Foursquare Benefits for Business

A week ago today was officially Foursquare day. Feel free to head over there and check out all the fun ways they celebrated!

In honor of its one week anniversary, we thought we'd go a little bit in depth on this social media tool that has generated a lot of hype. Why use Foursquare if your a business? What benefits does it hold for you? Here are 4 great answers to those questions.

Consumers Love the Competition: Not only can those on Foursquare share new places and find new hangouts through checking in, but they can also earn points while doing it. They earn badges for being the first to check in somewhere or checking in somewhere the most often. Who doesn't like to gloat about being the mayor of somewhere right?

New Customers at no Cost: All you have to do is add your business to Foursquare and you've opened the door for a whole new group of consumers. While searching for a product or service, your business will then come up in their search and they are now aware of your offerings. Once they are aware you are out their that can then turn into them doing business with you.

Reward Your Customers: Those who check in often and help in supporting your business should be rewarded in some way to show appreciation. Offer coupons, special promotions or give them a shout out. Loyal customers deserve it and they will pay it forward!

Real Time Data: While users of Foursquare are checked in to a certain location they gain access to polls, questionnaires  quizzes, etc. This is a great tool for businesses to gain feedback from their customers.

Social media is all about creating awareness and building a loyal following all while having fun doing it! Foursquare is a great way to create all of that.

Hashtag Fun

We've all seen then and some of us even use them, but what exactly are hashtags and how can you use them to get the most out of your social media? We'll tell you!

• Hashtags are a great way to categorize your discussions to make it easier for those interested to find you and what you post
• They are a great way to keep track of live events such as promotions, conferences, webinars etc. Creating a hashtag to be used during these specific times helps with networking and keeping others up to date on what is going on.
• It makes it easier for your target market to find you. Hashtags not only categorize your topics, but it helps your customers to find you. When they are searching specific hashtags for things that interest them, if you use the correct hashtag they can search through and find you and your relevant and informative content. 
• Gain new followers. Although hashtagging isn't necessarily directly related to an increase in followers it can be a great success. Those who happen to fall upon one of your tweets while searching a specific hashtag may be interested in the content you are putting out and want to stay up to date with your happenings, so they'll choose to follow you. 

There are right and wrong ways to use hashtags. Using it the right way can be very beneficial for promoting your brand and gaining credibility. Using hashtags incorrectly can cause frustrating results. We will discuss this in our next blog post so stay tuned!