Facebook Launches Local Place Tips Feature

With the launch of its new Place Tips feature, Facebook is going head-to-head with apps such as FourSquare and Yelp by providing information about local sights and restaurant tips based on a user’s location.

Facebook Place Tips will provide users with advice and information from the location’s Facebook Page as well as from people in their network who have been there. Place Tips will appear as a notification at the top of a user’s News Feed. By tapping on this notification, the user will see images, events, menu items, reviews and friends’ comments and posts about the location. This functionality is currently only available in limited areas on the Facebook app for iPhone, but will most likely be rolled out more expansively over time.

What sets Facebook Place Tips apart from Foursquare Tips?

While Foursquare Tips come from the general public, Facebook Place Tips are derived from the user’s own network and from the location’s Facebook Page. Additionally, the content that is provided by Place Tips is more varied and of a broader nature than its Foursquare counterpart.

“From friends’ recommendations to information about the places and things that interest you, Facebook helps you connect with the world around you,” wrote Facebook in its announcement. “Place Tips will show you fun, useful and relevant info about the place you’re at. Tapping on place tips won’t post on Facebook or show anyone where you are.”

In its announcement, Facebook provided the following screenshots to illustrate the type of content that users can expect to see via Place Tips.

Facebook users must opt-in in order to utilize Place Tips, by giving the app permission to access their location. The user’s location is determined through cellular networks, Wi-Fi and GPS. In addition to providing information about businesses, Place Tips can be about outdoor places, monuments and attractions. Facebook’s announcement indicates that the company is currently testing this functionality in places such as Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty and JFK Airport. Users can choose to set the app to hide Place Tips for particular locations at their discretion.

Facebook is also testing the use of beacons in selected locations in New York, including Dominique Ansel Bakery, Strand Book Store, The Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien Hotel, Brooklyn Bowl, Pianos, the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop, Veselka and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

What does the addition of Place Tips mean for marketers?

Due to the fact that the Place Tips information comes from the Facebook Pages of businesses as well as from the user’s network, marketers can increase the attention that they pay to their local Pages to get the most out of this new functionality. Enhancing the presence of locally oriented Facebook Pages will increase marketer’s control over what users will see in the Place Tips content as they approach the area of a particular business.

Additionally, although Facebook has indicated that there isn’t an offer/ad tie-in, it’s quite possible that Place Tips will provide a multitude of official promotional opportunities in the future. However, even if this doesn’t occur, there are already possibilities for businesses to utilize this feature for promotional purposes. Since some of the information will be coming from the official Facebook Pages of businesses, marketers can choose to post content that will encourage customers to visit, such as providing special offers of the day.

The addition of Place Tips is part of an ongoing strategy by Facebook of recognizing online-to-offline consumer behavior. The company recently revamped its Places Directory, updated Graph Search and expanded the availability of offline conversion tracking on its platform. The new Place Tips feature may very well prove to be a popular addition to the continuing expansion of the social media network.