Improving Your Local Business Reach using Facebook Place Tips
It was last month when Facebook announced that they will roll out a new user opt-in feature known as the Place Tips. This feature displays notifications at the top of a user’s Facebook page for iPhone news feed when they are in a location where this new feature is active and there is content or ‘likes’ from friends relevant to local businesses in the vicinity. Some of the important facts you need to know about Facebook Place Tips are:
- This new feature is currently available only on Facebook app for iPhone.
- Facebook must opt-in to Place Tips by having location tracking and Place Tips both switched on in the iPhone apps settings.
- According to Facebook, for now Place Tips only work in “limited areas” and you can probably expect those areas to expand over time if the initial experiments seem to work well.
- You need to worry about privacy issues when using Place Tips as Facebook assures its users that it do not reveal the user’s location to other users nor it does create any posts to the user’s timeline.
- Place Tips are generated on a user’s mobile based on their location. The location information comes from cellular triangulation, GPS, and nearby WiFi. Also, the social media giant is testing with Bluetooth-enabled low energy beacons.
- The Bluetooth-enabled low energy beacons are being placed in a few partner business enterprises. They generate a signal that can trigger a Facebook Place Tip when the social media site users with Place Tips enabled are in the proximity.
Facebook Place Tips show the kind of content cards users will see after clicking a Place Tips link in their page news feed. The Place Tips card types consist of Friends’ Photos, Friends’ Posts, Info Card About the Location, Business-Specific Information, and Posts And Photos from the Business.
How to Utilize Facebook Place Tips to Your Benefits
At the present time Facebook Place Tips is only available to limited set of areas and businesses. It won’t take much time for social media site to provide this feature to users worldwide. So, for most local enterprises who want to benefit from Place Tips given below are some valuable tips that will help them to stay ahead of their competition in the local arena.
- Optimizing Your Facebook Page – You need to make sure that your Facebook Page is up-to-date and that all relevant information is present in it. In particular, pay attention to information regarding your location.
- Optimizing Your Facebook Posts – Even though Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm does not play any important role, social media optimization tips for Facebook are still relevant for helping businesses to create Facebook content especially for your fans.
- Regular Updates – You need to make sure that your Facebook page is regularly updated with fresh and relevant content. Not only you are providing relevant and useful information to your fans, you are also creating content that Place Tips can use when your followers/fans visit your local brick-and-mortar establishment.
- Sponsoring In-store Events Regularly – One of the categories that show in Place Tips cards are the events posted on your Facebook page. It stands to reason that if a Facebook user is nearby your place of local enterprise, and you have a special event that day, Place Tips will promote it to that user.
- Promoting Facebook Check-ins – If more customers are checking in to your business via Facebook that could be considered as a signal which indicate that your business should be visible on Place Tips. You need to post signs in your local establishment that will show your customers how to check-in, and perhaps give certain rewarding offers to those that do.
- Pushing User Generated Content – One of the main benefits of using Place Tips is that it will push user-generated-content about your local enterprise from friends to friends at the moment they are in a position to take action.
Facebook knows that for Place Tips to be a success it need content, and your objective should be to show the social media site in every possible way that your business matters to local users.
