Last week, Foursquare announced a slew of new merchant tools that give business owners more power than ever before to communicate with their customers through the location-based platform. Before, business owners could claim their venues, set up a special and let the platform take it from there — it was more of a passive marketing tool. The new additions makeFoursquare‘s local updates far more dynamic, and they leverage location-based marketing in a more targeted way thanFacebook and Twitter. The revamp has several parts:

• Updates — Share photos, specials and news to nearby customers, a la tweets or Facebook status updates
• Specials — Create and manage Foursquare specials (no change here, aside from a sleeker interface)
• Dashboard — See stats about who checked in, and how your venue traffic changes from month to month
• Tools — Manage your business’ presence on Foursquare, including adding new managers and editing your venues.