Metrodeco has become the first business in the country to hold a successful ‘swarm party’ on the social networking phenomenon Foursquare.
More than 50 people gathered at Metrodeco last night (Aug 12) to ‘check-in’ on the location-based app – the world’s fastest growing social technology – and unlock the elusive swarm badge.
In the US, swarm parties are becoming popular with tech-savvy businesses, who are tapping into the meteoric rise in user numbers to attract customers and create online ‘buzz’ about their brands.
At least 50 people must check-in at the same venue within an hour to unlock the highly-coveted prize.
While the badge has been unlocked in the UK at train stations, conferences and football matches – where people were already gathered – there has never been a dedicated ‘Swarm Party’, whose sole purpose was to unlock the badge, until now.
During last night’s hour-long event at 7pm, the tea shop more than doubled its takings for the entire day and was mentioned at least 250 times in 24 hours on social networks and blogs. Even Erin Gleason, the New York-based global PR director of Foursquare, and the site’s client services director Eric Friedman wrote personal good luck messages to the shop before the event.
Helen Wilkinson, Metrodeco’s co-owner, said: “I am absolutely thrilled. It was brilliant to see so many people in a small city, like Brighton, pulling together to write themselves onto a small corner of a page of internet history.
"Social media allows like-minded people to connect and share ideas, opinions and information in a way that just wasn’t possible a few years ago. But it’s even better when those people meet in the flesh and become friends, like our Foursquare customers did at our swarm.”
Foursquare works by allowing users to ‘check in’ using mobile phones when they visit any location and not only to share that fact with their friends but to win virtual badges and points for their activity, making it part social network, part game.