Yesterday Jayne walked over to our office food and drink supplier, Trimana Café, for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Everyone in our office knows Trimana is a pretty tech-savvy café with its use of large screen TVs streaming Twitter and RSS feeds of national news, but what Jayne saw when she walked in nearly knocked her off her feet! Upon entering, Jayne looked up to see a picture of herself on the café’s big screen TV, announcing that she had attained the coveted position of “Mayor of Trimana Café” – courtesy of Foursquare!

Boasting more than 6.5 million users worldwide, Foursquare is a geo-social mobile application that is based on the location of the user and the registered “check-in” spots/“venues.” The location you “check-in” at can be shared with your friends and networks. Doing so allows users to bookmark future destinations of interest and assist with vacation planning and touring cities and locations unfamiliar to the user.

Using Foursquare for business is great because it creates a way for customers to interact with your brand and allows you to offer incentives to keep customers coming back. These incentives are known as “specials.” Specials can be tailored to fit the needs of the business while encouraging customers to visit your venue. In this case, because Jayne “checked-in” at Trimana a certain number of times and was designated “Mayor of Trimana Café,” the café gave her $5 Trimana Bucks for a future purchase. Way to go, Jayne!

In the past we’ve seen some epic office battles between coworkers enthusiastically trying to beat one another out for the title of “Mayor of Gunn/Jerkens.” But with Jayne’s new position, it’s only eminent that a new battle is on the horizon.

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