Foursquare is slowly becoming the next Twitter as a location based Social Network. Now I am sure many of you are thinking why and will this drive traffic? Here are some of my suggested methods that can be used to drive traffic and reasoning behind them.

1. Connect your Foursquare to Twitter and Facebook, every time you check in somewhere, it posts to your Social Media status/Facebook Wall. If you are trying to brand yourself as a leader in your industry, then check into the fun and cool places you go all the time. People look to you as a leader and fun person and will be more willing to take your advice on products and services you recommend.

2. If you have an office like myself, you can check into your office daily. I add tips and things to do on my location and drive people to a landing page or my offline business-marketing page.

3. You can connect with other like-minded individuals. You can add friends from your Social Media sites when you upload your address book. I was at Old Venice Restaurant (I am the Mayor) and saw this girl checked in same time as me. She was in PR, I introduced myself and we are working on some joint ventures.

4. If you are the actual business owner of the location. You can add a Bonus special offer for anyone who is the Mayor and offer other specials like Free Drink or 10% off a haircut.

5. Since this is Geo Located, you can add a near by location App, so when I check into Starbucks, it will tell me 10% off lunch at the place next door.

Those are my Top 5 for now; please feel free to add any tips or tricks that I missed.

There are a few downfalls, some people actually call it FourStalk.... you may not want to be this visible to others. You can block your check ins at any time. I did get a Player Badge for checking into a bar with 3 other girls on Foursquare..haha

James Hickey

Master Business Consultant