Foursquare, A New Tool for Growing Your Business

I've been using foursquare religiously for the past few months and trying to internally and externally validate my reasons for doing so. I think I have found some answers. For those of you that don't know about foursquare, it is a location based social app that provides many fun and useful features that start with letting your friends know where you are and being able to see where they are in real time by "checking in" to the app on your mobile device while you are at a venue. There are additional features, such as earning mayorship of a venue by checking in a certain number of times and more than anyone else as well as the ability to unlock badges. <-- you can read more about this here: http://foursquare.com/help/badges

Here is my favorite personal foursquare anecdote:
I was recently sitting at a venue and 5 minutes after checking in on foursquare a girlfriend of mine walks in and says, "I've been trying to catch up with you by following your check ins but you kept moving venues." Well she found me in the end thanks to foursquare. This was on a day when I was trying to unlock the Crunked badge.

That is the most basic use of the service but it can also be used for business by tracking some of the information related to your business and customers. I used this to promote my last company Bento 415. I rewarded our mayor with free and discounted products and he became a daily visitor, thanks Brett B. Now it seems foursquare has created some self-service tools for businesses to benefit from their service. If you own a business and have been wondering how to harness the power of social media to increase awareness and revenue here is a good place to start and get instant, traceable results. Take a look at the following link for examples of ways to use foursquare to market your business and build rapport with your customers: http://foursquare.com/businesses/

And if you are not a business owner, start checking in and reaping the rewards.