With summer right around the corner, we thought it would be a great time to compare check-ins for twopopular ice-cream shops, Dairy Queen and Baskin Robbins.

Dairy Queen is a chain of quick-service restaurants serving both fast food and ice cream.  Dairy Queen has approximately 5,700 locations focused primarily in the United States. Baskin Robbins is also a chain, but exclusively serves ice cream. Baskin Robbins has approximately 5,800 locations, with only about half of those locations in the United States.

Let’s take a look at how each brand’s Foursquare check-ins compare for each brand.

Total Check-Ins: The number of check-ins that each brand has received across all its venues.­­

Baskin Robbins: 61,774

Dairy Queen: 74,692

In terms of total check-ins, Dairy Queen leads the way with nearly 13,000 more check-ins than Dairy Queen.  Spread over its 5,700 stores, this is about 2 check-ins more per store than Baskin Robbins.

Total People: The total number of people that have checked-in.  Unique people will be fewer than total check-ins, as people may check-in more than once at a location.

Baskin Robbins: 34,508

Dairy Queen: 44,855

Dairy Queen also has ten thousand more individual people that have checked-in at its locations than Baskin Robbins.

Wondering about which brands’ customers are more loyal? Looking at check-ins per user will provide some context around just how loyal these brands customers are.  (Higher is better.)

Baskin Robbins: 1.79

Dairy Queen: 1.69

While Dairy Queen has more total check-ins than Baskin Robbins, it appears that Baskin Robbins’ customers check-in slightly more often than Dairy Queen’s customers. However, the difference is negligible.

Customer Overlap

Using detailed check-in analysis, we can also compare each brand’s customer and determine the overlap in their customer bases.

Baskin Robbins: 6.3%

Dairy Queen: 2.2%

More than six percent of Baskin Robbins customers have checked-in at Dairy Queen, while only 2.2% of Dairy Queen’s customers have checked-in at Baskin Robbins. One possible explanation? Dairy Queen offers a wider menu than Baskin Robbins, which may attract a broad range of people that visit for hamburgers, hot dogs or ice cream.  Baskin Robbins only offers one particular type of product: ice cream.

Finally, let’s take a look at average Social Influence, which is an indicator of how influential a brand’s customers are in the social web.  (Max score is 10.)

Baskin Robbins: 2.3

Dairy Queen: 1.9

Baskin Robbins has a slightly higher Social Influence score than Dairy Queen.  Baskin-Robbins influence score of 2.3 is significantly higher than the average social influence of 1.8, while Dairy Queen hovers right around the median.

Summary

Both Baskin Robbins and Dairy Queen are seeing mild success with check-ins.  Dairy Queen is seeing slightly more success than Baskin Robbins in terms of sheer volume, while Baskin Robbins has a slight edge in terms of repeat customer check-ins.

What could either brand do to attract more customers and check-ins?  Should they start offering specials on Foursquare? Should they start running a check-in sweepstakes or contest to drive more check-ins? Let us know what you think in the comments!