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Home Insider Blogs Daisy Nguyen's Blog Foursquare vs. Facebook Places - Which is Better for Marketing Your Apartment Community?
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Nov 10
2010

Foursquare vs. Facebook Places - Which is Better for Marketing Your Apartment Community?

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Posted by: Daisy Nguyen on Nov 10, 2010 08:50

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OK, I'll admit it. I'm a Foursquare GEEK, and now, with the launch of Facebook Places, I am TOTALLY CONFUSED. There's so much news out about Facebook Places - what will be the best tool for helping your outreach or marketing efforts at your apartment communities? Which application will help you stay connected to more apartment residents, attract more apartment prospects, give you more positive exposure?

Some background:

I use facebook as a place to connect with friends and collegues, keep up with the latest news about places/businesses I "like," and connect with other like-minded individuals.

I use foursquare to find out about places near me, get tips based on my location, and I hate to admit it, but I secretly covet being "mayor" and earning badges.

If I am a typical user, how does this information help YOU market your apartment communities or connect with prospects and residents?

Let's put them in the boxing  ring and see who wins:

  1. ROUND ONE: First thing I do when I go somewhere is to look on Foursquare to see which businesses near me have tips, read them, and see if I want to try something new, or stick with my tried and true favorites. Currently very easy to do on Foursquare. AND Foursquare has had A LOT more activity - resulting in lots of tips & deals with local businesses. Facebook Places - I have not found a way to leave a tip or find tips others have left. The only way to see what others think about a place is IF that business has connected their facebook PLACE to their facebook PAGE, and you can see the information and wall of a business' facebook place/page. This is a big IF. And even IF a business has connected their facebook place to their facebook page, you'll only see their wall. There's not really a place that encourages users to leave other information for other users. WINNER: Foursquare
  2. ROUND TWO: When I am marketing an apartment community (or even a retail business), I look for tools where I have control over the content, easy way to communicate my brand and my message. With Foursquare Places, it is easy to claim my "place," connect it to my community's facebook page, and manipulate the content users see when they find me. Additionally, if someone leaves an potentially negative remark or comment on my page, in Facebook, I can delete it. With Foursquare, I can claim my business on Foursquare -but there is no way to customize it beyond providing the basic info. Additionally, user can leave whatever comments and tips they want, I have no control over their comments. WINNER: From a business/marketing perspective, Facebook Places is the CLEAR winner.
  3. ROUND THREE: Deals. Everyone loves a deal. How easy is it to find places with "specials" or "deals?" On Facebook Places, when you bring up the app, all the businesses around you will be listed. If there is a "special" or "deal," there is a little cut-out square icon that resembles a coupon. It was somewhat easy to spot. On Foursquare, when you open the app, it locates all the businesses close to you, and if there are any "specials" or "deals,"  the word "SPECIAL" shows up. Its much easier to spot, and there is no question as to the purpose. So, for all practical purposes, this is almost a tie. HOWEVER, as I searched through local businesses that I know are running deals, I found more deals on Foursquare than I did on Facebook Places. WINNER: FOURSQUARE through a technicality. - This may change if Facebook Places can attract more businesses and "specials" and "deals."
  4. Round Four: Activity & Users - who has more? According to a recent Business Insider article from October 29th, 2010, although Facebook Places has 7X more users, those users are not as active as the 4 million foursquare users. WINNER: Foursquare
  5. Round Five: The FUN factor. In foursquare, as stupid as it may sound, I enjoy being a "mayor" and receiving"badges" for checking in. One of my friends, a VP of a large company in Minnesota, recently emailed me to say, "I just became the MAYOR at a local joint. I am secretly quite proud!" Facebook places currently does not have an incentive to check-in except for the possibility of a deal or "special." WINNER: Foursquare.

Foursquare wins 4 out of 5 rounds because it meets the wants of its users. That's a page from the facebook business book - build an application for the end-users, and the business will come. Score one for the small guy!

As it is with social media, today's giants can be tomorrow's cold empty grave. It'll be interesting to see what Foursquare and Facebook Places have in the way of updates and changes over the next few months! But its clear that things are FAR from over for Foursquare.

I should mention that even though the end-user experience is much better on Foursquare, the Facebook Places application is more business-friendly. AND Facebook has HUGE potential to reach its over 500 million users.

I am still TOTALLY confused. Who will win? Can they continue to co-exist?

Depending on what YOUR marketing needs, goals, or objectives are, you may want to use one or both of these as part of your marketing approach/outreach efforts for your apartment community. If you are using Foursquare or Facebook Places to help market or as an outreach tool for your apartment community, please leave me a comment and share with everyone how you view one or both, or how you are using them!

Below is a comparison Matrix of Location Based Social Networks produced by Mark Fidelman on Flickr.com.


You can read the original blog entry on my blog at: 

http://blog.rentsoda.com/2010/11/foursquare-vs-facebook-places-which-is-better-for-marketing-your-apartment-community/


Daisy Nguyen is owner and CEO of RENT SODA, a consulting company offering apartment marketing, business & operations consulting and apartment industry training.

www.rentsoda.com |8 blog.rentsoda.com| daisy@rentsoda.com |     


Comments (5)Add Comment
679
written by Jonathan Saar, November 10, 2010
Terrific thoughts and it jumps back to some of the stats shared about who is actually using location based platforms at the moment which is still relatively few. I have found foursquare to be good at conferences but locally not so much. I am still a hopeful soul who is trying to find some local businesses who have specials, but in the year I have been using it I have only found my local UPS store to have a 10% off discount.

Businesses in general are still in catch up mode with what has already been established, it may take a bit of a time to see some full traction even with a giant like Facebook
5326
written by Carmen Krushas, November 10, 2010
what will be interesting is the marriage of products like Groupon with FB places/deals for example. Those two can do some pretty spectacular things if there was an acquisition.
2272
written by Ellen Thompson, November 11, 2010
The Facebook v. Foursquare battle makes me think of the 80s and 90s battle between Apple and Windows. The best product doesn't always get the most marketshare.

Personally, of all the SM sites listed in the above matrix, I would say Yelp is a better place to start than either Facebook or Foursquare place pages. I don't see people searching for apt communities directly on any of these platforms, but I do know plenty of people look on search engines and I see plenty of first page results for Yelp (and traditional Facebook Pages, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube pages, too).
2672
written by Daisy Nguyen, November 11, 2010
Ellen: You bring up a great point! SEARCH is a HUGE consideration. I can't wait until Facebook comes up witha good facebook search engine. The current search engine is a mess!
3407
written by Frederic Guitton, November 12, 2010
I think it will come down to merging capabilities between companies and business model. Think about a Yelp and FourSquare combo with check-ins , reviews and add that to a well build search optimized platform. Now that would be powerful, I use Foursquare randomly but will go check out Yelp for reviews, I think reviews is where it's at!
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