The explosion of mobile technology has been closely followed by the popularity of Foursquare, a social media network uniquely designed for smart phone users. With this location based service, users can “check-in” or tag themselves at locations and establishments they frequent. Foursquare presents an opportunity for hotels, tailor-made for the nature of the hospitality industry. Businesses that offer promotions to customers who check-in at their location can reap the benefits of Foursquare users who prefer their establishment over another. Here are some things to help leverage Foursquare for your hotel.
1. Complete Your Business Profile and Property Information -
After claiming your hotel’s foursquare listing, make sure to complete your profile as thoroughly as possible. Include photos and descriptive information about your property. The more thorough the profile is the more likely people will check-in there. Anybody can create a listing, so there are likely multiple listings for your location. Foursquare’s website has information to help you weed out the other duplicate listings.
2. Offer Promotions to Foursquare Users
You need to give users incentives to “check-in” at your location. Be creative and use your imagination to offer something that entices Foursquare users. Whatever you come up with, the goal is to not only get them to stay at your hotel, but to tell others about it by “checking in” on Foursquare. Friends in their social networks will see where they are staying and potentially think favorably of your hotel when they are visiting your city.
3. Monitor Foursquare Activity About Your Hotel
Foursquare allows users to post short reviews and give tips and pointers. Monitoring this information is valuable for several reasons. First, it gives you a heads up on any negative comments being made about your hotel, giving you the opportunity to properly respond. Secondly, these reviews can provide you with marketing intelligence along the lines of a mystery shopper. There are tools available to assist with monitoring.
Location-based services such as Foursquare are a perfect fit for the hospitality industry and don’t require much interaction or engagement with users. In the next part in this series, we’ll look at what opportunities are available to hotels on the Google social network.
Written and produced in beautiful Naples, Florida by OnFast.com. Visit OnFast.com today to get your free trial subscription to our Social Media Marketing Service.
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