05/08/53

By Paninee Putwanphen, Claudia Campos Lembi, Tatiana Nikitenko, Carmen Aguero-Hart

“Foursquare is a location based social network that incorporates gaming

and competition elements. It’s most enjoyable to use with friends.”

Explore city, meet with
friends, earn points, unlock
badges for discovering new
places, be crowned as a “Mayor”
and get free drinks bonuses and
meals.
Business owner can measure live
foot traffic into their venues bring
by Foursquare. Foursquare allows
brands to submit “sponsored tips”
or things for patrons to do in the
area.
Founded in March, 2009 by
Dennis Crowley and Naveen
Selvadurai, was considered to be
a “hot start up” with a funding of
$1.35 million now worth around
$80 million

Main investors are

March 2010, alexa.com reveals
that Foursquare’s unique visitors
check-ins are about 2
million, while regular check-ins
are up to 6 million
• Union Square Ventures, who also
financed Twitter and Meetup;
• Kevin Rose, a founder of Digg,
• Jack Dorsey, a co-founder of Twitter
• Ron Conway, an investor of Google
and PayPal.

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VDO CLIP ABOUT FOURSQUARE

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Strengths
 Perfect combining friend-finder and social
city guide elements
 Fun game element make user stick to it
 Foursquare’s badges are indicate strong
sense about the behavior of the user
 Business can see live foot traffic bring by
Foursquare
 Available in many platform
 Location specific tips are useful for user who
try to visiting a new area or are interested in
something new nearby.
 Location promotion can drive traffic to the
store
Opportunities
 More revenue from big retail partner that
need to see foot traffic and also for local
store as a special promotion
 Perfect for event and concert, application can
be user more in this area
 Expand feature outside check-in according to
user behavior
 Revenue from Restaurant review business
model
Foursquare for
Individuals:
I’m Here, Now What? Are you a
Mayor?
• Users are with a game-set of
mind, explorative character and
a techno savvy mentality.
• A culture of competition and
gaming is built around
Foursquare
• Foursquare receives more traffic
from females, ages of 25-34, with
no children, college
educated, who browse the
foursquare site from work
05/08/53
Weaknesses
 Missing some social media feature, for
example photo sharing or comment about
friend check-in.
 Unknown business model
 Take more time than competitors to pinpoint
a location and check-in
 Lack of Social Bookmarking Features, for e.g.
categories of locations
Threats
 Vulnerable to consumer shift away from one
social network site to another.
 Tends to have more “spam check-ins” or fake
check-ins.
 High competitors environment
 New technology may affect business model
Foursquare for
Businesses:
Word-of-
Mouth, Promotions, Building
Loyal Clientele
• Who's their visitors, how
often, what day, where they're
coming from and where they're
going next.
• Foursquare generates about
44.7% of website traffic
domestically. (63.7%worldwide)
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Define consumer point-of-view about Foursquare and social

media mobile applications usage

Identify Understand Create better Develop Discover

potential user promotion better market share
customers behaviors with the right function to fit opportunities
and partners vehicles customer
needs

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• Survey of convenience hosted by surveyshare.com

• 94 respondents
• 12 questions
Active between April 28 and May 9, 2010 and was made available to the general public

Questions 4 -7
measure
The first 3 questions
characteristics and
are normalized data
habits of social
regarding
media users, with
age, gender and
intention of
income
indentifying
potential markets.

Questions 8 and 9 Questions 10 – 12

measure acceptance measure level of
based on privacy knowledge and
issues and interest about the
preference in case of service offered by
adoption. Foursquare.

53.6% of respondent who

have Smartphone with
75% of male and 70% of Majority of people know
internet connection are
female didn’t know about foursquare via the word of
between 18-34 years old foursquare service. mouth (53.5%)
with $50.000-$125.000
household income.

44.7% use social media to 24.5% of respondent use social

83% chose Facebook as their network through
message friends, followed
favorite social media
35.1% find old / new mobile, Once a day, followed
platform, followed by Other
friends, 13.8 % upload photo by twice a day (13.4%), more
(12.8%), Yelp (3.2%) and
and VDO and 6.4% shear than one hour a week (12.8%)
Twitter (1.1%).
location/experience and 45.7% never use it.

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35
30
30

25

20 Potential Customers
15
12

10
7 7 7
23.3% 42.9
5 3 3
2 28.6% 25%
0
Between $50.000 - $125.000 Decline to state Greater than $125.000 Less than $50.000

have smart phone with internet know about foursquare

An income group between $50,000-125,000 shows potential market for Foursquare, this group has
highest percentage of having smart phone which is 63.8% but still has a low percentage of brand
awareness which is about 23%.

For an income group less than 50,000, it shows highest brand awareness which is 42.9% we can assume
that Foursquare did a great camping to target this group, for example discounts that gave in some partner
restaurants.

Would you use one application that give you Are you comfortable about sharing your
rewards/prizes for sharing your location opinions or physical location through social media?
recommendations?

yes yes
31%
37%

no no
63% 69%

Research reveals 37% of respondents show interest in using an application that gives rewards/ prizes for
sharing your locations/ recommendations/ opinion. But 69% feels uncomfortable to share their physical
location. For privacy issue we suggest Foursquare to emphasize telling people that they use GPS to show
a list of nearby places and doesn't know where user are, unless user check-in to tell them their location
unlike competitors that use GPS to track user’s phone location

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Share location Vs. Income

14 13

12

10 9

Entertainment (Concert event sport game...)

8 7 7
Fashion & Shopping (Macy's GAP...)
Food Service (Restaurant bar...)
6
Other
4 4
4 Travel (Hotel Bart Station Airport...)
3 3
2 2 2 2 2 2 2
2 1 1 1

0
Between $50.000 - Decline to state Greater than Less than $50.000
$125.000 $125.000

In an income group between $50,000-125,000 and greater than $125,000 primary location checked in is
food service and secondary is travel. We suggest Foursquare to partner and run promotion with middle
class and above groups and restaurant, hotel and travel website/companies.

Answering WHERE Are You RIGHT NOW…

Geo location is becoming a “must have”

Competitors/Future partner: Gowalla, Brightkite, Yelp, Facebook, Twitter

Users in urban areas with a higher level of income and education are
more likely to use it

Perception about Foursquare: new game for users to play with and a
marketing tool for businesses

Low brand recognition

Many people concern about sharing their location and habits online

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Potential for expansion

 Create an education campaign about benefits and reward

programs available through Foursquare check-in apps
 Target market: professionals in their 20’s and 30’s, highest
percentage of having a smart phone
 Being able to combine network information to other platforms
and receive information in return i.e. Facebook / Twitter / Flickr

Expanding venue specials

 Venue specials to become more extensive and creative

 Benefit of check in can develop further: access to exclusive
content, publicity and brand interaction

Obstacle - privacy concerns

 Foursquare should emphasize their user-imposed privacy

settings – only your friends know your location
 Educate consumers about how their location data will be used
and that the companies with access will behave responsibly

Largest risk:

 The roll-out of geo-location features by larger social networks:

Facebook’s 500 million users and Twitter’s 105 million
 Foursquare should concentrate on core services and simplicity
 Be able to bring the best advertisers to its site, creating
campaigns that draw in more users

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