There’s no shortage of companies to partner with in the social space. It gets even more complex in the social-local game. Even if you ignore all the new start-ups, you still have a number of serious players to consider working with: Gowalla, GetGlue, Loopt, Google Places, Facebook Places, scvngr, Where, Bright Kite and so many more. For a marketer this can be daunting. The reality is, you can’t bet across all of these platforms. You really do need to pick your spots. Scale is important, but are other dimensions like is your audience using the platform, or do their “tools” support your business goals/objectives. Bet wrong and it’s a big miss. In large organizations the wrong bet can stunt your ability to continue experimenting and can siphon off the financial support needed to make social work.
At Walgreens, I continue to be impressed with how quickly foursquare innovates. From standard features sets, like the merchant api, to custom solutions specific to our needs (more on this in the near future), they set a high bar for the competition. As we focus on bringing social media down to the individual store level, the new merchant tools offer us unprecedented control over the types of offers we put in market to support our 7,700+ store footprint. The ability to customize around the standard api is what makes the foursquare announcement so intriguing. It provides us nearly limitless possibilities. For example, we could integrate check-ins into our award winning iPhone app that are specific to how we and our customers do business.
With foursquare’s new merchant tools we won’t be tied to a standard set of features designed to solve for the least common denominator. This approach is something that is germane to the way social media should work, but is at odds with how foursquare’s competitors are approaching the space. The competitive set usually offers a standard tool-set (at best) for all companies to leverage. The ability to customize for a specific need, campaign or organization just isn’t there.
Social is not a 1 size fits all proposition. It’s refreshing to see a company like foursquare offering companies like Walgreens the ability to customize the foursquare experience for our customers. As the largest retailer (based on followers) on foursquare, the new merchant tools will help us provide a return on amazing for our customers and a return on investment for our stores.
The die is cast, as Julius Caesar would say, and other social location platforms need to up their game to evolve into partners that understand the needs of the enterprise.
Head of Social Media at Walgreens. Interactive marketer, innovator, boat rocker, continuous learner, movie lover, risk taker, dad and all around good guy.
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