According to social media software maker Wildfire, the top 10 spots for Facebook check-ins include several airports, Disneyland, Times Square NYC and, um…Facebook headquarters. That’s right. Out of Facebook’s nearly 700 million users around the world, the offices of Facebook are seeing enough check-ins to make the company’s top 10. What does that mean for Facebook Places? Is the service not seeing the adoption Facebook would like?
Top 10 Facebook Places by Check-ins
According to the data, the top 10 locations are as follows:
- Chicago O’Hare International Airport – 219,000 check-ins
- San Francisco International Airport – 211,00 check-ins
- Disneyland – 206,000 check-ins
- Hartsfield International Airport – 167,000 check-ins
- Times Square NYC -131,000 check-ins
- Denver International Airport – 129,000 check-ins
- Facebook HQ, Palo Alto, CA – 114,000 check-ins
- Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – 105,000 check-ins
- Philadelphia International Airport – 104,000 check-ins
- Boston Logan International Airport – 84,000 check-ins
Facebook vs. Foursquare
While these numbers are certainly respectable, Fast Company took this data a step further, and compared them to Foursquare’s numbers. The results? Foursquare is holding its own against Facebook, despite having fewer total users (9.5 million, says AdAge).
For example:
- Chicago O’Hare International Airport – 214,000 check-ins
- San Francisco International Airport – 258,000 check-ins
- Times Square NYC -51,000 check-ins
- Facebook HQ, Palo Alto, CA – 5,772 check-ins (but Foursquare HQ – 11,600 check-ins)
- Boston Logan International Airport – 66,908 check-ins
Check-Ins, Deals Not Enough?
That’s impressive for the location-based startup Foursquare, based in New York. And it may speak to a larger issue with Facebook Places – check-ins, and even the possibility of “deals” or “offers” may not be enough to encourage users to adopt this new behavior. Although Facebook has more users performing check-ins due to the sheer size of its social network, the percentage of Facebook users participating in this behavior is still quite small.
Meanwhile, Foursquare is offering a dedicated check-in experience, with an ecosystem built around the behavior, including gaming-based incentives like points, badges and leaderboards in addition to deals and tips (i.e., notes about the venue). This formula appears to be successful – Foursquare is growing like mad, reaching 7 million users in February, 8 million by April and now, apparently, closing in on 10 million.
In addition, when The WSJ recently crunched Foursquare’s numbers over the course of a week to produce these amazing charts and graphs, Foursquare’s HQ didn’t even make the top 50 list of most popular venues. (It did make the top offices list, though – as #38). While not exactly an apples to apples comparison, the data here is in sharp contradiction to what we see on Facebook, where it seems that some of Places’ most engaged users are Facebook employees themselves.
Sources: AdAge, Fast Company, WSJ
