Does Location Based Marketing Bring Out the Dog in Us?

When I was a kid, my best friend had a very hyper dog-named Herald (my friend was pretty hyper too). We used to get a kick out of the fact that Herald peed on everything, everywhere. Actually, as 10-year-old boys, we were impressed he could actually pee that much! The dog was actually marking: his territory, new things, or even old things. Herald actually gave me my first lesson in location-based marketing.

Fast forward to Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places. I love using Foursquare and I’ve read over and over again how brands will use these tools to reward customers. In the mean time, most of the reward comes in the form of becoming “mayor” of different locations.

But if rewards are key to location based marketing, why do people still do it if they have no chance of attaining those rewards? Even though I’ve lost mayorships of some places, I still check in when I go there, as do most of the people I know. The only place I’ve actually used a reward from was the Ben & Jerry’s scoop shop on Church Street in Burlington.

I think there's more to it than that: I think services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places bring out a reptilian need in us to leave our mark. We mark our territory (“I’m the Mayor!”) or we mark as messages (“Hey everyone, that’s me you smell”) or we mark when we find something new (“Check out this great restaurant”).

In short, we use location based services in the same way dogs use their urine.

Web MD has this description on its Web page:

“Social Triggers

Exciting social situations can trigger urine marking. Some male dogs only urine mark when in the presence of female dogs (especially if they’re in heat), and some urine mark only when interacting with other male dogs. Some dogs only urine mark when visiting homes where other dogs have urine marked before. Other dogs only urine mark when they become highly aroused and over stimulated in social situations. These dogs often mark nearby objects, people or other dogs.”

Now just replace dogs with the word people and urine mark with check in.

It makes sense doesn’t it? And just so you don't think I'm getting sexist on you here, it turns out that female dogs have the same marking instincts as male dogs.

Woof.

Art by Dug Nap, click here for more of Dug's work.

Foursquare Day - A Crazy Idea Becomes Reality

I met a few days ago with Lara Dickson of Deep Dish Creative. She had tweeted me the day before, dangling before me a vague project concerning Foursquare. And of course, I jumped at the opportunity. Lara, who works with a lot of the local restaurants and businesses in Burlington, wanted to do something for Foursquare day and she wanted a little help in figuring out what.

It didn't take us long to sketch out a little plan and to figure out who else we needed to connect with. With help from Mike Hayes at Magic Hat and Nicole Ravlin from People Making Good, Foursquare Day in Burlington started coming together.

Lara pounded the pavement to line up businesses to participate.  Businesses like New Moon Café, August First, Handy's Lunch, Burlington Wine Shop and The Bobbin agreed to provide discounts or donations for people who check in on Foursquare. She set up landing pages on her site and created a Facebook group with all of the specials listed.

Mike Hayes was already planning to re-launch my favorite beer of all time, Wacko, at the Scuffer that day, and he's been trying to work with Magic Hat partners to use Foursquare for a while. He agreed to give away free t-shirts if you check in on Foursquare at The Scuffer between 4-6 on 4/16.

Nicole Ravlin jumped in and got Boloco and Small Dog Electronics on board as well, with $2 smoothies and free Small Dog pint glasses and discounts respectively.

What we really want to happen is for area businesses to understand how they might use location based social media tools. For Foursquare Day, it's pretty simple:

• Get Foursquare on your mobile device.
• Check in at one of the participating venues.
• Show the staff you've checked in (show them the screen on your phone).
• When you do, you get something in return.

This has been a crazy, last minute idea that's coming together. I can't wait for tomorrow.

I really would love to get a Foursquare Swarm badge out of this. See you at The Scuffer at 4 on Friday.

When you tweet on Friday, use #btv4sq as the hashtag.

Foursquare, Brands and Location-Based Rewards

Foursquare announced a partnership with Starbucks last week. Starbucks' customers who check in with Foursquare have a chance to win a Barista badge. This comes on the heels of another brand, Tasty D-Lite, who’s rewarding loyal customers who check in with Foursquare with points on their customer cards. Ultimately it might be worth a free ice cream.

Most everyone agrees that we’ll see more and more brands jumping into location-based marketing. The question they’re all struggling to answer is: What’s in it for the customers?

A Barista badge might be cool, but it’s not that cool. Starbucks is playing around with ideas like invitations to special events or online reputation scores (?). Tasty D-Lite is going a more traditional route with the virtual punch card. I wonder, though, if either of these provides very much value to customers.

If you look at the witch’s brew of Foursquare and Gowalla at SXSW, a good experimental lab, you’ll find that many of the attendees find the value of the location-based tools in letting others know where to find them. The connection is the value. Sure, there are badges, but I don’t see anyone tweeting them. While reward is the people, the location can sometimes takes a back seat.

At home, there’s a slight value to mayorship, but not much. Defending a mayorship can quickly become a burden. Instead, there’s a joy in seeing others in the same spot, or asking them about the notes they leave. But even then, there are bunches of people using Twitter who are not using Foursquare or Gowalla, even though they respond to Foursquare tweets.

I’m not sure virtual clip cards or online reputation awards will work. Instead, brands should use those connections to create even greater connections between its customers, preferably at the place of business. I can think of a few of my favorite Foursquare places where I’d love it if they had a private party for their best Foursquare customers. I’m sure people would kill to get into those.

Location-based marketing feels very cool and we’re just starting to understand what it means. But those brands that can use it to make real human connections, and not just give out flimsy rewards, will provide the most value to customers and earn their loyalty.

Foursquare, local business, and Twitter

A funny thing happened a few weeks ago. I was at my new favorite bakery and café August First  where I usually go to do some work or to meet with my business colleagues. August First opened in, well, August and since then has actively participated in social media via Facebook and Twitter. Burlington Tweeps have held two Tweetups there and the place is rocking.

Every time I go there I check in via Foursquare to let people know I'm there. I'm currently battling it out with Lou McKenna over mayorship. I also rave about their breads, especially the Kalamata Olive bread that my daughter and I now are addicted to.

Well, a while back I started getting tweets from friends that looked like this:

What August First did was pay attention to the Twitter chatter and then reward me for it. But they didn't tell me, they put the message out and let others Tweet about it. Talk about tapping into the power of the community!

I think this is a great, smart use of social media and shows the potential of what location based services like Foursquare could mean for local businesses. August First used classic steps in social media:

• They listened to what was happening on social media
• They were generous in that they gave back instead of continually asking for something
• They let the community do their work for them
• It was fun

Of course, part of the fun was that everyone who saw this little picture below first thought I was passing bad checks ;-) And this was only a little example. Wait until some leverages this location based technology in a big way.