Lipof Advertising creative director Nathan Lowery says businesses that inundate their customers with meaningless marketing messages are actually doing more harm than good. In his experience handling advertising and marketing for Pet Supermarket, Lowery has noticed that customers are less likely to unsubscribe from SMS advertising lists when they're sent messages that have actual value, like coupons and discount codes...

MomentFeed worked with Cinnabon to merge duplicate venues, adjust inaccurate geo-codes, and update venues with correct addresses and consistent branding. The result? Cinnabon corporate communications manager Rachel Hadley says the company has seen a nearly 700% increase in customer engagement on Foursquare, Facebook, and Twitter over the past eight months...

At TopGolf, a golf entertainment facility with locations in Virginia, Illinois, and Texas, regional marketing director Scott McMahon says he was able to boost the number of Foursquare check-ins in 2011 by creating a "Grizzly" special that tied in with the company's "Fun Doesn't Hibernate" marketing campaign...

Companies in the travel and tourism industry have been quick to jump on the daily deals bandwagon in an effort to boost occupancy rates in a sluggish economy. The revenue manager at Charlestowne Hotels says he's contacted by deal companies all the time, and that he chooses which businesses to work with based on how much they're willing to negotiate...

Platforms like Foursquare and Facebook haven't had any trouble attracting attention from national brands, but what's the secret to attracting interest from these brands in lesser-known start-ups? According to Southwest Airlines emerging media specialist Christi McNeill, it all comes down to persistence, innovation, and a little bit of hand-holding...

How does a restaurant group with 3,000 locations spread across 43 states manage a robust location-based rewards program without sacrificing functionality or flexibility? For Brad Rosenberg, manager of digital strategy and marketing for CKE Restaurants — which owns the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast-food chains — the answer was to build a mobile app that could work across multiple point-of-sale systems and still provide the accountability that individual franchise owners require...

For nearly a year, Choice Hotels has been running a special offer that rewards members of its Choice Privileges program with 50 extra points each time they check-in on Foursquare, Facebook, or Gowalla at more than 1,500 participating properties. By partnering with Topguest, Choice has been able to use LBS to build customer engagement without worrying about managing the infrastructure that a large-scale program requires...

It's Ron Blevins' goal to help agencies help brands navigate the world of hyperlocal media. As the vice president of digital strategy for Novus, an ad agency owned by conglomerate Omnicom that is focused solely on the local space, he has seen brands move from newspapers to hyperlocal sites, where they are finding more trust and loyalty — in some cases a 20% increase in ROI over national sites...

After a tepid start to location-based services, RadioShack fully embraced Foursquare, finding that customers who checked in spent more and were more likely to buy wireless products. The company saw an uptick in buzz as an innovator, too. Now, RadioShack is a close partner of Foursquare, serving as a launch partner for some of its badge offerings, and running a major Foursquare campaign around the holidays last year, Holiday Hero. This year, RadioShack will run a "So Right" badge campaign on Foursquare and look to increase use of location-based tools by associates as the company de-centralizes its operations.

"They used to call it 'stalking,'" said BJ Emerson at the LocNav Conference this month. "Now they call it 'location-based marketing.'" The VP of technology at Tasti D-lite has tongue firmly planted in cheek, as the frozen yogurt chain has evolved its basic punch card program into a highly digital loyalty effort involving Foursquare, Facebook and Twitter.