After the WSJ published a breaking news alert from Times Square a few days ago — posting it as a check-in on Foursquare — you may wonder if local news organizations should invest the effort to publish location-based updates through the social network.
Here’s how it works: if you’re a friend of Wall Street Journal on Foursquare (they have 2,600 of them) and you’re in New York, you’ll see WSJ’s “check-ins”, which are really news alerts tied to a place. Or if you’re not a friend and check in at a location that WSJ just published from, you’ll see it there, as well. Separately, the Journal has been posting tips at restaurants around the New York area.
“That idea that you want to be informed about what’s around you is the fundamental principle that Foursquare is operating on,” Zach Seward, the WSJ’s outreach editor, told the Nieman Lab, which has a great write-up on the Journal’s efforts here.
The question for resource-strapped local news operations, of course, is whether the effort justifies the return. It doesn’t drive any traffic, but certainly inserts your news brand into a highly-relevant experience with a younger user base. As with any new application of social media, it certainly doesn’t hurt to give it a try on a smaller scale and see where it takes you.
Reminder: The RTDNA/LR Foursquare webinar is Thursday
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