Yesterday my wife and I decided to be the ultimate social media nerds for an afternoon. We went to AJ Bombers to earn our Foursquare Swarm Badge. The rules for earning the badge are simple. A minimum of 50 of us nerds had to check-in on Foursquare at the same time in the same place.
Joe from AJ Bombers worked with the Milwaukee SXSW group to organize a fundraiser for their little party in Austin, TX during the social media be all and end all event of the year South by Southwest. When all was said and done something like 164 people checked in over the course of the day. I observed about 82 or so checked in simultaneously.
I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Foursquare. I’m pretty sure I only do it so my social media friends won’t think I’m a square. It was cool to be part of an event where many of our new friends met through social media showed up. Plus, it did result in a nice blog post complete with video. Oh, and let’s not forget getting to eat our favorite burgers and such in Milwaukee. (I finally tried the Sprecher Root Beer Float – a MUST try at sometime if you even remotely like root beer floats.)
My friend Susan Kim asked me a question recently, “Is social media (specifically Twitter) real?” Yesterday was certainty real for Cheryl and I but let’s help Susan out with a whole bunch of comments here.
[…] transform a local Milwaukee burger joint into an international phenomenon and attended several events there to “earn badges.” As a marketing tool, to draw in customers Foursquare can be incredibly useful. As a game to earn […]