Is your business check-in worthy?

This past April was Foursquare day, a fun geek holiday that both Amber and I were involved in planning and promoting in 2010. While we were very involved in the 2010 champagne, we decided to take a back seat and let others step up and volunteer to plan and promote this year’s event.
Coincidentally I noticed that I am not checking in as much as I once did, and i decided to reflect on this a little to figure out why. I came up with a simple answer, no incentive.Typically you choose to check in for one of several reasons;

• You want to let your friends know where you are.
• You are playing one of the games where you get points for check-ins.
• your own notes of what you’ve been up to
• and last but far from least, discounts and specials.

Well as much fun as the first few reasons are, there comes a time where you might not care if anyone knows where you are, and the points just seem silly, but discounts are still discounts, so they keep a lot of us checking in. This is where businesses need to step up what they are doing on the different Location Based Check-in Services (LBCs). Sure you want to know how often I visit, but what are you offering me in return? My biggest pet peeve is Foursquare’s Mayorship,  it is incredibly De-motivating  to try to become a mayor of a place when the system tells you that you need weeks of visits to acheive it.

Some business are making smart offers like something free on your X visit. That offers everyone a reason to keep coming back. Chili’s offers free chips and salsa just for checking in, and they added another smart special ”

Another up and comer in the LBCs that I really like is SCVNGR. They offer a series of challenges that you can do at a business. These challenges offer the business free promotion in the social media that their customers push out, but also offers the opportunity for the business to reward such interaction. While I pick on Buffalo Wild Wings above in the Foursquare example, they are one of the few taking advantage of SCVNGR in my area.