More on Social Media for Promotions

There is a game called Foursquare played via smartphone. In this game people win badges by using their phone’s GPS and “checking in” to various locations.

There are now bunches of location based games -although the promoters tend to refer to them as “services”- as everyone tries to cash in on the trend, but Foursquare seems to be the most popular in the Las Vegas area.

This game” may seem like a rather juvenile past time but some of the more internet savvy retailers are catching on and using these games as a way of attracting business. –At least one restaurant announced food specials via twitter and attracted more than 60 players, creating more business and earning each of the participants a swarm badge.

Here’s an excellent blog post showing how social sites like twitter can be used to gain an advantage over the competition.

To gain a bit more perspective on the whole location based game thing here is a comparison between the two biggies, Foursquare & Gowalla.

As an example of how much potential there is for retailers, Brightkite made this announcement in November 2009:
Brightkite, the Social Discovery Network, today announced the availability of a new ultra-targeted advertising solution after piloting it with more than 20 brands during the summer of 2009. The system is designed to give brands the ability to break out of traditional age and gender targeting and target according to a wider range of more relevant criteria.

Facebook:
Starting next month, the more than 400 million Facebook users could begin seeing a new kind of status update flow through their news feed: the current locations of their friends.

Facebook plans to take the wraps off a new location-based feature in late April at f8, the company’s yearly developer conference, according to several people briefed on the project, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss unannounced services.