Social media booster? Wolverines hope Foursquare partnership gives them an edge

The partnership, which doesn’t involve any money changing hands, is still evolving as the university decides how to best leverage the New York-based service.

But the general idea is to use Foursquare to provide deals and tips for fans who attend games at venues like Michigan Stadium and provide more visibility to the university’s lesser known sports by offering incentives to people who attend competitions.

Businesses or organizations that register a real-life venue with Foursquare can provide special incentives to people who visit the venue’s physical location, or “check in” in Foursquare parlance.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s, one of few businesses with an Ann Arbor location currently using the service, offers ice cream deals to Foursquare users.

The Foursquare user who visits a specific venue the most times earns the title of “mayor” at that specific site, which can lead to additional deals depending on the organization. Users can relay messages such as this feat to their Facebook or Twitter accounts.

Now, the university hopes to generate more interest in Wolverine athletic events through Foursquare. The specifics of the university’s own Foursquare offers are up in the air.

“For some of our smaller venues, I think it’ll be more of a specials thing,” said Richard Retyi, U-M’s assistant director of athletic media relations who is also a community contributor for AnnArbor.com. “We’re not sure what to expect. If we offer a special at Michigan Stadium and say, ‘Here’s a T-shirt for people who check in five times,’ we’re not sure what the response is going to be, because it’s such a new frontier.”

For now, Foursquare users can follow the Wolverines at foursquare.com/MichiganGoBlue. The university’s first concerted effort to use the service to promote an event will coincide with Fan Day on Aug. 22.

Jumping onto Foursquare is part of the athletic department’s ongoing effort to stay ahead of the social media curve.

Retyi said U-M sports teams have 22 Facebook pages with some 210,000 fans and 19 Twitter accounts with more than 33,000 followers.

“Foursquare’s relatively new to Ann Arbor,” said Retyi. “I think it’s going to get here, and I think more people are going to get on it.”

Contact AnnArbor.com's Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com. You can also follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's newsletters.