Happy birthday, Foursquare! This free geolocation app was launched back in March 2009, and it’s sure grown a lot in the last four years! As of January 2013, Foursquare reported more than 30 million users around the world. And given its high potential for generating customer referrals, more than 1 million businesses have made it a key component of their social media strategy.

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, a potential sale may have already left your site.

Have you ever noticed that brands are like people? In order to attract—and keep—loyal customers, your brand should resemble someone you’d like to grab a beer or coffee with on the weekend, or someone you know you can call anytime just to talk about life. Basically, your brand should be trustworthy. But much like the art of developing lasting friendships, it takes time for customers to feel comfortable enough to refer your brand to their friends. And while referrals are the most effective way to ...

In an amazing twist of karmic justice, Randi Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg’s sister and a former Facebook executive) recently fell victim to Facebook’s confounding privacy settings. Randi had posted a candid family photo for her Facebook friends, only to see it go viral on Twitter.

Think about the last time you went mattress shopping. Was it via a referral program and a few clicks later, a mattress folded up in a box arrived at your front step? Or was it in a traditional brick-and-mortar store? What was the latter experience like? Did you get the hard sales pitch about how a particular mattress would suddenly help you capture eight solid hours of sleep each night, and did that salesperson awkwardly hang around as you tested out a mattress? Even worse, if you actually ...

The contracts have been signed, sales has made the handoff to success, the proverbial bags have been packed. We're on our way down the customer journey! Be sure to clear out any obstacles for a well-paved path to singing your praises and repeat purchasing. Do your thank you pages include your referral program? Is there a refer-a-friend pop-up on the home page?