The more social networks there are, and the more different they are from one another, the better the chances for companies to target their customers. With Google Ads you can target by keywords that are directly related to your product by what people want. With Facebook campaigns you can target people not only by demographics, but by interests and associations. You’d think that would be narrow enough, but how about lifestyle? Sure that’s already accounted for with heavy spending on market research, but what if you didn’t have to really?
Although it’s been around for a little while now (it’s not like it just came out yesterday), FourSquare has been the key to unlock that segmentation criteria. As a user, everywhere you check in, you are leaving a trail of your most frequented places, what type of places do you go to and who do so with. However, I have not seen it been as exploited as Facebook and Google Ads. Perhaps it’s something the founders of FourSquare don’t consider as relevant. Or may be they’ll just approach it in a different way.
So far, coupons and other promotions that some places have published seem to be free, but does FourSquare charge for these special promotions? A question worth asking.