN NY MA OR CA NY NJ
www.awarenessnetworks.com
4
State of Foursquare
Repeat Visitors
Travel destinations have the most “Unique” check-ins but the visitors are transient. For many venues there is value in tracking repeat check-ins. This represents “loyalty”. Each Check-in is an opportunity to present a “special offer” to the visitor. Lastly, consider each “check-in” as a viral message advertising that visitor’s location. This becomes even more viral if that FourSquare user shares this on FaceBook and Twitter. We see a completely different trend if we track not only number of unique visitors, but the total number of check-ins for a “Repeat Visitor Ratio”. In order to remove less significant destinations, we limited this to only venues with greater than 200 unique visitors. The frequent checking represent the daily activities with employer (mostly agencies and internet companies), coffee shops, transit and fitness clubs.
www.awarenessnetworks.com
5
Highest Repeat Visitation Ratio (Venues >200 Repeat Visitors)
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Title Draftfcb Chicago TBWA/Chiat/Day LA Katella Cast Parking Lot (KCML) MySpace HQ City Beer Store Crispin Porter Bogusky Kellogg School of Mgt (Northwestern) R/GA Starcom MediaVest Group Lakeview Athletic Club Wieden+Kennedy East Atlanta Village Starcom MediaVest Group BBDO New York Equinox - Chelsea Deleted Ogilvy & Mather Yahoo! Building E Mission Cliffs the Sports Club / LA San Francisco Bay Club Harbor Pointe & Shuttle Drop-Off Bally Total Fitness Razorfish NYC 24 Hour Fitness Digitas Kanayama Station (Japan) MTA Subway - Manhattan (B/D/N/Q) Apple Store Equinox - West Hollywood Unknown Unknown Equinox - Greenwich UCSF Bakar Fitness & Rec Center MTA Subway - Astoria/Ditmars (N/W) Yahoo! Building A Microsoft Studio A 24 Hour Fitness - Castro IT Universitetet Crunch Fitness Sears Holdings Corporate Office HQ ??? 24 Hour Fitness - Bay Street CBS Interactive 2 Gold Street Apartments Best Buy Corporate HQ 24 Hour Fitness - Potrero Hill Pro Sports Club GA 400 Toll Plaza Repeat Checkins Uniques Visitor Ratio 230 284 295 269 448 231 204 340 216 203 216 212 380 319 214 219 779 549 254 354 281 219 202 203 347 322 334 243 1505 300 231 223 303 374 258 240 214 236 263 206 201 206 203 209 355 225 585 262 470 375
15.4609 3556 15.2711 4337 15.2475 4498 15.1301 4070 14.808 6634 14.0779 3252 13.5539 2765 13.3471 4538 12.3519 2668 12.1182 2460 11.588 2503 11.2075 2376 10.6458 3396 10.5981 2268 10.1233 2217 9.6123 9.5064 9.5 9.4548 9.3665 9.347 9.3416 9.3202 9.219 8.9969 8.7904 8.5761 8.5229 8.1733 8.1472 8.1121 7.9967 7.9037 7.8721 7.8583 7.8411 7.7331 7.6654 7.6456 7.6318 7.6165 7.6108 7.5694 7.4592 7.4267 7.4256 7.3053 7.183 7.1493 7488 5219 2413 3347 2632 2047 1887 1892 3199 2897 2936 2084 12827 2452 1882 1809 2423 2956 2031 1886 1678 1825 2016 1575 1534 1569 1545 1582 2648 1671 4344 1914 3376 2681
Starbucks - Support Center & Corp HQ 10.6789 4058
6
www.awarenessnetworks.com
State of Foursquare
Conclusions
Foursquare’s growth is a clear indicator or the importance of “location”. Consumers are happy to announce their location and expect brands and companies to acknowledge and reward them for their loyalty. This can be in the form of special offers, discounts or virtual recognition in the form of badges. Location celebrates mobility. High-end brands or companies with caché can exploit this even further by promoting their mayors and offering badges to frequent visitors. Starbucks worked with Foursquare to offer a “Barista” badge for frequent visitors. A company’s web site and physical locations should both encourage check-ins. (see Mayor Widget, and Top Mayors Widget). Location encourages and rewards brand loyalty. Like a lot of social networks, the underlying value is “influence” and “reach”. Connecting directly with a member via a check-in, or making them the “mayor” is valuable. The ability to make that connection at the exact moment they are at your location makes it exponentially more powerful. There is also marketing and advertising value in that person’s audience. Check-ins are broadcast to friends, and can even extend to other social media networks via Twitter and Facebook. Will Foursquare be the winner of location-based applications? From our perspective the question is less about whether or not Foursquare will survive and become the location application of choice and more about the likelihood of location services like Foursquare becoming a permanent part of the marketing landscape. We believe the answer is undeniably ‘yes’ and businesses need to understand location and mobility as part of the marketing mix.
www.awarenessnetworks.com
7
State of Foursquare
The Awareness Social Marketing Hub
The Awareness Social Marketing Hub helps marketers publish, manage, and measure their marketing across key social media channels, and helps marketers engage with users around that content. The Hub has support for the most important social marketing channels in use by enterprises today, including Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and branded online communities. The Awareness Social Marketing Hub offers some groundbreaking benefits to enterprises that are looking to use Foursquare as a serious enterprise marketing tool: • Simplify the process of publishing Tips to multiple foursquare venues with a single click. With the Awareness Social Marketing Hub, you can publish Tips to 1 or 1,000 foursquare venues simply and easily. These Tips will be shown to users who are checking in to your venues or near your venues. Centralize your venues and group multiple venues under one centralized system. Cross-promote your marketing content across foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and more, using the same one-step publishing process.
• •
For more information see http://www.awarenessnetworks.com/why-the-hub
publish | manage | measure | engage
About the Data Used in this report
The data used in this report was gathered independantly over the week of May 17 – May 24, 2010. Data was captured for each Foursquare venue and analyzed by various segments. The numbers are changing daily as more people sign up for Foursquare and more venues are added. In addition, venue consolidation occurs on a regular basis. At the completion of this period of our research, Foursquare had over 4 million venues.
www.awarenessnetworks.com
8
social marketing software
State of Foursquare
Wrtten by: David Carter, Founder and CTO, Awareness, Inc @dkrcarter | [email protected]
David provides the overall technology direction of the company and consults with our customers to align their internet strategy with their corporate objectives. David founded WebPartz Inc. which was acquired by Awareness in March of 2003. Prior to forming WebPartz, he spent 11 years at Microsoft where he had held various positions including Manager of Internet Strategy, Marketing Manager Knowledge Management, Content Management, and eCommerce products. In each of these roles he worked closely with large corporations rolling out the Microsoft platform and developing a business strategy. His last role was as Internet Strategy Manager where he oversaw sections of microsoft.com and Microsoft Canada's Intranet.
Contact Information: Awareness, Inc. 25 Corporate Drive, Suite 390 Burlington, MA 02451 United States Tel: 1 781-270-240 About Awareness
Awareness builds social marketing management software for marketers leveraging multiple social channels to engage with customers, build their brand, and increase revenues. Built upon Awareness’ expertise deploying more than 200 communities and social media projects for the world’s biggest brands including Sony, JetBlue, Kodak, ASOS.com and AIRMiles, The Awareness Social Marketing Hub helps marketers publish, manage, and measure their marketing across key social media channels, and helps marketers engage with users around that content. The Hub has support for the most important social marketing channels in use by enterprises today, including foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and branded online communities. More information can be found at: http://www.awarenessnetworks.com
© 2010 AWARENESS, INC.
Awareness Canada 5050 South Service Road, Suite 100 Burlington, ON L7L 5Y7 Canada Tel: 1 866 487 5623 Fax: 1 905 632 4922
The State of Foursquare 2010
Statistics and Insight into the Rapidly Growing Location Based Social Network
An Industry eBook from Awareness Creators of the Social Marketing Hub @awarenessinc | awarenessnetworks.com
Perspectives on Foursquare
State of Foursquare
Foursquare Overview
Foursquare is a social network focused on connecting users and allowing them to broadcast their locations using mobile devices including the iPhone, Blackberry phones, and Android phones. The unique thing about Fourquare that makes it attractive to brands is it allows marketers to tie marketing programs to physical point of sale activities – something that has proven to be difficult to accomplish in the broader social web. In the last year, the popularity of Foursquare has grown and the network currently boasts close to 1.6 million users who have collectively made 22 million check-ins (http://mashable.com/2010/03/29/Foursquare-growth-numbers/). With the growing popularity among users, brands have been trying to figure how they can leverage the site as part of their marketing mix. Several brands have run programs on Foursquare featuring branded custom badges, unique check-in tips, and custom landing pages featuring lists of to-do items.
“The popularity of Foursquare has grown and the network currently boasts close to 1.6 million users who have collectively made of 22 million check-ins.”
- Foursquare’s Growth Not Slowing, Mashable, 2010
Foursquare itself is based both on connecting and competition, making it one of the more “sticky” and viral networks available. Part social network, part virtual game, Foursquare’s users are rewarded by receiving points and badges when checking in to physical locations. Additionally users compete with each other to become the Mayor of each location. Mayor ship is earned when a user has the most check-ins to a unique location over the course of 2 months. In this eBook we will discuss Foursquare and how brands can leverage the network as part of their marketing mix. The report features data gathered over the course of the last two months and observational analysis of key brands running marketing programs through the channel.
1. Mashable, Foursquare’s Growth Not Slowing Down: 725,000 Users, 22 Million Checkins, Ben Parr, 3/29/2010 http://mashable.com/2010/03/29/Foursquare-growth-numbers/
www.awarenessnetworks.com
1
State of Foursquare
Understanding Foursquare
Foursquare plays on the growing trend for people to “lifestream” or document each and every moment of their life. The tremendous growth and willingness of individuals to share “status updates” in platforms like Twitter and Facebook has grown to include “location” and “venue” specific information in Foursquare. In Foursquare, users broadcast not only broadcast their statuses but also share their physical locations. In Foursquare, this act is called a “check-in”. A typical Foursquare “check-in” could be a user checking into their local Starbucks and leaving the comment (known within the system as a “Shout”), “Having my morning Latte Grande”. Once checked in, the users location is broadcast to their connections within the network (For example, “Bostonmike has checked in to Starbucks”). For many people, the idea of sharing their precise location with the world seems a bit strange. Some analysts have suggested it’s nothing more than a sophisticated form of exhibitionism or an invitation to stalking. So the question is, “why do people do it?” The short answer is that Foursquare is fun. It feeds on people’s desire both to connect and to compete. Some users do it to “name drop” prestigious locations they are visiting while others do it to declare their loyalty for a brand or
"Foursquare has 4,153,790 Venues and that is growing at approximately 38k p/day. Once obvious duplicates are removed, there are about 3.85 million venues (as of June 2010)."
specific venue. Some users do it just to let their friends know where they are while others are attracted by the competition of the game. In addition to connecting with friends, users can become “mayor” of locations as a reward for having the most check-ins. Points and badges also serve to reward user participation for various activities. For example, if a user checks-in to a bar several nights in a row, the user unlocks the “Bender” badge which will then be shown on their profile. As of June 3rd there were 174 separate badges available within Foursquare, of which 72 are active. (Complete badge details are taken from http://www.4squarebadges.com/Foursquare-badge-list/) Offering more and more badges is another effective way Foursquare has interacted with brands. For example, Bravo offered Foursquare users the ability to earn badges and special prizes by visiting locations associated with Bravo TV shows including The Real Housewives, The Millionaire Matchmaker, Top Chef, Kell on Earth, Top Chef Masters and Shear Genius. Foursquare has also recently allowed the owners of the physical venues to make special offers when people check-in, or specifically to the mayors of these locations. As an example, Starbucks recently offered a dollar off to “mayors” of the various Starbucks venues. There are currently 10,000 mayors at 13,167 Starbuck locations in Foursquare. One of the most compelling features for brands in Foursquare is the ability to associate “Tips” to specific venues or locations. Tips can be created by both
www.awarenessnetworks.com
2
State of Foursquare
brands and individual users. For example, checking into a location nearby Fenway Park in Boston may spawn the pop-up “Since you are close to Fenway Park BostonMike suggests having a Remy Burger at Jerry Remy’s Bar and Grille on Landsdowne Street”. Other brands have become even more creative with their use of tips. For example, as part of a national advertising program in support of their latest documentary “America: The Story of Us”, The History Channel created tips on Foursquare that share historically significant facts with users when they check into locations of note, for instance the first building that bought an Otis elevator. This helps to provide location-specific content that coincides with the launch of a television program.
About Venues in Foursquare
Foursquare has 4,153,790 Venues and that is growing at approximately 38k p/day. Once obvious duplicates are removed, there are about 3.85 million venues (as of June 2010). The rapid increase in the number of Venues is occurring mainly from the growing popularity of Foursquare; however, people are also creating personal destinations for the fun of having these destinations in their profile. For example, someone may create the venue “Middle of Nowhere”, “Tony’s Apartment” or “In my car”. These are not that hard to identify since their number of unique check-ins are fairly low (usually 1 person). The venues to watch are those with a high number of check-ins, a high number of unique visitors, or a high ratio of repeat visitors. Venues with the most check-ins fall into three categories (1) Airports, (2) Sports facilities/stadiums, (3) popular tourist destinations (Disney World, Times Square, etc). Fact: Less than 2% of the venues in Foursquare have greater than 100 Check-ins Chart: Number of Venues by Total Check-ins
www.awarenessnetworks.com
3
State of Foursquare
Top 50 Venues by Unique Check-ins
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Title San Francisco International Airport (SFO) Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD) Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) John F Kennedy International Airport (JFK) Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (LAS) New York Penn Station LaGuardia Airport (LGA) Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA) Denver International Airport (DEN) Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX) Austin Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) (Shibuya Sta.) (Shinjuku Sta.) Newark Liberty Int'l Airport (EWR) Orlando International Airport (MCO) AT&T Park Senayan City Union Square Yankee Stadium Pondok Indah Mall 2 MoMA - Museum of Modern Art Chicago Midway International Airport (MDW) Apple Store Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) San Diego International Airport (SAN) Disneyland Central Park Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) Bryant Park Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport (BWI) Wrigley Field Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD) (Tokyo Sta.) George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) Austin Convention Center JFK Int'l Airport - Terminal 5 - T5 Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT) The High Line Cilandak Town Square Madison Square Garden Minneapolis - St. Paul Int'l Airport - MSP Citi Field Fenway Park Portland International Airport (PDX) Mineta San José International Airport (SJC) Shake Shack Terminal C - Newark Liberty Int'l Airport (EWR)
Unique Checkins 21417 20121 15542 13334 11725 11592 11445 10626 9823 9411 8316 8291 7922 7120 6992 6781 6571 6565 6427 6354 6311 6234 6090 6049 5931 5786 5695 5688 5683 5659 5607 5261 5224 5210 5204 5004 4875 4726 4723 4631 4490 4484 4484 4465 4383 4316 4255 4233 4227 4163
State/Prov CA CA IL GA NY NV NY NY WA CO TX MA AZ TX Japan Japan NJ FL CA Indonesia NY NY Indonesia NY IL NY VA CA CA NY PA NY MD IL VA Japan TX TX NY NC NY Indonesia NY MN NY MA OR CA NY NJ
www.awarenessnetworks.com
4
State of Foursquare
Repeat Visitors
Travel destinations have the most “Unique” check-ins but the visitors are transient. For many venues there is value in tracking repeat check-ins. This represents “loyalty”. Each Check-in is an opportunity to present a “special offer” to the visitor. Lastly, consider each “check-in” as a viral message advertising that visitor’s location. This becomes even more viral if that FourSquare user shares this on FaceBook and Twitter. We see a completely different trend if we track not only number of unique visitors, but the total number of check-ins for a “Repeat Visitor Ratio”. In order to remove less significant destinations, we limited this to only venues with greater than 200 unique visitors. The frequent checking represent the daily activities with employer (mostly agencies and internet companies), coffee shops, transit and fitness clubs.
www.awarenessnetworks.com
5
Highest Repeat Visitation Ratio (Venues >200 Repeat Visitors)
Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Title Draftfcb Chicago TBWA/Chiat/Day LA Katella Cast Parking Lot (KCML) MySpace HQ City Beer Store Crispin Porter Bogusky Kellogg School of Mgt (Northwestern) R/GA Starcom MediaVest Group Lakeview Athletic Club Wieden+Kennedy East Atlanta Village Starcom MediaVest Group BBDO New York Equinox - Chelsea Deleted Ogilvy & Mather Yahoo! Building E Mission Cliffs the Sports Club / LA San Francisco Bay Club Harbor Pointe & Shuttle Drop-Off Bally Total Fitness Razorfish NYC 24 Hour Fitness Digitas Kanayama Station (Japan) MTA Subway - Manhattan (B/D/N/Q) Apple Store Equinox - West Hollywood Unknown Unknown Equinox - Greenwich UCSF Bakar Fitness & Rec Center MTA Subway - Astoria/Ditmars (N/W) Yahoo! Building A Microsoft Studio A 24 Hour Fitness - Castro IT Universitetet Crunch Fitness Sears Holdings Corporate Office HQ ??? 24 Hour Fitness - Bay Street CBS Interactive 2 Gold Street Apartments Best Buy Corporate HQ 24 Hour Fitness - Potrero Hill Pro Sports Club GA 400 Toll Plaza Repeat Checkins Uniques Visitor Ratio 230 284 295 269 448 231 204 340 216 203 216 212 380 319 214 219 779 549 254 354 281 219 202 203 347 322 334 243 1505 300 231 223 303 374 258 240 214 236 263 206 201 206 203 209 355 225 585 262 470 375
15.4609 3556 15.2711 4337 15.2475 4498 15.1301 4070 14.808 6634 14.0779 3252 13.5539 2765 13.3471 4538 12.3519 2668 12.1182 2460 11.588 2503 11.2075 2376 10.6458 3396 10.5981 2268 10.1233 2217 9.6123 9.5064 9.5 9.4548 9.3665 9.347 9.3416 9.3202 9.219 8.9969 8.7904 8.5761 8.5229 8.1733 8.1472 8.1121 7.9967 7.9037 7.8721 7.8583 7.8411 7.7331 7.6654 7.6456 7.6318 7.6165 7.6108 7.5694 7.4592 7.4267 7.4256 7.3053 7.183 7.1493 7488 5219 2413 3347 2632 2047 1887 1892 3199 2897 2936 2084 12827 2452 1882 1809 2423 2956 2031 1886 1678 1825 2016 1575 1534 1569 1545 1582 2648 1671 4344 1914 3376 2681
Starbucks - Support Center & Corp HQ 10.6789 4058
6
www.awarenessnetworks.com
State of Foursquare
Conclusions
Foursquare’s growth is a clear indicator or the importance of “location”. Consumers are happy to announce their location and expect brands and companies to acknowledge and reward them for their loyalty. This can be in the form of special offers, discounts or virtual recognition in the form of badges. Location celebrates mobility. High-end brands or companies with caché can exploit this even further by promoting their mayors and offering badges to frequent visitors. Starbucks worked with Foursquare to offer a “Barista” badge for frequent visitors. A company’s web site and physical locations should both encourage check-ins. (see Mayor Widget, and Top Mayors Widget). Location encourages and rewards brand loyalty. Like a lot of social networks, the underlying value is “influence” and “reach”. Connecting directly with a member via a check-in, or making them the “mayor” is valuable. The ability to make that connection at the exact moment they are at your location makes it exponentially more powerful. There is also marketing and advertising value in that person’s audience. Check-ins are broadcast to friends, and can even extend to other social media networks via Twitter and Facebook. Will Foursquare be the winner of location-based applications? From our perspective the question is less about whether or not Foursquare will survive and become the location application of choice and more about the likelihood of location services like Foursquare becoming a permanent part of the marketing landscape. We believe the answer is undeniably ‘yes’ and businesses need to understand location and mobility as part of the marketing mix.
www.awarenessnetworks.com
7
State of Foursquare
The Awareness Social Marketing Hub
The Awareness Social Marketing Hub helps marketers publish, manage, and measure their marketing across key social media channels, and helps marketers engage with users around that content. The Hub has support for the most important social marketing channels in use by enterprises today, including Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and branded online communities. The Awareness Social Marketing Hub offers some groundbreaking benefits to enterprises that are looking to use Foursquare as a serious enterprise marketing tool: • Simplify the process of publishing Tips to multiple foursquare venues with a single click. With the Awareness Social Marketing Hub, you can publish Tips to 1 or 1,000 foursquare venues simply and easily. These Tips will be shown to users who are checking in to your venues or near your venues. Centralize your venues and group multiple venues under one centralized system. Cross-promote your marketing content across foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress and more, using the same one-step publishing process.
• •
For more information see http://www.awarenessnetworks.com/why-the-hub
publish | manage | measure | engage
About the Data Used in this report
The data used in this report was gathered independantly over the week of May 17 – May 24, 2010. Data was captured for each Foursquare venue and analyzed by various segments. The numbers are changing daily as more people sign up for Foursquare and more venues are added. In addition, venue consolidation occurs on a regular basis. At the completion of this period of our research, Foursquare had over 4 million venues.
www.awarenessnetworks.com
8
social marketing software
State of Foursquare
Wrtten by: David Carter, Founder and CTO, Awareness, Inc @dkrcarter | [email protected]
David provides the overall technology direction of the company and consults with our customers to align their internet strategy with their corporate objectives. David founded WebPartz Inc. which was acquired by Awareness in March of 2003. Prior to forming WebPartz, he spent 11 years at Microsoft where he had held various positions including Manager of Internet Strategy, Marketing Manager Knowledge Management, Content Management, and eCommerce products. In each of these roles he worked closely with large corporations rolling out the Microsoft platform and developing a business strategy. His last role was as Internet Strategy Manager where he oversaw sections of microsoft.com and Microsoft Canada's Intranet.
Contact Information: Awareness, Inc. 25 Corporate Drive, Suite 390 Burlington, MA 02451 United States Tel: 1 781-270-240 About Awareness
Awareness builds social marketing management software for marketers leveraging multiple social channels to engage with customers, build their brand, and increase revenues. Built upon Awareness’ expertise deploying more than 200 communities and social media projects for the world’s biggest brands including Sony, JetBlue, Kodak, ASOS.com and AIRMiles, The Awareness Social Marketing Hub helps marketers publish, manage, and measure their marketing across key social media channels, and helps marketers engage with users around that content. The Hub has support for the most important social marketing channels in use by enterprises today, including foursquare, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, and branded online communities. More information can be found at: http://www.awarenessnetworks.com
© 2010 AWARENESS, INC.
Awareness Canada 5050 South Service Road, Suite 100 Burlington, ON L7L 5Y7 Canada Tel: 1 866 487 5623 Fax: 1 905 632 4922
