Facebook Places Marketing - An Introduction

Facebook Places - Intro Marketing Tips for your Business

Facebook places is an application that allows users to check in and promote their specific locations to the friends, family and favorite brands.  There are already many applications that provide this service such as Foursquare, GoWalla, and Loopt just to name a few.  And some of these applications already have a large scale of customers.  So when Facebook announced that it was going to get involved in the location based market, critics scratched their heads as to how this would all play out?  So instead of having an all out war with every location based service, Facebook decided to collaborate with them and provide "places" as a product that brings some of them together.  Allowing places integration with other location based updates from other brands.

The whole concept of geolocation is to provide more transparency between friends that share their life experiences.  Of course the other side of it is for business - if businesses know where their customers or potential customers are located that is a goldmine of marketing information with a lot of potential.  This is an intro guide to marketing tips for Facebook Places.

Who Can Utilize Facebook Places?

Right now, Facebook places is available as an iPhone application and also via their website if your phone supports HTML 5 and geolocation.  They are also rolling out the application to Android and Blackberry but there is no official date released yet.  So iPhone users will have the first crack at Facebook Places.

Checking in

Much like the other location based applications, when you want to announce your location you choose to "check-in."  On the Facebook app, tapping the "check in" button will prompt the app to map your location and provide the nearest business, landmarks, etc. around you.  Once you check in, your location will be posted on your friends typical news feeds whether or not they have places enabled on their phone.  Businesses will have yet another exposure channel with places, as friends check in's can lead on-lookers to investigate the location and interact with the brand/business.

What Can You Include with your Check-In? 

You can include a few details with your check in:

The first being a friend tag.  Much like tagging your friends in photos and videos, you can tag your friend in your update - showing that you are at this location with these people.  This feature is important to marketers due to the group effect.  If a person shows that they are checked in with many friends you may have more incentive to market to that person that someone who is checking in solo.

There is also a "People Here Now" feature that allows users to see who else is currently at and around their location.  Seem Creepy?  If so Facebook does allow users to turn this feature off if you don't want strangers seeing that you are around them.  This feature will be useful for networking events.  Marketers that attend these events usually have some idea of who else is attending but this feature will allow them to see and potentially interact with people they DIDN'T know would be there.  This could open doors for networking in that a marketer can leave that meeting knowing with close to 100% certainty that they met anyone they HAD to meet.

What if I Don't Want to Broadcast it ... But Want to Check in?

Facebook has put a lot of time into ensuring this application upholds the highest levels of personal privacy wishes.  Users are allowed to check in and not share their check in's with friends.  They are also notified each time they have been tagged by another friend and are given the option of accepting or deferring that tag.  You can completely remove the option of being tagged by going to settings and deselecting "Let Friends Tag Me."  The application settings also allow the user to control who sees their location right down to the very person.  You can customize your updates to be seen by friends, friends of friends, everyone (public), or just the people you specify.

  Is this a marketers nightmare?  No, allowing people the space to privatize their life is always a smart move for marketers, the trick is getting them to WANT you to see.  Marketers will have to offer incentives to people in order to break privacy concerns.  Just more motivation in my eyes.

Comments

Users can also leave comments about the places they are visiting.  Foursquare allows "shout-outs" and this is no different.  For marketers, the comments function is a good and bad feature.  The good - a visitor loves the location and the services or activity associated with it.  The bad - the user thinks the exact opposite and starts bad mouthing the whole experience.  Basically marketers should figure out a way to control these comments like they control all their social conversation.  Track the comments and offer customer service to those who need it in near real time and/or offer rewards to customers who give you positive word-of-mouth

Push Notifications

Push notifications can be turned on through settings to show the user when their friends are nearby.  If I am hanging out at the Argo Tea Shop on the corner and my friend is a block away, some days I would never know.  If both friends have Places, they can see that they are not far from one another and arrange to meet and say hi.  Who ever said the digital age kills personal interaction?  For marketing, become friends with your customers and when they are nearby, you have the option of offering them an incentive to stop by and visit.  Like giving flyers away outside but waaaayyyy more cool and they feel more special as a customer because the message can be personalized.  Be as personal as you can be and you improve your chances of winning that customer over.

Create a Place for your Business

Here is the link for you to create a "place" for you business. Highly recommended by us. It can't hurt?  But make sure to check if you business is already within their location database. Create a Place for your Business 

Facebook Has a Brief Guide for Advertisers

This guide will give you more detailed information on advertising with Places.  Facebook Placed Advertising Guide.

A Few Points

• Right now users are not allowed to edit "places." Foursquare and other location based services do allow users to edit places, but for now Facebook has their own database of location information that they pull from

• Locations that are brands such as Target Stores, do not have direct links to their Facebook pages or website.  If they form an advertising partnership with FB this may available

****Check Back in a few weeks for more marketing tips with Places and an updated guide***

Comments

[search engine placement]

These application can allows the user to promote and their specific location with having so many favourite brands. This feature will be useful for networking events. Marketers that attend these events usually have some idea of who else is attending but this feature will allow them.

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A major advantage that Facebook has more places competing services such as Four Square, and Yelp is that it has a social network of more than half a billion users.

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