Facebook Places is a mobile application allowing people to check-in at business locations. It began as a response to other location structured social media like Foursquare and Gowalla. Businesses can create a “Place” allowing users to check-in with their mobile Facebook applications. Through Facebook Places, members can receive special deals, and share or tag their location with friends on Facebook. This type of promotion for businesses works well to increase visibility. The more people check into a location the more the business gets exposure, which encourages potential customers to give the business a chance.
Facebook Places plays an important role for brick and mortar businesses. Primarily, it’s another way for your business to appear in News Feeds. It also enables businesses to announce discounts and promos for people that find you through a friend’s News Feed. Basically, Facebook Places provide more chances to achieve wider exposure to the more than 800 million Facebook users.
Facebook Places Versus Pages
Even though Facebook Places is a good move for the social media giant, it has caused much confusion for businesses and their owners. Many businesses already employ groups, fan or business pages, and additionally personal profiles. Having to add another layer of linking with Facebook Places can leave business owners bewildered.
The Facebook Page gives you the opportunity to connect with ‘fans’ and post updates about the business. The majority of users are familiar with Pages and the “like” button. Your Page will let fans learn about your business, post on your wall, add to your photo album, giving fans the ability to interact and be a part of your business.
The Facebook Places allow people to check-in to your business, which notifies their friends of the activity. Users can ‘like’ a Facebook Place and encourage other visitors to hit the “like” button after they check-in. Facebook Places will maintain itself and does not require a lot of management resources. It acts as a valuable tool in spreading your business through Facebook.
Facebook Places and the Recent Update
The most significant part of the recent Facebook update focuses on Facebook Places. It specifically targets how check-ins are measured. With the goal of accurately reflecting how many people have visited the ‘Place’, Facebook has changed their calculation methods.
Multiple visits during a 12 hour period will now count as a single check-in. Before, each individual check-in was added to your business’ total. Furthermore if a user uploads a photo and then tags friends at the location, each person will be considered a separate check-in. If someone uploads a bunch of pictures from a location, Facebook will only credit that as a single check-in.
The Facebook update went into effect at the beginning of April. The change is should be now be fully implemented. So if you have noticed a change in your check-in tally, it is more than likely the result of this new update.
