The Power of foursquare: 7 Innovative Ways to Get Your Customers to Check In Wherever They Are [Hardcover]

Carmine Gallo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2011

Connect with Your Customers. Anytime. Anywhere.

One million new users per month. Twenty-three check-ins per second. Millions of people—in every city, in every country, on every continent, and even from the Space Station—are vying to become mayors of their favorite shopping locations. What is foursquare and why has it become the hottest customer magnet ever conceived?

Foursquare is a social, mobile networking app that empowers customers to check in at businesses and share their locations with friends through smartphones and PDAs. A pioneer in location-based services (LBS), foursquare invites your customers to experiment, to compete, to share, and to have deeper, more meaningful interactions with your products and services.

Internationally bestselling author Carmine Gallo not only has had unprecedented first-hand access to foursquare’s founders, he also has interviewed dozens of business owners and marketers who have revolutionized their businesses through The Power of foursquare.

You’ll discover the ice-cream chain that heated up sales dramatically, the nonprofit organization that raised $50,000, and the matchmaker who owes her entire business to foursquare. You’ll learn from fascinating case studies of major companies with active foursquare partnerships, including:

• The American Red Cross
• Jimmy Choo, London
• Chili’s Grill & Bar
• Bravo
• NASA
• RadioShack

Your customers are out there, constantly searching for places to go, games to play, and things to buy. Leverage The Power of foursquare and your customers will be in constant competition with each other over who loves your products and services the most.

Praise for The Power of foursquare

“The power to reach buyers at the exact time and the exact place they’re looking for what you offer has massive implications for all kinds of businesses worldwide. Carmine Gallo expertly shows you how to tap into the foursquare revolution, and he does it with a practical approach you can put to work in your business right now. There’s an epic swarm and it’s time for you to check in!”
—DAVID MEERMAN SCOTT, bestselling author of Real-Time Marketing & PR

“In real estate, it’s always been about ‘location, location, location.’ This book will show you why now it’s important for everyone.”
—MATTHEW SHADBOLT, Director of Interactive Product & Marketing, The Corcoran Group

“Gallo gets it. By using case studies from around the world, he captures the fun and the opportunity of using foursquare. I greatly enjoy Gallo’s stories of the amazing people and businesses that I know are doing it right!”
—NATHAN BONILLA-WARFORD, Tampa eye doctor, founder, Foursquare Day

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

CARMINE GALLO is the communications coach for the world’s most admired global brands. A former anchor and correspondent for CNN and CBS, Gallo has addressed executives at Intel, Cisco, Google, Medtronic, Pfizer, and many others. Gallo writes My Communications Coach, a regular column for Forbes.com. He has written several internationally bestselling and award-winning books, including The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs. Gallo has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Success Magazine, and on CNBC. Gallo, who lives in Pleasanton, California, with his wife and two daughters, may be found online at www.carminegallo.com.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 21, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071773177
• ISBN-13: 978-0071773171
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.8 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #541,290 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Carmine Gallo is a communications coach for some of the world's most admired brands: Intel, SanDisk, Nokia, The Home Depot, IBM, and many others. Gallo transforms ordinary business professionals in extraordinary speakers.

Gallo is a former CNN business journalist and author of the book, 10 Simple Secrets of the World's Greatest Business Communicators.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Tons of great ideas for making the most of foursquare October 2, 2011

By The Local Cook VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

What the book covers:

The "seven keys" follow the acronym CHECK IN (groan), and are as follows:
Connect your brand.
Harness new fans.
Engage your followers
Create rewards.
Knock out the competition.
Incentivize your customers.
Never stop entertaining.

Each key gets its own chapter, and provides a TON of ideas for harnessing the power of foursquare that are applicable to nonprofits, brands, brick and mortar stores, and more. Real life examples as well as "why it works" are included in every chapter. Every few pages I found myself wondering "hmm, I wonder how I could . . . " and going back to the foursquare website to figure out how to implement the ideas that were swirling in my head and apply them to my own business.

The book was well written and easy to follow, if a little light in the technical implementation side of things. That is probably better, because it's easy to get bogged down in the details of how the app works and forget the strategy behind it. You could spend hours (one business owner spent six months!) learning how to set up the technical side, but the key thing is to remember your goals. That way you can prioritize, because social media in general, while powerful, CAN become a big time suck if you don't have a plan of action mapped out. In fact, one of the last chapters includes a list of pitfalls to avoid. I think the last item on the list is the most important:

"Avoid 'Doing it just to do it.' Many businesses . . . create social media pages and promotions with no clear objective. They do it just to do it. They are joining out of fear instead of joining because they are passionate about engaging their customers. This apathy shows up in the form of lukewarm specials, poor execution, little or no training, and bad customer service."

If you are already using social media and social location marketing, this book will give you some creative ideas that you probably haven't thought of.

If you are brand new to the whole concept, it will give you an idea of what you are missing. If you have no time to spare, my best advice is to at least claim your business or brand now so that you can see what existing foursquare users are saying about your business, who's checking in, and to make sure that your business' name and contact information is correct. Then carve out some time to figure out how to put this practically free marketing tool to work for you. (I say practically because time is money, after all.)

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The future of local business - Social Business October 30, 2011

By Tony J. Ridley

Format:Hardcover

Length: 2:19 Mins

The future of local business

I was hooked by the first chapter. Carmine is a superb writer, not simply creating a book but skilfully immersing the reader in the content and the solutions to your inevitable questions.

This book is not what I expected. I thought it would be an overview of one of the growing social media tools, Foursquare. In fact, this book is a marketers masterclass on how to use location based services for marketing, provision of proven campaigns, marketing tips, local engagement principles and how to get Foursquare to do it all for you!

What is Foursquare? Well Carmine describes it as:

-It's a social, local, and mobile networking tool.
-It's a location-based social network.
-It's a geolocation app.
-It's a game.
-It's a communication tool.
-It's a new social-media marketing platform.

Not only does he then prove each genre, the then provides case study after case study. The brilliant thing about it though is not that he provides case studies but the manner in which he shows you multiple ways to instantly utilise Foursquare for local engagement and business with pre-tested campaigns. Fantastic.

This book has helped our business significantly but even more significant is the immediate results it has had for our clients and their local business.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and recommend it to the following:

-Business owners
-Managers
-Entrepreneurs
-Social media managers
-Marketers
-Executives
-Teens
-Adults
-Retirees
-Technical professionals
-Travellers
-Tourism providers
-Government agencies
-Risk Manager
-PR agents
-Consumers
-Travel Industry providers

Tony Ridley

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Comprehensive How-To Guide to foursquare October 19, 2011

By Steve Amoia

Format:Hardcover

"As a proud Italian I was familiar with Hoboken as the home of one of my boyhood heroes, Frank Sinatra, as well as the legendary Feast of San Gennaro (the patron saint of Naples). But other than its Italian and musical legacy, my surroundings where unfamiliar to me... Before heading to the train station, I opened my foursquare account. With that simple act, my smartphone turned into a personalized tour guide." Page 46, Carmine Gallo.

The innovative nature of foursquare had such a strong impression on Mr. Gallo that he decided to write a book about them.

Organized, Detailed and Well-Researched Format

There are sixteen mostly concise chapters, detailed notes and index sections, along with a bonus interview with the foursquare co-founders, Naveen Selvadurai and Dennis Crowley. The author writes in an enthusiastic, positive and informative style. You continually sense his personal engagement with the topic which makes the book an entertaining read despite its detailed nature.

Innovative Features

Each chapter has "Checking In" blocks to provide actual user examples. Another useful feature, "Unlock The Power" summaries, assist the reader to highlight key concepts. I also liked something that was aesthetic in nature: Page numbers are encircled and appear in the middle of the page.

Enlightening Case Studies and Interviews

One facet of this book that I appreciated was the number of diverse company profiles, along with targeted interviews, compiled by the author. From a matchmaking service in New York City, Agape Match, to Mike's Bikes in Northern California, to the PYT burger joint in Philadelphia, you will see how individuals and companies make personal connections with foursquare. These case studies emphasized the practical advice provided by the author and were some of the most salient features of this book.

Notable Quotes

"Sixty percent of all mobile Internet usage is now spent on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter." Page 11.

"We started the service in a playful way to make cities easier to explore. Everyone, young and old, can fall in love with it." Naveen Selvadurai on page 30.

"When you talk to these merchants you find out that they care about two things: retention and acquisition. They are asking themselves, how do I get customers to walk in and how do I get customers to return. Foursquare can help you with both." Page 58

"It costs seven times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. And studies have shown that 20 percent of your customers contribute 80 percent to sales." Tristan Walker of foursquare on Page 107.

"Foursquare is growing at a faster rate than Twitter did at similar stages." Page 111

"Competition, especially in the restaurant industry, is fierce. Your customers are easily wooed. Foursquare specials give your customers a reason, and incentive, to enter your establishment instead of another." Page 166

"Sixty-four percent of respondents said that in the past 12 months they had left a store because service was poor." Page 231

"I think merchants appreciate the fact that once you claim your venue and we verify it, you get access to all the stats on who's coming to your place and when." Dennis Crowley on page 244.

"Foursquare gets you off your couch or your computer and encourages you to explore your world. Many other social networks are about being behind your computer screen or TV." Naveen Selvadurai on page 249.

Check In and You Likely Won't Check Out

This is an integral and comprehensive book to understand the ins and outs of a growing mobile social media platform. As in the famous "Hotel California" lyrics by The Eagles, "You can checkout any time you like, But you can never leave!" As the author concisely states on page 111, "So when it comes to checking in, you'll be making a big mistake if you check out without giving it a chance."

Please Note

A McGraw-Hill representative provided me with a complimentary review copy of this book. I was not monetarily compensated for the review by any party that would benefit from a positive analysis.