Comments on: Foursquare: Social Media for Cause Marketing

By: Theatrical Flashmobs | Playwalk

Theatrical Flashmobs | Playwalk — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:26:22 +0000

[...] Partner with local venues (restaurants, sports bars, coffee shops, athletic stores, gym’s, yoga studios, etc…) and incentivizing your event participants to check-in to those establishments. Checking in XX times to a business that supports your cause could earn the supporter a discount or special office (Joe Waters has some great thoughts about using Foursquare for Cause Marketing) [...]

By: Mobile Giving Meets Mobile Marketing, But Are Americans Ready? | Cause Capitalism

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:17:51 +0000

[...] is hitting the sweet spot of mobile commerce, mobile marketing and cause marketing, a place where Foursquare and other geo-location programs have visited, but haven’t fully yet [...]

By: Goodzuma is Changing Social Media For GOOD « GoodZuma – Changing Social Media for Good

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 20:03:46 +0000

[...] the idea of using social media for good is not a novel one and even Foursquare is no stranger to doing good. Back in March at SXSW, the good people of StudioGood, Microsoft, and Paypal partnered to donate [...]

By: Selfish Giving » Foursquare Launches Cause Marketing Leaderboard

Selfish Giving » Foursquare Launches Cause Marketing Leaderboard — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:57:38 +0000

[...] It’s hopefully the beginning of a long line of cause marketing initiatives using Foursquare, something I’ve written about before. [...]

By: joewaters

joewaters — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:51:09 +0000

Great idea, Noland. Hadn’t thought of using 4SQ for volunteering! But break up with your eye phone??? Wow!

By: @NolandHoshino

@NolandHoshino — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:33:17 +0000

Hey Joe,

Thanks for bring 4SQ to light. I think 4SQ has enormous potential for nonprofits and businesses to work hand-in-hand to get people off their rear to make a difference.

There are a few people who say "I volunteer at such-and-such," or "I spend this many hours with X nonprofit." That's great but do they really? In a time when "doing good" and volunteering is the new black, 4SQ has the potential of tracking volunteer service time by your 4SQ status. Plus, the person will have bragging rights in their 4SQ community.

I'm starting a new business, Bcausemedia, which will help small businesses connect with small nonprofits in a local area. Part of our model is "Service4Service." For every hour the business owner volunteers at their partnered nonprofit, they get an hour of free service from Bcausemedia, and so forth. 4SQ and Service4Service will help me track the business owner's volunteer time and they will have bragging rights to show their customers that they practice with they preach.

I'm very excited and look forward to the growth and popularity of FourSquare because I think it will get people moving and become active socially face-to-face, rather than behind a computer all day (sorry iPhone we're breaking up).

Noland Hoshino

By: @bhinn

@bhinn — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 03:42:47 +0000

First, I'd like to commend @stales for testing 4Sq in her non-profit. A new social network w/ "big boy backers" like 4Sq would definitely help smaller non-profits in areas such as marketing, customer satisfaction, customer retention, etc.

Joe gave 6 *solid* ideas on the potential of 4sq for cause mktg, especially #3 and #6. He and @leadsinger are definitely right – 4sq will work best in *urban* areas. As someone who runs a biz in *rural* America, I know what of I speak.

Although the rural market is a huge market, it's still largely one which is internet-illiterate. For example, my biz was the first in its' industry to have a website (waaaaaaaay back, back, back in '94) yet every week there are at least 2-3 callers who ask if I have a website. So what do they do with their iphones then? Well, they sure won't be visiting 4sq anytime soon

By: Holt Murray

Holt Murray — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:17:04 +0000

As well as extending points to a sales team for internal reward systems

By: @stales

@stales — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:06:44 +0000

As a founding director of a VERY small non-profit, I'd be very interested in seeing some of these ideas get rolled out. I've been using FourSquare for a short period of time, but I can see the potential for these add-ons can be enormous! Points/check-ins that allow a user to support a cause are very creative. Low cost to implement coupled with greater exposure can only lead to good things for the small guys.

By: joewaters

joewaters — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:47:18 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Dens. One thing we could do in the Boston market is integrate Foursquare into our pinup programs with corporate sponsors. That means that Foursquare would get the added promotion these partners offer in their stores along with special promotions unique to Foursquare. Like say a special discount if you are the mayor of a particular location on a certain date.

This could work really well for you, especially when we work with local TV shows like Phantom Gourmet, which reviews local restaurants (see post on this site). In addition to selling pinups at iParty, Ocean State Job Lots, Upper Crust, etc. that raises my nonprofit money, we could promote the check-in feature on Foursquare via Phantom and have some fun with it.

I don't see building Foursquare into our existing programs as a big challenge. As a matter of fact I see it as a great asset because the companies we work with want social media right now and Foursquare is a perfect fit for us and them. An added benefit is that we wouldn't be selling it as a standalone tool for retailers. We mixing it with other offline items.

The timing is actually very good for us because as you might have seen on my blog we're launching Six Figure Cause Marketing and taking our services to other nonprofits and companies across the country. So there's the opportunity to bring Foursquare with us.

Where cause marketing is Foursquare should be the online platform of choice.