Foursquare Faceoff post: There is no middle ground

First thanks to the two “Jeffs” for their guest posts.  They represented their sides in an informative and respectful manner and achieved record readership numbers.  Hmmmm….. anyway….

Here are some of my thoughts on the Foursquare subject based on their posts and a number of conversations I’ve had on the subject in the last week or so.

Foursquare is perhaps the most polarizing social media platform.  Period.

People either love it or hate it, there is no middle ground.  They love it because it’s fun, competitive, traffic driving.  They hate it because of privacy and “TMI” issues.

More than that, you can’t “halfass” Foursquare.  By that I mean, you just can’t be a casual user.  You are either all in (checking in all the time, seeing where other people are, competing for badges) or all out.  It does you no good to check in once in a while and ignoring it for a week or so and then re-engaging.

So what does this mean for the businesses or brands that are flocking to Foursquare as a need way to drive customers and traffic?  Is it worth the time and effort?

Absolutely.

Just by its polarizing nature Foursquare is delivering to you a high percentage of people who are choosing in “opt in” in a hyper-competitive engaged way.  These are the people who will check-in, compete for Mayorships and badges, show up at swarm parties, come out for free drinks/appetizers/discounts for checking in, etc.  It has eliminated the folks that by their very nature are somewhat more difficult to market to because of the barriers they put up.

In my opinion if you are a business owner, Foursquare has done you a favor.  Here is a good place to start.

It is you fault if you don’t take advantage of it.