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The New and Improved Facebook Places | DrivingSales News

The New and Improved Facebook Places

November 13, 2014 0 Comments

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Ever-so-quietly, Facebook has gotten (back) into the location-based directory business with its revamped Places platform. Yes, the site that has you networking with friends and colleagues is now using the very data we input onto the site to give you the most up-to-date reviews, tips, and things to see and do around your favorite cities. And to boot, it looks great. Not bad for a project that was deemed a failure just three short years ago.

Here’s the deal: Facebook Places now combines sleek design, location API, and graph search queries to bring users the best of what a town has to offer. Local businesses with Facebook pages, likes, tags and user-generated content such as pictures offer a crowdsourced guide to the cities and towns they are curious about. Best of all, it seems to be optimized to Facebook’s mobile platform, which allows users to get information quickly while on the go — maybe even en route to the place they found using Places. Way better than a simple list of random items thrown together, which can get boring quickly.

Some cool features about Places include the following:

City Search: A beautiful cover photo invites users the opportunity to search whatever city they want—the first step in discovering all of the user-generated content about the city they choose. In addition, Facebook can show users popular places based on where they are currently located. Whether they embark on an international search or stumble upon a mom and pop shop they never know about in their own backyard.

Discovery: Once a city is decided on and searched for, the results page is a collage of user-generated content that shows you local information in six main categories: restaurants, hotels, bars, cafes, public  attractions, and arts/entertainment. Pictures display business info (location, hours, reviews, etc) and various comments from users’ friends if they’ve used the “check in” function there.

Just the facts: Thanks to Graph search, a query view displays a list of local businesses with all of the information if a user is just looking for the most important info while making a quick decision or just browsing.

So what’s the big deal about Places for your business, and why does it matter to you? 1) Places gives your Facebook page an added boost if you’ve already been successful in engaging your customers to talk with and about you regarding what you have to offer, and helps to spread the word to others, local and international. Better yet, it gives you an incentive to increase your engagement if you haven’t done so already. 2) Places offers the genuine aspect of user-generated content and immediate, honest feedback about your business—in other words, you know exactly what people are saying about you, whether they leave a review, check in or take a crazy picture with their friends and happen to mention you.

How will Places work for you? The possibilities are endless, especially since Facebook is far from finished in terms of developing this platform—there are rumors that this may eventually end up being completely mobile in its execution of content delivery to users. Why not be a part of (and benefit from) the process?

About the Author:

The DrivingSales News team is dedicated to breaking the relevant and the tough stories affecting car dealers. Have questions for DrivingSales News? Reach the team at news@drivingsales.com.

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