Facebook Expands Availability Of Place Tips

Facebook first introduced Place Tips in January as a way for businesses to serve marketing messages to people visiting their real-world locations. Although some dealerships are still not convinced that Facebook has a high enough ROI to warrant significant investment, its worth investigating the tools that the social media giant has on hand, many of which may prove highly valuable for a wide range of marketing initiatives.

When users either check in at a location or have their location settings activated in Facebook mobile apps, Place Tips offers advice, recommendations and other information from friends who have visited the location, as well as from the business itself. Place Tips gives local businesses a prime opportunity to connect to consumers, as it shows up at the top of the News Feed for people who are in stores or other locations. Facebook explains that each users’ Place Tips are unique.

“At a restaurant, Place Tips can show the menu, reviews and frequently mentioned information about the establishment, like a signature cocktail or popular table,” Facebook wrote in a blog post. “Place Tips for a retail store can help customers find business hours, locate popular items and learn about upcoming events.”

Businesses can develop creative ways to utilize the technology to improve the customer experience, such as writing a welcome note that appears at the top of the Place Tips feed, which can be used to promote items, share tips, or offer other insights into the business and its products. Dealerships could use Place Tips to promote special deals or to show new vehicles as they become available for purchase.

The social media giant explains that Place Tips have caused “a steady uptick in Page traffic from in-store visitors” for local businesses that are using them. Now, Facebook has announced a way for more businesses to optimize their Place Tips. After an experimental initial trial in New York City, the company will now start offering free Bluetooth beacons to a larger number of businesses across the country.

Facebook tracks users’ location using cell tower and Wi-Fi triangulation and GPS location, but the beacons are actually the most effective way to trigger Place Tips, at least for those who are using Facebook’s iPhone app. At this point, Android users are served Place Tips through other location signals, but a Facebook representative explained that Android support for beaconing triggering will be coming soon.

Many companies have reported initial success when using Place Tips, and Facebook provided some quotes to illustrate the value of its tool.

“We love that someone can come into our store and check Place Tips on their phone to see that a friend of theirs has checked in here and posted photos, or even that there’s an in-store event coming up soon,” said Brianne Sperber, Director of Marketing, Strand Book Store. “Place Tips gives us a new way to connect with our customers and get our Facebook Page content in front of the people who visit us. We’ve seen some promising early results to that end.”

Dealerships who want to apply for a free beacon can sign up here, The company explains that those who have active Facebook Pages will be given priority, because Place Tips are only shown to people when there is “enough content from the business and a person’s friends to offer an enjoyable experience.”