Lately I’ve been a keen participant on FourSquare, a mobile GPS-enabled social network that launched last year at SXSW. I was late to the game and downloaded the mobile app to my iPhone at the start of this year. In the beginning I was checking in everywhere and encouraging all my friends to sign up. I had visions of planning my nights out based on where my friends were congregating, hoping for big meet ups. Currently Foursqure has about 750,000 members, picking up about 120,000 at this year’s SXSW festival. Only about 30 of my friends are signed up.
According to FourSquare I check in about 65 times per month or about twice each day. Currently I’m the mayor of The Lite Choice on 8th Avenue and 22nd street. I was enticed to go there by a FourSquare promotion, which I’ll expand on later. Sadly, despite my daily check-ins, I hold only one mayorship.
I am not the mayor of The Media Kitchen. Jessica W has that distinction. She dethroned Andre W. I’m not even the mayor of my co-op. But at least I’m the mayor of The Lite Choice.
At first I was checking in, FourSquare parlance for telling the system where I am and immediately broadcasting to all my friends my whereabouts, everywhere I went. When I arrived at work, I’d check in. When I left for lunch, I’d check in. Much to everyone’s surprise I am not the mayor of Aquagrill (my favorite Soho eatery and right around the corner from my office). Jennifer M, the owner has that distinction. I should probably talk to her about the promotional opportunities of letting customers become the mayor, but I digress. When I left work, I’d check in on the subway platform (I get service on the platform at Houston and Varick). When I was waiting in line at The Garden of Eden on 23rd Street, my favorite take out place, I’d check in, and finally when I got home I’d check in.
Then I decided I didn’t want people knowing where I was lunching and what time I was leaving work or whether I had nighttime plans. Sine I have a doorman I wasn’t worried about the perils of over-sharing as highlighted by pleaserobme.com.
My issue was I just wasn’t sure that my real whereabouts where reinforcing the image I wanted the world to conjure up when they thought of me. I started checking in less and less and I only started checking in when I was some place really cool, the kinds of places that reinforced my brand.
I know a lot of people don’t think that their whereabouts help shape their ‘brand’, but being actively involved in the communications business for over 20 years, I do. Remember that seminal piece in Fast Company called ‘The Brand Called You’? In fact I tell my clients all the time that where consumers encounter their brands will help shape a brand’s meaning and value. Why should my personal brand be any different?
Since I suspect a lot of people are just like me, what’s the long-term utility of these types of mobile platforms when people won’t use them truthfully? Maybe people don’t have to use them truthfully for them to succeed? Maybe they will be just one more way to manage my brand in social media, just like my Facebook status has long ago become.
I had one particularly encouraging moment on FourSquare some weeks back that I referenced earlier and will expand on now. When I checked into the Spice, a new restaurant on 8th Ave and 22nd, I got a promotional note saying if I went to the Lite Choice one block away I could super size my order. I ordered a small and got a medium, which made me very happy. When I became the mayor I got the same offer. I was still even happier.
While I may not want everyone knowing my whereabouts, I will check in to FourSquare whenever I go out to eat because I like getting promotional offers that are relevant and close by. For me FourSquare, and sites like it, are becoming the modern day version of the coupon clipping, something I thought I’d never do. And I like it.
The brilliance of Foursquare, and many other location-based apps, is that they satisfiy many of my narcissistic primeval urges, afterall doesn’t everyone I know really care where I am and what I’m thinking right now? That is until I loose interest and become bored checking in or just don’t want them to figure out how boring my life really is. But that’s when marketing kicks in with location-based coupons. Then I’m hooked all over again.
I just got an offer to dethrone the mayor of The Mermaid Inn and get a free lobster sandwich. I may even try and move my business from Aquagrill.
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