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Foursquare: The Next Generation of Social Media

Foursquare is the latest venture in social media and could possibly become another tool for your real estate business. Although it could be a year or two before this explodes into another virtual phenomenon such as Facebook or Twitter, Foursquare is already claiming a quarter of a million users according to The Wall Street Journal.

You may be asking what is Foursquare? In a nutshell it is an app that allows you to leave a virtual trail of where you have been. You can leave tips from venues you have visited and check out other tips from friends. The more you frequent a place the more “badges” you get (a fun game to get you exploring your city) and the more rewards you get out of it (i.e. discounts at your favorite coffee shop).  Foursquare tracks where you are from your phone’s GPS and works on iPhones, Android, PalmPre and recently Blackberry (although the glitches are still being worked out on this phone).  You can also sync it up to your Facebook and twitter to broadcast your whereabouts to your friends.

As agents we are always looking for ways to expand the business, and it could be helpful to see how Foursquare can help us grow, after all Foursquare is all about location and so is real estate.

Add Listings As Venues-When a location is not available on Foursquare users have the option of adding it to the list. When an agent showing their listing adds it to Foursquare this app becomes a marketing tool. Listings can then be tracked to see how many times people frequent it, agents can check-in and check-out of the listing every time they visit it and even add a few tips about the neighborhood; pretty soon all that checking-in and help tips will expand to Facebook, Twitter and more visits.

Rave About Neighborhoods- Consider a target neighborhood. Theoretically you could single handedly change a neighborhood by using Foursquare. Do you know a boutique where the owner loves to style his/her clients with fabulous clothes? How about a restaurant that serves up a to-die-for panini that is off the menu? You can add these tips to the venues you visit on Foursquare so that those friends in your network can check it out too, and vice versa.

Play A Game- Foursquare gives badges depending on the number of times you visit a venue. Let clients compete for the coveted “Mayor” title (all right so there really is no meaning for the badges, but I’ve found that for the most part people love a good competition). Friends have fun playing your game and you get more publicity on your listing.

In today’s world social media is making real estate marketing easier by allowing you to localize your marketing. Foursquare can take your strategy a little further. Go ahead let people know where you are and where you have been, become a virtual explorer for the benefit of your business.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 6:00 pm and is filed under Agent Talk. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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