VIVO Cafe Hosts World First Cafe Swarm

Posted August 9, 2010 in VIVO NEWS by VIVO Cafes

Foursquare is the latest social networking application to hit Australia. Users join Foursquare, connect with their friends to keep track of their whereabouts and gain tips on great places to visit and eat and drink at. Foursquare users can also take advantage of special offers promoted by Foursquare venues as well as unlock badges when they have achieved certain milestones.

SWARM EVENT

As a fun test of the power of social media, VIVO Cafe at 388 George Street, Sydney CBD arranged and promoted a ‘Breakfast’ Swarm for 7.30am on Tuesday 3^rd August. The Swarm was aligned with a local Sydney Charity and donations would be made from tickets sold on the day.

A Foursquare ‘Swarm’ requires that 50+ Foursquare users check in to a venue within a three hour period. Once the 50^th person checks in all users who have checked in at that venue in that period will be awarded the elusive Swarm badge. The Swarm badge can be difficult to unlock due to the fact that 50+ Foursquare users need to be checked in at the same venue in a three hour period.

The Swarm was promoted for two weeks prior to the event and gained lots of interest around Sydney and even worldwide. All promotions were conducted online via Twitter, Facebook and the VIVO Cafe email newsletter.

People started arriving and ‘checking in’ at VIVO Cafe from 7am and within two hours the Swarm badge was unlocked by over 100 Foursquare attendees! The event created a great buzz as well as an opportunity for the Foursquare users to mingle and meet other Foursquare users. The attendees were constantly tweeting their friends and generally having a great time trying to reach the required 50 check ins.

During the Swarm, VIVO Cafe became a ‘trending’ venue which meant it was listed first on all nearby Foursquare users search results.

The event was also eco-friendly as all of its promotion (except for the small number of flyers in the cafe) was conducted online via the website, twitter, facebook and email.

Fantastic Results

Logging 78 unique visitors and 134 check-ins, the Swarm breakfast, the first of its kind in the world organised by a café, unlocked the coveted Foursquare Swarm Badge before 9am, two hours after the first check-in for the morning.

Traditionally a street front business, VIVO café has already experienced success through social media, managing to defy the effects of the GFC and keep a steady customer base despite their immediate, and traditional, market shrinking through massive job cuts. The VIVO Swarm event showed that Foursquare can be a viable extension of that social media strategy.

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Angela Vithoulkas of VIVO Cafe Group believes they are the first café venue in the world to unlock the swarm badge at an organised event, with over 100 check ins.

“I’m very pleased with the results from this morning,” says Angela. “My main aim was to see whether a business could make money by promoting their services out through social media for zero dollars, and especially to see how foursquare could be applied to a retail or hospitality venue”.

“I’m always amazed at how readily people get involved in things, especially through the social media channels,” says Angela. “Foursquare is still in its infancy in Australia and we seem to still be behind the US in adopting it as a platform. But, I wanted to see whether the social media world would get behind it, and also see where the interest came from, whether it was existing customers of VIVO, or whether the interest came from further afield.”

Iggy Pintado, author of the Connection Generation, and arguably one of Australia’s most connected people, joined the event.

“Today’s VIVOSwarm event showed that with the power of social media connection, ANY small business can leverage their social and business networks to generate awareness, foot traffic, loyalty and revenue,” he said. “Will I tell all my friends about how cool it was to be involved in a Swarm event ? Definitely. Will the goodwill generated from this event entice me back in future and for the next Swarm event? Absolutely.”

View the fantastic photos of the VIVO Swarm Event below:

Inscriptions Media: “VIVO Cafe Foursquare Swarm Breakfast Records a Win”

Inside Retailing: “Customers Swarm for Brekky Event”

Dynamic Business: “Foursquare Swarm Breakfast a Winner for VIVO Cafe”

JJ Projects: “Ten Examples of Businesses in Australia Already Using Foursquare for Marketing”