This paper analyzes the current literature on foursquare and location-based services (LBS) to assess hype and motivations of use. Psychological methods of influence are related to the current status of LBS usage to ascertain the potential for social influence in frequent LBS users. A preliminary survey was conducted to look into the role of foursquare mayors. The results are revealed to deduce areas of further research and interest related to the meaning of the mayor title and the trustworthiness of tips and comment features.

Location-based sharing has the potential for greater influence in the realm of social media because it requires user action and has direct impact on real-world locations. In foursquare, when a user has earned the top number of check-in days for a given location they are given the title “Mayor.” For the consumer this “mayorship” can be a badge of pride and earn them special privileges like free drinks or discounts, but the role of mayor signifies something more than just an arbitrary title. These foursquare mayors have the potential to become opinion leaders in their niche areas of interest.

Despite these promising figures, these numbers are small in comparison to social network giants like Facebook – more than 800 million users – and Twitter – more than 500 million users (The Realtime Report, 2012). Recent research has found that the issue isn’t with foursquare in particular, but rather the overall number of users participating in location-based check-ins is still relatively small – only about 5 percent of all mobile phone users have ever used a LBS (Zickhur & Smith, 2011). Privacy concerns and lack of awareness contribute to these lower numbers, but there is promise in the average of 100 check-ins per user. This suggests that, while the foursquare community may be smaller, it has an active base of users. LBS is still in the very early adoption stage, but the benefits to a slower growing pace are that it gives the technology a chance to adapt and better connect with user expectations.

The rise of foursquare came in tandem with the boom of micro-blogging, and signaled a shift in location-based applications where users began to share their locations with bigger audiences (Tang et al., 2010). This transition from purpose-driven usage, like using GPS technology to get directions or find a friend’s location, to social-driven usage, where users consciously choose to share information with a specific network, indicated a new scope of motivations for users. Instead of being a tool for logistical geo-organization between one or a few individuals, LBS users were now able to use location information to enhance self-representation and share an edited identity to a larger group of people (Tang et al., 2010).
Through surveys and interviews of early foursquare users, Lindqvist et al. (2011) looked into the uses and gratifications of LBS and established a wide range of motivations: from personal tracking, where users enjoyed “curating” their location history, to the gaming aspects, where users felt motivated competitively to earn mayorships and badges.
Interestingly, study results found that discounts and special offers were not a major motivator at the time, but Lindqvist et al. suggested that the relatively small size of participating business could be a factor and that motivation in this area may increase as company involvement spreads.

The role of foursquare mayor has the potential to tap into a third category of influence: authority – which states that people are more likely to trust and follow a figure of authority (Cialdini, 2007). If businesses were able to tap into a sect of niche foursquare leaders, they could leverage their check-ins as meaningful endorsements that directly influence their friends and followers.
Social proof is the idea that people are directly influenced by how others behave. In the case of LBS, this idea is prevalent as people’s shared location history is meant to inform others of where to go.
The concept of liking, which states that people are more likely to say yes to someone they know or like, is similarly at play in LBS check-ins. The biggest potential for brands and businesses to use foursquare for customer growth will be if they can harness these influences.

The absence of quantitative research in regards to foursquare mayors prompted the execution of a preliminary survey questionnaire to assess the role of mayorships. 16 participants responded over a three-day period in April 2012 and indicated they had used foursquare to check in to a location.
Respondents were collected through a convenient sample of the author's online social network with link to Google form survey. This network potentially skews to a younger, more informed audience in the realm of social media and apps like Foursquare. The response rate was fairly even male (7) to female (9). The majority of respondents (8) were age 25-34, while 6 participants were 18-24, 1 participant responded under 18 and 1 responded 45-54.

“Finally, it is known that the democratization of technologies like Foursquare is fundamentally changing the way people interact with each other as well as with local opinion leaders, small businesses, and online customers. Unlike other social networks, Foursquare virtual interactions may reverberate in real world." (Vasconcelos et al., 2012)

Location-based services have the potential for a bright future as creators of social influencers and indicators of social trends. However, issues of backlash hype and market over-saturation, threaten to overshadow this potential. The role of mayor has become a farcical function of the gamification aspects of LBS rather than a sign of potential location-centric opinion leaders. Foursquare announced on April 16th (also known as “foursquare day”), that it intended to further engage business ideas and establish ways for brands to have stronger ownership and more control in creating specials and discounts (Delo, 2012).
This is a crucial step in the monetization of LBS, but brands and businesses should be sure to capitalize on the prospective leaders already at the heart of foursquare. These mayors and badge holders have the built in influence tools of social proof and liking. If brands could give them the added authority of a meaningful mayorship or other leader roles, it could establish a vibrant class of brand advocates that have the backing of location-based information to put real-world action behind their support. It’s one thing to “Like” a restaurant page on Facebook, it’s quite another to back that “Like” up with a location history of visits and experiences at the restaurant.
Further research should be done into the impact and trustworthiness of tips, especially in comparison to reviews on sites like Yelp. The motivations behind mayorships are another important area in need of assessment to determine the difference between ‘just happened’ mayors and ‘sense of ownership’ mayors. A larger sample size of the conducted survey is necessary to outline definitive patterns in foursquare usage and mayorships.