What’s Up with Foursquare?

This week, I am exploring some different (not-so-common) social media platforms. Today I am going to conquer Foursquare. Foursquare showed up in 2009 with limited availability in about 100 markets. Shortly after its debut in these markets, Foursquare expanded to be available worldwide and became pretty popular.

What is Foursquare?
Foursquare is a mobile application (website and social media platform) that allows users to check-in at different places and connect with friends and other users. Users can see which establishments their friends frequent and meet up with them when they are there. It was built as a mobile app but also maintains a web version of its platform.

What is the Future of Foursquare?
In the last few years, we have seen an explosion of new social media sites. Some have made it and some haven’t. It is the trend now to build a social media platform for your industry and hope it makes it. Foursquare was hot for a while but its popularity is massively declining. So much so that Forbes.com, in a recent article about 2014 trends, predicts its near future demise. Part of this could be the new ability to check-in on Facebook. As a social media strategist, I see that people do not want to be on 30 different platforms, they don’t have the time.

Foursquare – A Social Media Tool for Businesses?
Maybe. If you operate a restaurant, bar or entertainment venue in a major metropolitan area, I think you need to be on Foursquare for a little while longer. Your company information is out there. You want it to be current and accessible to the millions of users that are currently using Foursquare. It will also help your placement in your search engine page rank.

I think Foursquare has a good idea but fell victim to an evolving Facebook and an explosion of social media platforms. It almost looks like the 2000 fall of .com’s. Too many social media platforms, too fast are going to cause the demise of some great ideas. My recommendation is that if your company information is listed on Foursquare, you keep it current but don’t go to great depths investing in its future.