When I first heard of foursquare my initial thoughts were on the lines of “how ridiculously useless is this?” But I sat on that notion for a few days and then gave it a whirl, fighting off the urge to write about it until I gave it some time. The I ended up writing this post and I plan to do more.

Now this evening I came across an article about foursquare that shares my sentiment, somewhat. It’s kind of blasts foursquare w/o giving it a fair shake but it does make some valid points. It’s on gawker call, If you use foursquare you are an annoying jackass.

Anyhow, I think there are some potential merits and in fact we will be incorporating foursquare in a new app we are rolling out in April for AutoConversion.

@Patrick thanks for chiming in. Think I should clarify my suggestion for dealers to advertise their use or presence on foursquare. I wasn’t suggesting for dealers to irrelevantly share their location but to maybe include links to their profile and venue URL in things like email signatures and profile links, etc. Hope that is more clear cos I am with you on the inundation of useless and irrelevant information sharing going on.

The only thing that I don’t agree with is your suggestion in #5. The firehose of information that these real-time services produce is flooding the social web in my opinion. The cross pollination of these services makes the experience fragmented. I’ve hidden the Facebook Newsfeed and Unfollowed multiple people on Twitter in the past 2 weeks that are avid Oversharers on foursquare. If the information is relevant (ie Try the Ribs @ Big Fatty’s BBQ!) then it is value. Letting the world know that you’re back at Wal-Mart for the 4th time in 3 days isn’t helping anyone.

Eric – I love the idea of leveraging retailers being asleep at the wheel to build your brand. If you’re leading the charge (which you are), why not? Thanks for sharing these tips!

This is a good first step for dealers to begin experimenting with FS; the true power comes after creating initial awareness and gaining acceptance.

I’m the mayor of our NY store, but I also created a venue page for our service department. It’s still early, but that’s the key – getting in an setting things up now. The promotion – free oil change for the Mayor of our service dept. – has been created, now I’m sharing that promotion via other online channels (like you mentioned above)

The To-Do & Tips are where the value comes from – notice the promotion on my To-Do list: http://foursquare.com/user/emiltsch

Because the check-in’s are GPS/proximity based, a tip left at a nearby location where you’re the Mayor can tell others checking in about your dealership…

Another scenario where we’re fortunate to have exposure is at our new Mall Store. I’m the Mayor of Eastview Mall, http://foursquare.com/venue/432155 – lots of people checking in, many within my network as well. People checking in at Eastview Mall receive a message telling them to stop by our Mall store to register for our monthly contest. (Here;s the Mall store venue: http://foursquare.com/venue/530674)

Lastly, here’s where it gets interesting from a competitive nature. What’s stopping you from becoming the Mayor at another dealership & leaving a tip which mentions your store? I’ve mentioned this once before – describing it to the electronic version of your display ad showing up next to another dealer’s display ad in the newspaper.

(Here’s one example where I’ve actually done this: http://foursquare.com/venue/1278007 – future check-ins there see my message, about ADUSA)

Location based activities like this are only going to reach a small portion of this segment – but you can’t beat this type of targeted approach when its free.