During Black Friday, The Sports Authority gave away $500 gift cards to 20 randomly selected Foursquare users who checked in at one of the company’s stores (it has more than 400 retail outlets). Participants were required to publish the check-in between 10am and 3pm on Twitter to have a chance to win.
Before the holiday promotion, the Denver-based retail chain had about 400 followers on Foursquare. That jumped more than tenfold to about 4500 by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend. In an interview with ClickZ, the company said it saw a quantum jump in check-ins on Foursquare, as well as Twitter posts and Facebook comments.
When someone won the $500 gift card at a Sports Authority, a store manager made an announcement over the intercom system. That caused excitement in the stores with cheers for the winner.
Besides working with Foursquare, Sports Authority also tried a test with Yelp’s new check-in offers platform, rewarding Yelp check-ins with a $10 gift card. And it is running a “21 Deals in 21 Days” campaign on Facebook from Nov. 30 through Dec. 21. Viewers on the social site have to “like” the brand and then fill out a form to enter to win one of the daily items free-of-cost.
