How Much Does An App Like FourSquare Cost

Foursquare is a geolocation social network that is used to promote any type of company or business, and that only consists of "checking in" at specific places where we are, and earning points for discovering new locations.

The rewards for these actions are the “Badges” - a kind of medals, and the “mayoralties”, which are earned by the people who make the most registrations in the same place during the last 60 days.

From the information that users have been entering in their profile, the platform begins to make a series of recommendations where it intelligently suggests interesting places on your smartphone.

To start using this social network, you have to download the application on your mobile device, either in the App Store or Play Store.

Essential Tips To Promote Your Business On Foursquare

Claim The Location Of Your Business

The first thing any business with a physical presence should do is claim its locations to secure ownership of its business on Foursquare.

To start the process, you must first access the Foursquare page and create an account. Then, you have to look for the name of the company indicating the address. But if it does not appear in the list of results, you have to scroll to the bottom, and click on "Add a new place to Foursquare."

After a form appears, you have to fill in all the fields to indicate the contact details of the physical establishment as well as the category that describes the professional activity.

The main categories that you can choose to describe your business are the following:

• Arts and Entertainment
• College and University
• Event
• Food
• Nightclub
• Outdoors and recreation
• Professionals and other sites
• Home
• Store and Service
• Travel and Transportation

And in turn, when you select one of the categories, different subcategory options will appear where specify the professional activity of your business in detail.

In the event that your establishment or company has come up in the search for results, because a user has created it, you must click on the name and click on “Is this your business? Claim it now”.

Remember that you have two options to complete this process of validating the business, which are:

By post, a letter will arrive within a few days (maximum 2 weeks) to the address of the place, which is indicated on Foursquare, with the validation code to complete the process on the web.
By phone, you will receive an automatic message from Foursquare asking the name of the business, your personal name, and the position you represent in the company. To finish, you will have to insert the 4-digit code that will allow you to access the web.

Create Ads

The creation of ads in Foursquare Ads is an excellent advertising tactic. With the ads, you can attract new customers from the area to our business or company.

Ads are always composed of a photo with a message up to 160 characters, and are targeted based on two criteria:

• Proximity of the person to your establishment.
• Possibility of becoming a customer.

Foursquare helps you contact the people who have checked in places similar to yours, or when they have searched for something related to your business.

These Foursquare ads will be shown to users through notifications in their smartphone application, when they are near your store or company.

Some tips for writing attractive ads that capture the attention of visitors include:

• Highlight something special about your product or service.
• Make an offer.
• Promote seasonal items.
• Highlight recommendations from satisfied clients.
• Advertise new offices or businesses of the company.

You even have the possibility of creating several ads at the same time to do A / B tests, since certain messages can work better than others. In this way, we can experiment to find out which ads attract the greatest number of customers. Hyperlink InfoSystem can assist you with an app similar to FourSquare.

Offer Special Discounts

Businesses, organizations and companies with physical locations have a great tool in Foursquare with which to attract and retain their customers.  Clients can to check-in at your establishment through promotions or special offers.

In order to attract new customers or capture the attention of current customers, there are many types of promotions that your business can establish on this platform for free. They include:

• Newbie: the user only gets the promotion the first time they check-in.
• Check-in: the promotion is obtained every time you check-in.
• Promo: only the visitor who has checked the most times in the last 60 days achieves the promotion.
• Loyalty: the reward is for making a certain number of visits in a specific period of time.
• Friends: a minimum threshold of friends is established to be rewarded if all of them check-in at the business.
• Swarm: you decide a minimum number of Foursquare users to reward if they manage to check-in within a maximum period of three hours.
• Lightning: set the number of promotions you want to unlock per day.

In addition to using these promotions, it is also advisable to use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and other social media where you have a presence, to spread the news with the rest of the followers.

Add Tips About Your Company

People who visit a place registered in Foursquare can leave their opinion, and thus share their experience with other users. Even if people have not left their comment at the time of the visit, the app is responsible for asking users for their evaluations of the places they have been, leaving the opportunity for both positive and negative feedback.

As an owner, you can also write tips, the strengths of the company, and highlight the human side of your business. Other examples could be leaving tips about your famous happy hour, the company's favorite employees, or even the location of the closest ATM to your establishment.

It is recommended to also leave advice about the locations of other companies, and thus promote the community in our commercial area. This will allow you to increase your authority on a particular topic, and brand recognition in front of other relevant customers who visit similar places.  The cost of an app like FourSquare is around $7000.