Tatiana Urriaga

In Jan. 2010 Intel became the first organization to establish an “official” brand page on Foursquare. Since that time, more than 3,000 organizations have set up pages within the platform – albeit via a somewhat clunky process. Until recently, companies were required to 1) place a media buy within Foursquare or 2) work with the platform’s business development team directly to set up a page.

That all changed this week when Foursquare opened its platform up for brands aspiring to establish an official presence. Now, any business, organization or publication can create its own brand page thanks to a new brand-friendly self-serve model. Foursquare’s motivation for simplifying the process: to populate its platform with content.

With this move, Foursquare will enable marketers and business owners to go beyond checking in and begin creating content in the form of tips, comments, photos and more. By leaning on its dynamic user base to create and share content, Foursquare can increase the value exchange by fostering conversation AND better compete with other location-based sites that have richer content via reviews and discussion (i.e. Yelp). This latest update allows any brand to create a steady stream of content, which users can then share with their own networks.

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