For the first time in history there is a top ten list upon which Tampa and Beijing are mentioned in the same breath. It’s the list of top participating cities celebrating Foursquare Day.  And it all started when a mild-mannered optometrist from Westchase was thinking about new ways to use social media to promote his business, got an idea and rallied the entire world around it.

It started when Dr. Nate Bonilla-Warford (just call him Dr. Nate) was thinking about new ways to promote his business, wrote a few blog posts about it, a few tweets and now there are parties organizing all over the world. He was playing around with Foursquare, a social media application where users can “check-in” at stores, restaurants, bars, optometrists, etc. and comment about their experience. (It’s another way people are sharing information about places they recommend.) Then Dr. Nate started thinking about the math. 4-squared. The 4th month, and the 4-squared day and thus the world is getting ready to celebrate Foursquare Day this Friday 4/16 and businesses all over the world can benefit and users and consumers can have fun with it.

“It doesn’t appeal to everyone, but there is enough geek pride on the internet it’s appealing,” says Dr. Nate. And to reach those it does appeal to, business owners need to take notice. If your business wants to participate, all you have to do is post your Foursquare Day Special on the Web site (just be sure to read the instructions first) and voila! – you’re in. No financial investment required and you’ve got a free listing, advertising and PR. Hopefully you will attract new customers. Give them a great experience, something to talk about, and chances are they will comment about it on Foursquare, recommending your business to other users. It’s all good for business.

To get the full story on Foursquare Day, I interviewed Dr. Nate, the mastermind who came up with idea of a global social media holiday that could benefit local businesses…

Me: Who can participate in Foursquare Day?

Dr. Nate: Everyone is invited – all Foursquare users, businesses and anyone else who is just curious and wants to learn more. It’s a day for people who don’t know what social media is but these swarms (events) are a free casual, low intensity way to interact with business owners who use it to benefit their lives. This kind of social, educational events aren’t available wide-scale. Anyone can come. Non-social media users can come. They might become a user. It’s beyond Foursquare.

This article appears in Apr 14-20, 2010.