Foursquare Features “Promoted Updates”

Foursquare Features “Promoted Updates”

On top of Foursquare’s latest update, the check-in app has launched “Promoted Updates,” which is their way of allowing businesses to advertise within the app. It works like Twitter’s promoted tweets, wherein the user will see certain brands on the top of listings in Foursquare’s Explore section.

Foursquare execs explained that Promoted Updates will not be about senseless ad exposure. “This isn’t a display ad for an upcoming summer movie,” product manager Noah Weiss said in an interview. “This is: ‘hey, we think you might really want to go to Hertz because you just landed at the airport.”

Only users who use the Explore tab would be able to see Promoted Updates. According to Weiss, more and more users have been using the Explore feature since the latest update.

All Promoted Updates will be be clearly marked as “promoted” and certain limitations are in place, such as how many such listings will be shown in one session. Only twenty brands are included in the pilot project, including Walgreens, Old Navy, Butter Lane, and Best Buy.

Foursquare will also be using this project to figure out the reasonable charge for advertisers. Once the project is in full swing, the company intends to provide advertisers with a self-service platform that would allow them to create their own listings.

Source: Venture Beat, via SlashGear