Look out folks, it's on the rise.

Foursquare is what some in social media circles are calling the Twitter of 2010. It is a social media game that rewards you for logging your location at any point in the day.  Eating a burrito? Tell the world where and when! The more you do, the more “badges” you earn. If you are the person who has logged the most visits to a specific place on Foursquare, you will win the additional honor of becoming the “mayor” of that location. Smart locales are playing along and giving out freebies to their “mayors.” Taste D-Lite lets customers accrue extra points on their TastiRewards cards for Foursquare check-ins and tweets.

From January 2010 to February, Foursquare passed the 1 million mark on Twitter (you can opt to have all your posts on Foursquare automatically post on your Twitter stream as well). In that month’s time, the number of check-ins doubled–showing remarkable promise. It list of seed-money investors include some of the most innovative minds in social media, including Digg Founder Kevin Rose, who endorsed the site to the tune of $1.35 million.

Some cite the brilliance of Foursquare in the fact that real-life social interactions become a virtual game. The person who wins the game is the person who is best able to show the world that he/she has the most interesting life.

So why do I think it’s such a bad idea?

Don't people realize the power they are giving to others when they reveal their whereabouts & spending decisions?

Because so far, the only benefit I can see in Foursquare for the common man–the Joe-the-Plumber, if you will–is that it’s entertaining.

Who really wins in Foursquare? Marketers, big businesses, anyone hoping to use your personal information to make  buck…oh yea, and the FBI. And trust me, there are bucks to be made in this. I hate to be a fear-monger here. I swear, I’m not one of these “all change is bad” people. I am a quick adapter. Half my family has me to thank for their Facebook pages. But I also believe that information is power. And by making public every location where we spend money, we are giving incredibly powerful information away for free.

Twitter, which some would argue does the same thing (see cartoon on left), you have the option to generate meaningful conversations (albeit short ones), show off expertise, track breaking news, donate to a cause, and much more. You can also remain anonymous if you need to (on Foursquare, you can’t be a “mayor” unless you’ve posted a profile photo). No one ever needs to know your location in order to tweet.

Time for the Twitter vs. Foursquare Face-Off

Looking at this from a different angle, let’s take John Bell‘s five key questions to determine the viability of a new technology as a “groundswell” threat.

• Does it enable people to connect in new ways? – Yes, both Twitter and Foursquare present creative connection tools for people around the world.
• Is it effortless for people to use and signup? Yep. and Yep.
• Does it generate enough content to sustain itself? You bet.
• Is it an open platform? Of course.
• Does it shift power from institutions to people? This is the key question. In Twitter, the answer is an unequivocal YES. During the Iran elections, voices resonated worldwide because Twitter gave them a mobile platform. With Foursquare, I would argue that the institutions are the ones who still hold the power. Users feed information that otherwise would have been painstakingly cataloged by expensive marketing research firms and sold to big businesses in order to improve their bottom line. At most, you could argue that it shifts power from big institutions to smaller institutions. Those mom-and-pops shops who can’t afford market research can log into Foursquare and see what kinds of people are coming regularly, and try to capitalize on them.

My question is: Do the benefits outweigh the negatives? With Foursquare, they do not.

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Perhaps one of the reasons I like social media so much is because it seems to go against the very foundation of traditional marketing practices. Reading Forrester Research’s “Groundswell” you almost feel like you’re reading a self-help book for how to be a good friend rather than a book on how to launch a successful social media strategy. Succeeding at social media is all about being authentic, patient, flexible, a good listener, humble, and collaborative (I’m not making this up–that list is lifted straight from the conclusion of the book).

An illustration of my Mad Men avatar making a presentation on how to adapt traditional marketing to social media.

Contrast this with AMC’s portrayal of traditional advertising through their hit series Mad Men and you’ll understand why social media has old-school marketers in a tizzy. Don Draper is the king of advertising at the New York marketing powerhouse at the “Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency.” He knows best and confidently convinces clients of the right strategy, dazzles execs with daring designs, and woos women with his debonaire style and poise.

Don Draper wouldn’t last a minute in today’s social media market. For one, his credibility would be shot as soon as a blogger revealed his dirty little secret that he is able to hide from his clients, colleagues, friends, and even his wife. In the world of social media, often your efforts to hide something make a story blow up as a bigger scandal than if you had let the information go public yourself. Take Digg Founder Kevin Rose’s decision to remove a link to a blog detailing the copyrighted processing key code to HD-DVDs. The community fought back. In a matter of days the code was posted on more than 3,000 sites. The fact that Kevin had removed the link became the news. Kevin gave up, and blogged about his decision. The next day, there were 605 news stories about the incident.

Don would also have to learn that before you can be successful in the world of social technology (what Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff call “the groundswell”), you have to be willing to fail big and keep your plan flexible. It’s important to focus on the relationships and the conversation you are provoking in your community more than on the shiny new tools you are using. You can’t get enamored with new technology without first finding a way that it fits into your overall strategy and meets a specific need of your community.

Why do I get the feeling that Joan would have understood the groundswell better than her male colleagues?

Li and Bernoff recommend working to understand your audience before doing anything to engage them. It is is essential to understand how your targeted audience participate in the groundswell – are they creating content, commenting on existing content, reading content only, or disconnected completely (and note that according to Forrester’s latest research, 18 percent of U.S. internet users want nothing to do with social media). They recommend starting with a POST Method — considering the people you hope to reach, your objectives and how you will measure them, your end-game strategy and then finally, when all other factors have been well determined: the technology.

Also unlike the self-absorbed branding practices of Mad Men’s heyday, the groundswell will see through bullhorn brand broadcasting in an instant. Social marketing has to be more subtle and integrated into a product the people find value in. This explains an increase in product placement on sites, TV shows, movies etc. The groundswell is savvy to the in-your-face marketing that brings Don Draper his glory. If the people sense you are out to sell something, they will go elsewhere. Sites like beinggirl.com do this seamlessly–they sell Tampax and Always in a non-obtrusive manner while providing American pre-teens a space to have real conversations and just be themselves.

Finally, Don would need to understand that part of being successful in the groundswell is not just asking for people’s opinions because you want them to see yours. You have to put the community’s contributions to good use. Bell Canada does this well with their community tool ID-ah! The community allows employees to suggest improvements, then vote for their favorites. The top-voted ideas are then implemented–showing employees that the online community is more than just a place to vent.

So Don, if you or any of your contemporaries are out there, remember that social media marketing is nothing like advertising forty years ago. Today it’s all about provoking great conversation, showing the community you are what you say you are, and truly listening to what others have to say. If you do that, the groundswell will reward you.

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