As a business or a consumer, if you are not connected to Foursquare, you are missing out on the benefits and networking potential of one of the most useful local online community tools available.

As a consumer, Foursquare provides you the opportunity to find the best restaurants and stores in your area, and have a little bit of fun while you’re doing it, gaining badges and possibly rewards along the way. Connecting with your local friends grants you the ability to expand your knowledge of some the best social hotspots in your city.

As a business, Foursquare is a potential goldmine. Having customers competing for the top spot of mayor keeps customers coming back. The potential for growth is significant, considering the word-of-mouth possibilities of the network. With comment fields spreading the word, and check-ins logging your progress, it’s an easy and efficient way to keep your business booming

An innovative social networking site has changed the way the online populace views their city. Using GPS, found in most smart phones such as the iPhone and the Cliq, Foursquare verifies your location, specifically which local stores or restaurants you enter. Using this information, local establishments registered on Foursquare collect the data on their own pages, displaying who has entered the establishment, when, and how often. Members who have “checked-in” can then leave comments on the establishment’s page, supporting their trade.

To mix things up and make things more interesting for the online community, members can gain badges, and in some cases rewards, for entering certain stores numerous times. The leader in check-ins is labeled the honor of mayor of that particular store. In some cases, this honor comes with perks, provided the store is more involved. This new social networking circle has already hit the ground running.

According to recent surveys, 75% of small businesses have a Facebook Fan Page. However many of the small businesses we speak with do not know how to use them. Even with consistent updates, business are not seeing their fanbase increase. Some are even seeing fans abandon their pages.

Below are 3 simple tips to get your fan pages engagement levels up, and consequently more fans.

Create a Poll

Facebook is a two way conversation, and your fans want to share their opinion. Let your fans voices' be heard through polls. You will need an application added to your fan page to create polls on your fan page. We like Fan Appz and Poll Daddy. Both are free, but they have the option for a pro account which includes more features.

Start a Quiz

Sometimes your fans may be too shy to comment, but they may patronize you if you test them with a quiz. An application is necessary to conduct a quiz on your page. We like Fan Appz , but there are several applications available.

Facilitate a Discussion

Discussions are a great way to get participation in a topic. Think of the Facebook Discussions tab as an online focus group.

The Bottom Line

Engaging fans is about creating a dialogue. Stop broadcasting your information. Ask questions. Take the time to listen, and then respond.

On Feb. 27th at 3:37am there was an 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile with an epicenter 70 miles from Concepcion, the country's second largest city. One day following this traumatic event, reports are showing that there are more than 700 dead, and 2 million people displaced. Below are 3 tweets from people who experienced the earthquake first hand and documented the damage on twitter.

@javieraltman's Tweet:

@RodrigoBNO's Tweet:

@CarolinaMillan's Tweet: