Yes, I run a gym/spa/clinic, but what is FourSquare and why should I care?

Depending on how tech-savvy you are, you may or may not have heard about FourSquare. It’s a location-based social media platform that allows you and your friends to share your location with one another. Users can check-in to public places or into business venues. The power of this tool, and the reason health establishments should pay attention, is that Foursquare incentivises users to check-in as much as possible. Badges are awarded to the most loyal and frequent visitors to any given location. This allows you to see at a glance who are your most loyal customers om FourSquare. Each time one of your customers checks in, that information is passed throughout the network. Essentially your customers that use FourSquare are your brand ambassadors and you need to take special care of them! It’s also essential that you let them know that your venue is listed on FourSquare otherwise they won’t know to check-in upon each visit.

So, how do I get started with FourSquare?

Firstly I should say that you don’t yourself need to be active on Foursquare. You don’t need to be checking in and out of every location at all. In fact, you don’t need to ever check-in anywhere. But, you do need to create your venue .

How do I create my venue?

1. Sign Up by clicking here.

2. Ignore the requests to add friends

3. Create your venue by clicking here. You can see from the image that I am adding my local pub to FourSquare. I used the search box at the top right of the page to make sure that noone else had already created the venue. They hadn’t, so I went ahead and added the venue.

Reap the rewards

Now you’re all set. Click here to read up on how you can maximise the benefits of FourSquare to your business. To summarise, you want to give extra privileges to your customers who frequent your venue the most. You’ll know who they are because of the badge they receive. For example, your single most loyal customer becomes the mayor of your venue on FourSquare. Make sure that they receive some kind of special treatment. Maybe a discount or special offer. Give them a reason to check-in and make it fun for them. If you can achieve both these things then you’re on to a winner. Let them do your marketing for you!

About Cocoon Health

If you’re any of the following… osteopath, physio, massage therapist, pscyhotherapist or you provide some other kind of physical or mental health service we’d like to invite you to join Cocoon Health. It’s a social network focused on health. Use it to market your services online for free and start increasing your referrals today.