Foursquare's Twitter mention for check-ins

Hey there,

Just a quick tip for Foursquare managers.

A disclaimer, though: in general I am almost religiously against auto-syncing between social media platforms. This is one of those exceptions, and the main difference is because this is content shared that is user-driven. And when it comes to your audience, your customers, you generally want to accommodate their choices.

In this case, it has to do with what happens when they check in to your venue or event. Foursquare gives them the option to share it to any social networks they've connected to their account. If you go to the "Tools" panel on your organization's page, you'll notice theirs a box underneath "Connected to @[YourOrg]", and it says:

"Mention me when customer check-ins are shared to twitter"

You WANT to check this box. I really can't think of any reason not too, other than maybe you don't have a Twitter account for your organization yet. But I'm always open to new ideas, and if you can think of a reason you wouldn't want this checked off, please share it in the comments.

The win-win for this is that you will then get a notification on Twitter, in real time, when someone's checked in to your venue or event and decided to share it on Twitter.

Not only does no such notification exist, to my knowledge, on Foursquare, but then you can Retweet and/or Favorite their check-in tweet. This is especially great if they took a photo. And I would say as a matter of habit, you should definitely reply to their tweet, thanking them, welcoming them, and wishing they have a great time, or something to that effect.

More #DCdance! (at @danceplace for ClancyWorks Dance Company w/ 2 others) 4sq.com/ZpIMIY
— Grace Cunningham (@gracecunning) March 10, 2013

As you can see, not only did Grace check-in to the venue, but she checked-in to the event that evening, a feature I mention in the post on my event creating ritual.

Anyway, that's it. Make sure you have this feature enabled. It's just a win-win. Would love to hear your thoughts, but also any reasons you think an organization might have not to enable this. Leave any and all of these in the comments!!

JR

Creating events: my ritual

Hey there,

So I thought I'd just walk you through my ritual when creating event pages for a performance at Dance Place. It helps to do this all at once, so that I can save time copying and pasting the lowest common denominator, in terms of text.

I know, thank you captain obvious.

Anyway, I start by creating a new page to be added to our Facebook Events.

I make sure, in addition to including all the text that we might have on our website, but I also make sure to include the link to the event page on our site with specific instructions that people should share the link with any friends who aren't on Facebook.

I also make sure to take advantage of the "Tickets" field, which allows you to "Add a link for guests to buy tickets" at. And this should go directly to the ticket buying page, the last possible link you can copy and paste, because anything less kinda defeats the purpose.

If the company/organization performing has a Facebook page, I also include the URL.

Finally, I make sure to upload a photo in accordance to the relatively new layout and dimensions for event pages, which I blogged about recently here.

Next, I create an Event page on Google+.

I do this because it has the most text in common with the Facebook event. The only thing I change is to include a URL to the company's website, instead of it's Facebook page.

Next I add the performances to our Foursquare page's list of Scheduled Events, so people can check in, not just to our venue, but to what's actually happening.

This is pretty simple as the only info needed is the name of the event, the day, and then the start and end times.

Finally, I wrap up my event creating ritual by creating a pin on Pinterest, to add to our Season's board.

This doesn't take too long, so it justifies the fact that I'm not quite sure how functional it is, as of yet. I know Goldstar puts out ticket and event info, so maybe it's just a matter of time before Dance Place's audience and community, at least those on Pinterest, use it to start sharing upcoming events, maybe even as a way to collect pins of what they've seen. Who knows.

But Pinterest is pretty simple because all you have to do is upload the image, include the basic info (in which case I list the name of the company or title of the piece, the photographer, the dates, and then hashtags). As far as the link to our website? You get to add that in an edit after you upload the image and create the pin.

Anyway, that's that. Just thought I'd share. What's your event creating ritual? Are there any other places you create events? How far in advance do you create them?

Did you get any new ideas from this post? Or do you have any thoughts? Let me know in the comments,

JR

Foursquare 101: Stick it...stick it good

Hey there,

So this weekend I'm putting up a foursquare window cling at Dance Place. It's to remind people to check in.

It looks like this:

You can find out how to get your window cling here, and if you haven't claimed your venue yet, Foursquare will even send you one for free.

Ideally, you want it somewhere that's visible to everyone who enters your venue. For example, I went to eat at Black & Orange and actually didn't go through my usual routine of checking on various social media platforms, as I was with a friend. I just wasn't thinking about it, until I saw the sticker in the window.

And so I checked in. Because it was placed well, on the window, right next to the door everybody passes through in order to enter the establishment.

Unfortunately, I just recently saw an example of bad placement. I won't name the establishment, but it's one I've frequented multiple times over the past month or so. And I never saw their Foursquare window clinger until THIS WEEK.

It was placed on a secondary glass door, that customers don't even have to walk by, much less pass through. And it is designed such that it needs to go on the inside of whatever it is stuck on, as the "front" is the sticky side.

Fortunately, there's a hashtag that Foursquare encourages you to use to share your cling on display, so check it out:

Tweets about "#4sqcling"

But otherwise, just use common sense, and walk into your venue as anyone would. Where can you place it so it is noticeable but not out of place, especially if it's the only sticker.

Maybe if not the front doors, on a box office window or in a display case. Definitely send me pics of your window cling.

Because as with any other "ask" in the arts, sometimes all your audience needs is a prompt and a call to action, to follow through. And Foursquare's window clinger makes it pretty easy, all you need to do is stick it...stick it good.

Bonus points if you got the Salt-N-Pepa reference!!

- JR