Foursquare is a location based social networking program you can use on your iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm Pre, or computer. People who use the program “check in” at locations such as restaurants, bars, stores, and tourist attractions. When they check in, they have the option of sharing their location with their friends on foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter.

If they want, they can also leave a “tip” about the place they are visiting. For example, if you look at the the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s page on foursquare, you’ll see that (as of this writing) 1,215 people have “checked in” (773 of them are unique visitors).

Some of the “tips” people have left about the SFMOMA include:

“Great selection of books and jewelry. Great place to buy gifts. You don’t need to purchase a museum ticket to go to the store.”

“Check out the Richard Avedon exhibit (until 11-29-09). He rocks the camera lens!”

“Head straight for the rooftop garden, stopping for some Blue Bottle coffee on the 5th floor. Admittance to the MOMA is free on the first Tuesday of every month.”

The person who has checked into a location the most is given the title of “Mayor,” which they will keep until someone else checks in more times than them.

You can also receive badges and points on foursquare. For example, ReadWriteWeb recently posted that foursquare is partnering with Zagat so that when you check into a Zagat rated restaurant with foursquare, you will receive a “Foodie” badge.

Clearly foursquare users are excited to share where they’ve been, and what to do, making it a perfect tool for the tourism industry to embrace. So, how can museums use foursquare? Here are four ideas:

1. Join

Join foursquare and search to see if your museum is listed. If not, add it.

2. Listen

Check your foursquare page on a regular basis. Notice what people are saying about your museum, and who is your mayor of the moment.

3. Share

Let your supporters know about foursquare. The Brooklyn Museum has incorporated their foursquare page into the community section of their website.

4. Reward

Foursquare will allow you to add a special feature to your venue to reward frequent foursquare visitors.

For example, the Vancouver Police Museum has a special offer for the mayor of their museum. Their foursquare page advertises:

“Show staff you’ve checked in to the Police Museum and The mayor will receive a 25% discount in the gift shop, plus free admission for themselves and a guest.”

The Brooklyn Museum also has a special offer on their foursquare page:

“If you’re our mayor on First Saturday, show the Membership desk and we’ll honor you with your very own 1st fans Membership for one year. “

Avi Kaplan (@MeshugAvi) posted a good idea on Twitter that could be used by museums with multiple branches, or in collaboration with other museums:

“Wouldn’t it be cool if @smithsonian had a @4square badge for visiting 5 different museums from their offering?”

Is foursquare going to blow up like Twitter and Facebook?  Who knows, but for a pretty minimal investment of time, you can set yourself up so that if it does, your museum will be ready.

Related posts:
Foursquare for Museums on the Museum Marketing blog.
Foursquare Signs a Deal with Zagat on the New York Times Bits blog.