Social Media Marketing For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Using Advanced Marketing Strategies with foursquare

To understand the true potential of foursquare and its application programming interface (API) is to learn how brands like Pepsi, American Express, Tasti D-Lite, and Neiman Marcus have launched marketing programs that drive not only awareness for their brands, but also sales and customer loyalty. These marketing programs benefit their customers, their brands, and foursquare too — a sure sign that the program holds lots of merit.

Following are a few examples that highlight the potential of the platform for marketers:

PepsiCo Shopper Loyalty Program: In November 2010, Shiv’s digital team at PepsiCo partnered with foursquare to create a “load to card” program with participating supermarket chains. This program allowed you to register your foursquare card with the loyalty card program of a particular retailer. Then when you checked in on foursquare at that supermarket, depending on what foursquare badges you’d received in the past, you got special offers and discounts on PepsiCo products geared specifically for you. This program depended on your past foursquare behavior to target the right kind of offers to you.

For example, if you’ve already gotten the Gym Rat badge on foursquare for making frequent trips to the gym, upon your next check-in at the participating retailer, you’d be given a special offer on a Gatorade product. The offer ...