You might have heard Foursquare mentioned in conversation and assumed it was just another social network.

However, it's location-based system that allows users to ‘check-in’ to businesses from their mobile phone could benefit the savvy small business.

Here’s how Foursquare could drive footfall to your company:

1.)  Do it yourself, your way. You no longer need Foursquare’s permission to launch your own company profile. Manually create your own tailor-made business page and sell your vision, making a visit to your company one of the thousands of check-in’s happening every day.

2.)  Make your customers feel special. Use Foursquare to promote special offers and grant privileges to visitors. Reward loyal customers or incentivise new customers with a ‘Special’ gift of mobile vouchers, a prize or a discount, driving custom to your store.

3.)  Tailor-made enticement works. You can offer something unique to your specific clientele on Foursquare, like a queue-jumping slot or reserved parking. A clothing retailer may wish to offer deals on stock surplus, whereas a cafe can drive trade on less popular days of the week.

4.)  Now for the science. The Foursquare Merchant Platform gives access to your venue stats, enabling you to track your customer foot traffic over time. Find out your total daily check-ins, most recent and frequent visitors, even the gender and time of day your customers visited and use this to improve your services.

5.)  Measure the impact. Foursquare acts as an add-on to other social platforms so you can monitor the change in customer activity after you launch a special offer. You can then optimise your offers depending on what resonates with your customer base.

6.)  Get in before your competitors. Three Thousand companies have already added their business to the site and it’s only going to gain popularity. Register your business before your competitors do so.