Epic Mix has taken the idea of check-ins, achievements, location services, and applied it all uniquely to skiing. Think Foursquare meets the Nike Run app. You really need to watch the video to understand just how nicely this is all tied together.

Tip of the cap to @janicediner who shared this video at Mesh Marketing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uWzo5saKDE

All the major US and Canadian sports leagues are looking to grow their social presence, digital business and fan experience. With these goals in mind it would seem that a marriage between Foursquare and these sports leagues is a no brainer. It’s odd that Foursquare has not incorporated events into the fold but I would suggest that a partnership with the NHL, MLB, NBA and NFL would be an easy and mutually beneficial place to begin. Let’s me take the perspective of the respective sports leagues and their teams.

The major sports have all been able to grow their business in the digital world through partnerships (e.g. fantasy gaming is huge) and content syndication but none have really been able to take a leadership role in the social space. With the knowledge that social interaction and building upon the passions of sports fans in an effort to connect them to their team in a social manner will ultimately translate into a more one-to-one sales and marketing relationship (see upcoming pieces for the value of Social CRM) and a better customer experience, better feedback loop and opportunities to direct sell, these leagues need to figure out how to do more than have Twitter accounts and Facebook fans. One thing that is clearly working in social media is the idea of “check-ins” and using these check-ins with business discounts driving sales and loyalty programs there is nothing for sports leagues to lose. However I wouldn’t suggest it for just those reasons, they’re obvious enough.

An Instant Loyalty Program

I believe that if the major sports leagues worked with both Foursquare and each of their digital media departments they could immediately grow their social presence. By making every game in every park/stadium a check-in opportunity the leagues could easily run contests to reward the most loyal fans, the fans who traveled the most to see their team etc – an instant loyalty program! However if you really want to get social, the check-in at the game should instantly send the user a special offer for league merchandise at the game (upsell) and with it an opt-in chance to be part of the game community. Other offers could be made throughout the game, but the key would be that during and after the game an instant community (people are checking in from mobile phones and iPads after all) can emerge where Tweets are all hash tagged with the check-in tag, users are able to vote on in game polls, participate in fantasy games and have a fully social experience at the game. After the game it can’t stop there, the leagues can then continue to populate the community game page and fold the users into the larger team and league social community.

Simply by taking advantage of the growing user community of Foursquare users (a partnership tat Foursquare would jump at) the major sports leagues could open the door to a hugely social group of fans and be able to increase their social presence both at the game and afterward.

The key would of course be in the execution of how the league and team used the check-in to open the door to an in and after game social experience but there is a tremendous opportunity out there for one league to take the lead and explore.

I do know that the leagues have all formed partnerships with Fanvibe, but trying to force users onto a sports only site is of no advantage to the leagues when Foursquare is already at approximately 2,000,000 users and growing each day – this is one of those times where you go where the people are you don’t try to build your own competing service.

What do you think, are the leagues missing an opportunity here?

When was the last time you were deciding on a new restaurant, cafe or pub and didn’t turn to the Internet (whether at your desk or on your phone) to get directions, a review or even see who else might be there? Since I’m pretty nerdy the answer for me is that it would be completely out of character not to do a little online reconnasence work about the place before I suggest it to a group of friends. While I am on the far end of the spectrum that spectrum has definitely tipped to the point where I believe the majority of us now look up a place online before making a decision to go there.

Therefore, I am often surprised when I talk with small business owners and specifically owners of restaurants, coffee shops, bars etc how few of them are really aware that they have an amazing opportunity to promote their business by simply making it easy for customers to write positive (the negative reviewers seem to figure it out for themselves cuz their pissed) reviews or encourage a “check-in” on Foursquare, Yelp or Gowalla. Of course most of these businesses are already to be found on Yelp (and other review sites) but too few business owners have taken the time to beef up the user generated content (that makes up their listing) with their own images, descriptions and announcements. Even less of them seem to realize that there is a real bottom line business benefit to using these sites as a marketing channel and growing their brand by making it easy for the customers that love them to say something nice in an online review.

While it would take a lot more than my personal surveying to put hard numbers to it  (one study by the Yellow Pages Association and comScore found that local search for businesses, products and services grew 58 percent last year and reached 15.7 billion searches, more than a tenth of overall search traffic) I’ve made mention of my theory of “check-in currency” in a previous post so won’t dive into it here but in realizing how few of these business owners are taking advantage of this new digital currency I thought I would share some examples of businesses that are taking advantage of social media and local search to drive retail business and leave you with some simple tips that businesses can and should be using to promote themselves via online reviews.

There are many great examples of companies that are really using social media and local search to their advantage. As I have shared before Tasti D-Lite has integrated FourSquare into their loyalty program but you can also look to Jeff Diamond, co-owner of Farmstead Cheeses and Wines as a leader who makes sure he takes the time to reply personally to every comment/review left on Yelp. In one case, a reviewer complained that the person behind the counter was rude. Mr. Diamond sent a private message to the customer, apologized and asked for details. It turned out the employee who helped this customer was hard of hearing. By the end of the exchange, this onetime critic had joined the store’s wine club. He has since become a loyal customer. Or how about Danny Leclair, co-owner of Studio DNA hair salons in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, Calif., who uses Yelp and local search to promote special offers he said 50 percent of his new business now comes from Yelp, 30 percent from Citysearch and 10 percent from Google searches.

These businesses are not run by the most tech savvy individuals, but they’ve taken the time to invest a little bit of brain power in learning how to make the most of what are essentially free marketing tools. Telling you all this is of little value if I don’t leave you with some easy things you can do to boost your local and social marketing efforts today with $0 invested.

Starting at the very top of the heap lets talk Google and specifically Google Local which is now technically Google Places. The point is that you don’t want to miss having your proper store information, pictures, links etc on Google so that you show up when people try to find you specifically or even when they make a general search. Believe me your business seems a lot more important when it shows up on a Google Map and your competition’s business is nowhere to be found.

So visit Google Places and get your information in there. I would also recommend you ensure your listing at Bing is up to date

Head here at Yelp and take the time to watch their video and understand how to get your business online if it is not already there or claim your listing if someone else has review you.

Yelp also gives you some great tools to understand who is visiting your listing and offers you all the tools you need to respond to reviews. If you think you will have the time to consistently reply to reviews on Yelp I think that it offers an extremely personal way to let people know that your business is about people regardless of what it is that you sell.

Next go to FourSquare and claim your business and if you really want to be amongst the coolest kids on the block create some specials based on the number of check-ins at your location and of course reward the Mayor. Foursquare makes it very simple to do and you’ll be shocked how many of your iPhone, iPad, Blackberry and Android toting customers appreciate your way of recognizing them. FourSquare will even help you get some stickers to promote that you are a welcome place for users and a great check-in location. People who check-in buy things and in the end you’re the winner.

Not only does FourSquare also provide you detailed stats like Yelp, it also has a proximity based mobile ad network that you will be a part of by offering FourSquare specials. These tools are again free so really what are you waiting for.

Of course every business should be knocking it out of the park with Facebook and nobody has laid it out better than Mashable here and Tamar here.

Finally, I’d highly recommend you begin Tweeting if you are not already using Twitter you read this guide by Mashable and started right away.

Remember that social and local can be your best friends if you take advantage of a few free tools and follow through on the best practices you find.

Good luck and thanks for reading.

There is no doubt that 2010 is all about mobile, geo-location and ultimately reviews, either through actually writing them or word-of -mouth generated by a check-in which is usually accompanied by a Tweet. This post is a compilation of my thoughts from a couple of events that randomly seem to fit together.

First the power of reviews and why I include them in a post entitled “Check-In Currency”. Reviews are the one area where Google knows they dramatically need to improve in order to have search become more complete. I don’t think this is conjecture on my part because it is no secret that Google recently tried to purchase the review site Yelp. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Search is pretty awesome these days, you can search for most local businesses by name and be directed to a page that includes the phone and address, hours of operation as well as a Google Map. There will often be some pictures posted and perhaps the odd review. I don’t think you could ask for much more. However try to do the same search for local coffee shops and you get a listing of them and even though there are some ratings its tough to get a real semblance of which one is best, perhaps closest but best, I’m not so sure. So if you’re Google you don’t want to lose people to sites like Yelp, because, while you’re Google. So you first try to acquire them but get rebuffed, and know everyone realizes that reviews are worth a big pile of cash to Google and everyone cares about something Google really cares about.

Moving on to why reviews and check-ins are tied together.

Foursquare Mayor Deals

If you’re Yelp you better figure out a way to fight Google and that is going to take (1) money and (2) a dramatic increase in the number of reviews. The first part was simple enough, Yelp recently went out and raised a bundle of cash. The second part however is not so easy. But Yelp was sneaky and realized that they needed to make you think of their app every time you visited a new establishment, and as such make a review. How to get users to always think of Yelp when they went to a new spot?Yelp took a look around and realized that Foursquare was doing a pretty amazing job at making it semi cool to check-in at each location. So Yelp went ahead and released a new version of their iPhone app that takes direct aim at Foursquare’s “check-in” feature. Whereas Foursquare was not asking users to review places directly, you don’t have to work very hard to realize that each time someone checks-in and Tweets it to the world it ends up being about as good a word of mouth review as you could hope for, even better since it goes to a huge potential audience. So Yelp went right at Foursquare’s check-in feature and built it into their

iPhone application. It may or may not work but it makes me fairly certain that check-ins and reviews are going to be linked for quite some time.

Finally I’ll sum up with why this all builds to the idea of “check-in currency.”

If you’re a savvy business owner and you realize that if people Tweet every time they visit your establishment it will be great for business then you’ll put in place a system that actually rewards customers for checking-in at your establishment. Case in point both Tasti D-Lite who has added Foursquare check-ins to their loyalty program and what are now regular advertisements in the Metro newspapers (see image) that reward both check-ins and the Foursquare “Mayor” of each establishment. The establishments have now actually given check-ins a tangible value, something Foursquare has to be extremely pleased with. So check-ins now literally equal currency, it’s quite an amazing little phenomenon.

There is no doubt that people love loyalty programs and retailers love the fact that you come back time and time again spending hundreds to earn a free item or small value perk. However when was the last time you actually wanted to take the time to dig through your wallet for your loyalty card? How many of those little tags can one person actually carry on their keys? Basically the loyalty program was getting stale. Sure there were iPhone apps that stored your card and let you present it virtually but that doesn’t do much to advance these loyalty programs in a way that made them work for the new ‘connected’ and ‘social’ customer. So I was impressed earlier this month when Mashable reported on a story where Tasti D-Lite (a frozen yogurt chain) announced that they were rolling out a new program (called TastiRewards if you care) that incentivised customers that linked both Twitter and Foursquare to the store’s loyalty program. It’s an incredibly simple concept when you think about it and the idea of loyalty combined with location services and social networking has a ton of potential if Foursquare (or others) help build out the business and make it simple for retailers to get on board. It’s this last point about integrating and showing value (versus simply signing them up to get numbers) to retailers that I think Foursquare will need to concentrate its efforts in order to make loyalty programs a decent size revenue stream.

Foursquare Loyalty Requires Metrics & Analytics

To keep it simple I will use the Tasti D-Lite as my example throughout. Like most loyalty programs, Tasti D-Lite has a traditional card program where customers can use their TreatCards to earn points for purchases, however those that opt-in to the new social media part of the program will automatically earn additional points for their ‘check-ins’ which are shared on both Foursquare and Twitter. It’s brilliantly simple, customers register their cards on the MyTasti website and then enable their Twitter and Foursqure accounts to automatically send tweets and check the customer in (with a ‘shout’) on Foursquare. From the consumer perspective you’re pretty damn happy as you earn points just for showing up in the store and then get a bonus (on top of the regular rewards) for each dollar you spend.  Tasti D-Lite is also thrilled with this arrangement because they instantly get the best advertising possible, word-of-mouth and they get to tap into your social network without having to take the time to advertise or court any of them. It’s actually the epitome of a situation working for all involved.

Foursquare = Tasty Rewards?

So this seems to just work and kudos to both Foursquare and Tasti D-Lite for the innovation. However, I do believe that for this to be a sustainable revenue stream for Foursquare they will have to offer more value to the retailers than simply linking up with their existing loyalty programs. In order for Foursquare to be able to make some real money off this they will need to actively partner with someone to create a  back-end loyalty CRM system that retailers can log into and actually get some useful data from and will further have to help retailers utilize these loyalty programs. Let me explain…

If I am a retailer I intrinsically believe that it is great that my customers will now be telling each other of the rewards they earned and will help promote the business via tweets and check-ins, but if there are no metrics available it will be impossible for me to really attribute increased revenue with the loyalty program and to further know what pieces of the social media loyalty program are working (including at which locations) etc.  It will be tough for Foursquare to ever fully monetize because neither they nor the retailer will be able to objectively determine the value of non-tracked tweets and check-ins. Further without a good system for actively tracking metrics and actively monitoring (+ reporting on) the tweets (e.g. think CoTweet with some Salesforce built in) there is a risk that the program will become nothing more than an afterthought for retailers and nobody pays for an afterthought. Finally, by having a metrics and analytics system that allows for some decent reporting Foursquare would be able to aggregate information from all the loyalty programs and create a professional services/consulting arm with best practices etc.

Following this idea of professional services or at least some consulting, I also think that Foursquare will have to come up with a standard loyalty program for retailers with no current program and loyalty program ‘connector’ so that they can easily integrate those major retailers who have already invested time and dollars into their own loyalty program. I say this because while someone at Tasti D-Lite was obviously quite savvy and was able to work with Foursquare to implement this program it is apparent that the critical mass of retailers will not be approaching Foursquare, rather Foursquare will have to approach them (or at the very least have a sales person who is trying to sign them up) and explain why the program will work for them, how they get started and perhaps even hand-hold (e.g. create templates for emails to be sent to existing loyalty members or get tons of Moo Cards printed to hand out with a street team) through the launch process.

I don’t know exactly how Foursquare is planning on monetizing their business but loyalty programs seem to be an obvious source of at least some recurring revenue. You’d be surprised at how much money, time and even more money traditional retailers pour into loyalty programs. While they will be tempted to try out Foursquare, if it does not connect into their traditional program and/or Foursquare cannot offer its own metrics and analytics I just don’t believe there will be enough of a business case for retailers to see it as anything other than a gimmick.

In the Mashable article they raise a very similar point and they go on to point out that with a little effort Tasti D-Lite (or in my mind Foursquare in conjunction with any retailer) can use the data it receives from check-ins to  ”collect, analyze and apply to budget discussions around allocating resources to social media efforts.” However I think the analytics need to be a bit deeper than simply being able to get accurate accounts on the quantity of tweets/check-ins with card swipes – Loyalty programs are not new and those who do them well (e.g. Air Miles) know that there is a wealth of information to be gleaned from consumers through these programs. While Foursquare is definitely on the right track with this cool initiative it will be interesting to watch whether they really go after loyalty programs as a real revenue stream or just one that has netted some positive publicity.