By far one of the funkiest ways to harness the ‘power of the people’ is via the web and mobile application called FourSquare.

Foursquare is a mobile-based startup that lets people "check in" at bars, restaurants, hotels and other attractions through their smartphone. They’re a leader in combining social networking with location, allowing users to earn discounts and prices for showing up at thousands of venues worldwide.

While this might sound like a fabulous game appropriate only to your 12 year old, companies and advertisers are taking massive advantage of the start-up as a way to reach consumers – of any age - when they're close to their stores or businesses.

One of Foursquare's challenges is to stay on top of its growth. In the last 3 months alone, Foursquare has more than doubled its registered users from 750,000 to over 1.8 million users. This is the sort of phenomenal growth that twitter experienced.

So what’s this mean for you?

Firstly, FourSquare is a free application. You can sign up, add your venue and then add promotions or loyalty discounts for your venue. Let me give you an example..... Say I own a coffee shop in Newstead. I add my venue and promotion. My customers are driving around, looking at the FourSquare application on their smartphone and see that my coffee joint is close to them. They also see my promotion and decide to stop in. It attracts new customers and also drives loyalty in existing customers. Promotions could range from ‘buy 2 coffees & get the third free’ to ‘check in 5 times and we’ll shout you coffee & a muffin on your 6^th visit’ to crowning ‘mayors’ of your venues.... it’s all up to your imagination.

Foursquare's ability to attract a large number of businesses at such an early stage in its evolution has already attracted venture capitalists to the tune of $20 million. The simplistic model is one that users and businesses love and I believe it will monetize better than many of the other social networking products out there.

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About the Author

Jillian Kingsford Smith, owner of Future Buzz Pty Ltd has been unable to escape the world of marketing and communications since she first started back in 1990 and has had the fortune of working with high profile companies in both Australia and the United States, such as the San Francisco Chronicle, V8 Supercar teams and BRW Fast 100 companies. Jillian is whole-heartedly convinced of the power of social media and thought leadership and writes for a variety of publications and blogs, as well as presenting keynote speeches nationally.