Fried Logic

Checking in with O2 Fitness

O2 Fitness is one of our clients here in the PR department at HM&P and we have had a lot of fun helping them spread the word about their seven (and growing!) locations around the Triangle.

O2 Fitness already runs their own Twitter account, Facebook fan page and blog. A new avenue of social media marketing we have explored with them are location-based applications.   One of the new growing trends in social media – location-based applications – allow you to share your location with others by ‘checking in’.

Some of the most popular applications including FourSquare, Gowalla, BrightKite and Whrrl have provided incentives for people to use the applications by making it more of game where you can earn badges, become the mayor or keyholder of a location, and gain street-cred (or in this case, app-cred) based on the frequency of your check-ins.

From a marketing standpoint, location-based apps provide a new, more targeted way for businesses to reach and reward their customers.  I like the analogy that it is like a public customer loyalty program.  Locations can offer specials for first time visitors (Welcome to ABCD, enjoy a free appetizer!), frequent visitors (On your 10th check-in get a free Smith’s t-shirt!), or the mayor, or most frequent visitor to a location (Are you the mayor? Enjoy a free drink each time you visit!).

While customers benefit from checking in, businesses also profit, not from free food or prizes, but from data and information collected from check-ins.  They can learn more about their customer base and their habits and needs and in-turn provide an overall better customer experience.

Here in the Triangle we are lucky enough to have our own local location-based application, TriOut.  Similar to the larger FourSquare application, TriOut focuses on local businesses and locations.  We have enjoyed working in conjunction with O2 Fitness and the TriOut developers to help them improve the application, test out specials and provide feedback from a local business perspective.

Find your favorite O2 location on both TriOut and FourSquare and check-in when you hit the gym!