As I was perusing consumerist.com, I came across this story regarding Chili's Restaurant and the use of FourSquare. For those too lazy to click on the link, Chili's will offer customers who check into FourSquare at one of their restaurants a special coupon for free chips and salsa. It is apparent that both Foursquare and Chili's find this beneficial: Foursquare will get more customers to use their service and Chili's will attract more customers to their store in the hopes of receiving an additional goodie.

Next month, I will be presenting at the 2010 WI SHRM State Leadership Conference on the topic of "Integrating Social Media to Attract & Retain Members." The Chili's example made me curious as to whether SHRM professional chapters could potentially use FourSquare as one such tool for membership management (as an aside, I have yetto sign up for FourSquare). For example, like Chili's, could you offer those individuals who check into a chapter meeting on FourSquare a special prize (i.e., one person could have their registration fee waived for that particular meeting).

Further, a chapter could use Foursquare as a mechanism to raise money for the SHRM Foundation. As Kyle Lacy suggests,

Users will gain points when they accomplish certain activities like checking in, making multiple stops in a day, adding a new venue, making a repeat visit, or consecutively checking into a certain location. Encourage users to rack up the points and put a value to the points they are accruing (Ex: $0.04 per point). At the end of the promotion donate the amount of money to a charity. This encourages visits to your business and gives back to those who need our help!

Does anyone know if their SHRM professional chapter uses FourSquare? If so, how? Can it be used to make your chapter meeting THE place to be for the month?