Will Scott, Matt Siltala, Chuck Reynolds and I collaborated on the first survey I know of that polls SMBs using Foursquare to promote themselves. This is not a random group of small businesses that may or may not have heard of Foursquare, this is 125 SMBs currently offering rewards and incentives on the LBS site.
We had a call about the survey results on Friday and they’re very interesting.
In some ways these businesses are very typical SMBs and in other respects they’re absolutely not. Will and Matt will be presenting the data as part of the #SMX panel “Location Services: The New Local Search?” on Wednesday.
Almost 50% of these respondents have a marketing budget of less than $2,500 per year. But the overwhelming majority have websites and Facebook pages. Another interesting fact: these businesses are geographically distributed all over the US, not just in the “broadband metros.”
Lots more interesting stuff on Wednesday.
Screenwerk 
June 7, 2010 at 9:02 pm
[…] 4Square & SMBs: First Survey Data at SMX, ScreenWerk […]
June 7, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Greg,
What do you think about services like Geotoko that let businesses reward users regardless of the platform on which they check in. I think scaling these businesses will be difficult, but I definitely see value to SMB’s in having a standard offer across the various check in platforms like Yelp, Gowalla, 4sq and probably FB soon.
Scott
June 8, 2010 at 1:15 am
Scott: I think the service in concept is very valuable. They have to market themselves and educate a bunch of SMBs at the same time. Brightkite has a similar service on the consumer side.
But just as “metasearch” never gained traction, these guys will have difficulty surmounting the “brands” in this space. We’ll see.
June 8, 2010 at 5:46 pm
[…] 4Square & SMBs: First Survey Data at SMX « Screenwerk […]
June 9, 2010 at 11:15 pm
[…] 4Square & SMBs: First Survey Data at SMX, ScreenWerk […]