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Our smart phones offer many different options for “checking-in.”  Yelp, Gowalla, FourSquare, Facebook places…  Many different versions of the yellow pages exist in digital form, allowing anyone and everyone to “check-in” and announce to the world exactly where they are hanging out at that exact moment. Most of these apps on our phones link directly to Facebook and Twitter, giving an even wider audience to each post. 

BAM!  Free advertising for businesses! 

I often see these check-in’s on Facebook and think to myself, “Man, I love the burritos there…I need to hit that place up,” or, “I have a coupon to that store, I really should get in there and use it!” Whether you have a shoe store, restaurant, day spa or flower shop, you probably have competition out there. If your customers can give you a leg up by recommending your store via the check-in, you should encourage them to do it.

How can you get your loyal patrons to advertise for you? 

For some people, it’s simply fun to be acknowledged. I visited a costume jewelry store that had signs everywhere asking customers to “like” their fan page on Facebook. The store offered to take a photo of the customer with their new purchase and post it to their fan page. Most customers then happily scrambled to tag themselves (tagging themselves also exposes their entire friend list to your store’s fan page as well). It was like they were a celebrity being photographed by paparazzi in a jewelry store — fun for them and free advertising for you. 

For others, perhaps offering a discount will help prod people into checking-in.  Maybe if a customer checks into your store during the check out process, you can offer 10% off. People love feeling like they got a deal, and they didn’t even have to work very hard for that one. Another thing you can do is a special discount offer by e-mail when you see that someone has checked in (which will require some monitoring of your social media sites).  More simply, post on your Twitter and Facebook pages that you will give a discount if the check-in deal is simply mentioned at check out. It could get people into your store regardless of whether they actually checked in or not. 

You can also hold a contest. The customer who checks-in the most over the month will get a special gift package, discount or gift card to your store. 

The “check-in” certainly won’t save the world, but it can definitely expose your store to new customers. Sit down and figure out what will best encourage your customers to check-in and then implement it! 

If you need assistance with understanding the checking-in process or monitoring your social media sites, please let us know.