Getting the Gist of Foursquare and Gowalla
Foursquare, Gowalla, now I get the gist of you! After listening to Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley and Gowalla CEO Josh Williams talk about their location-based social media platforms today at TWTRCON, I can see the benefits for the marketer as well as the user.
Sure, both mobile-based platforms are used to let your friends you’re hanging out somewhere (and them hopefully deciding to meet up with and hang out with you). But the businesses involved get media impressions that wouldn’t have been generated any other way.
Once these Foursquare and Gowalla here-I-am messages are posted to the users Facebook and Twitter profiles, that free marketing message is amplified across many social media platforms, said Brad Nelson, product manager, online strategy, Starbucks.
That’s the reason Starbucks give a dollar off lattes to Foursquarers who reach Mayor status or above. Come to think of it, that’s a pretty sweet deal (pardon the pun) for all the work the Foursquarer does.
What about those who cheat to make it to that level? It’s a possibility those people exist, since the location-based software can’t always accurately track whether the user is at the counter, outside the front door or even across the street from the location the user says he or she is in.
Both Crowley and Williams say their mobile technology is ahead of most mobile devices being used, and that shows when the location dots are placed on their respective maps.
Nelson’s not worried, it’s just $1 off, and the user is doing the work to promote the Starbucks name.
