A Foursquare Strategy

Foursquare is taking off like gangbusters, and it's got me excited about combining social media with actual social interactions. I think location is the next big buzz word in social media, so I've been on the hunt for new ideas. We haven't yet talked much about this in class, but last week, Rafael Gallegos of New York Theatre Workshop asked me, "We have foursquare checkins, but I'd really like to run a deal for the mayors but don't know how to begin. any thoughts?" So here's what I would do.

The BACKGROUND:

NYTW "provokes, produces and cultivates the work of artists whose visions inspire and challenge all of us." They're about 30 years old, located in the East Village, and have roughly a $5 million annual budget. They've got 2,756 fans on Facebook (posting about twice a day), 992 followers on Twitter (also tweeting about twice a day), just under 5,000 views total from their 6 YouTube uploads, and have thus far had 29 check-ins on Foursquare from 15 users.

Top Secret is their next production; tickets go on sale to general public Jan 29, and first preview is Feb 24, closing March 28. A shortened description of the play: It's 1971 and the nation is at war. A federal court blocks The New York Times from publishing the top-secret history of US invovlement in Vietnam. Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham has a single day to decide whether to print the Pentagon Papers.

Foursquare is just under a year old location-based mobile social networking game. Last known user count was ~ 200,000 but the press loves them, and they've got wicked cool ideas on how businesses (and users) can use them. Most importantly, they're open to suggestions.

The MISSION:

• Introduce new people to New York Theatre Workshop
• Have some fun with current NYTW audience members
• Establish connections with other interesting local businesses (and their employees/customers!)
• Test a new model for marketing

The SET UP:

Think secret scavenger hunt + free ticket give-away + social media. Users unlock "Top Secret" badges by checking in at businesses far and wide all over NYC (maybe elsewhere too?). Unlock enough badges, and users win free tickets to the show. Easy to adjust this one: start the game with 5 pairs of free tix to the first 5 folks who get to the final badge. If there's tons of interest, enter everyone else into a contest and give away 5 more pairs. So...badges. What do they look like? Maybe something like

• Muckracker: for checking in at the new york times and the village voice
• Presidential Pardon: for checking into a police station after 8pm
• Watergate Watch: for checking in to 3 hotels in NYC
• Theatre Nerd: for checking in to 3 places tagged theatre in NYC
• Spook Alert: for checking into the UN and a kinkos in the same week
• Pulitzer Prize: for acquiring all 5 badges above

The GAMEPLAN:

• Contact Foursquare to help with the 'badge across businesses' idea. They've already done similar in Chicago and Las Vegas.
• Refine the Gameplan ideas above. I'm not a dramaturg (ok, sometimes I am) and I haven't read the play. There are most definitely better clues and names that involve users with the contents of the play. Anyways: these are all preserved for prosterity online, and thus not very "secret" anymore.
• Put a foursquare widget on the front page of NYTW.org.
• Establish a dedicated twitter hashtag (#topsecret is already being used. #topsecretnytw is too long/confusing. maybe #topsecret79?)
• Tweet clues to users once a day. Make it fun. When folks start unlocking badges, congratulate them via twitter. Host a Twitter widget on the Top Secret page of NYTW.org that consolidates all of the hashtags so users can see what's going on in real time.
• Post (google image) photo clues to your Facebook fans. Encourage them to plot together collectively.
• Encourage users to upload YouTube video about their search for the Pulitzer. Grab a flip cam yourself and make some clues video-based rather than just text based.
• Inspire some inter-city competition by inviting American Repertory Theatre and Portland Center Stage to copy the model and use it for Paradise Lost and 39 Steps (both conveniently opening the same weekend).

The tools to MEASURE:

• Every day count @nytw79, #topsecret79, FB engagements, YouTube videos. The every day part is important because you're constantly testing out which promotion strategies are working best (text v. video v. photo, and on which platform)
• At the end of the game, compare the total ticket sales of Top Secret, the "new ticket buyers" for Top Secret, and the number of press articles generated by the game.
• Post game, survey (you remembered to collect email addresses, right?) users about their experience with the game. Is there increased awareness of NYTW? Are they more likely to consider going to NYTW in the future, even if they didn't attend Top Secret itself? etc. More questions will arise as the game is played out.

Why I think this will work

• NYTW has a staff member who is passionate about and interested in Foursquare
• NYTW is located in an urban environment with a relatively high penetration of FS users
• NYTW has some degree of experience using other social media platforms
• NYTW has a product (Top Secret) with a name practically built for game play
  
• Foursquare is in search of interesting business/non-profit uses of the game

It's by no means clear that Foursquare will win the location-game. There's also Gowalla, Yelp, and Loopt all making waves, even Twitter's going local. I think there are significant questions about how much time to invest in a platform that may or may not be around a year from now. But at least geolocation social media segments your potential ticket buying audience by physical location, and gives you fairly reliable click-stream data about social-media driven purchases.

I have a phonecall scheduled with the Foursquare guys later this week, and have to pitch this idea to them. So it's got to make strategic sense not only for the nonprofit, but also for the platform. Any thoughts on refining these ideas?