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Tag: Facebook Place TIps

  • Facebook Uses Place Tips For Live Event Feature

    Earlier this year, Facebook debuted Place Tips, a feature that puts tips at the top of users’ News Feed when they’re at various places. You can open the feature to see posts and photos from friends related to a particular place, as well as updates from the place itself. They appear when a user is actually at the place as it detects the user’s location.

    The feature was announced in January, but rolled out to some U.S. small businesses in June. Now, Facebook is utilizing the feature to generate engagement around live events.

    Reports have come out about Facebook showing users Place Tips around Lollapalooza, positioning the feature as a push to compete with Twitter and Snapchat. Facebook began testing the feature on Friday from Chicago where the music festival is held.

    The Wall Street Journal reports:

    For the first time with Lollapalooza, Facebook is making that information available remotely.
     
    “This Place Tips Lollapalooza experience is just one of the many ways Facebook is trying to help people get the feel of an event when they’re not there,” a spokeswoman for Facebook said in an email.

    It’s early days for this, but it’s easy to see a lot of potential for the feature both in terms of making Facebook a more engaging experience for live events, and for places that hold events to capture more engagement. It will be interesting to see how far the company takes this.

    If it ever decides to push the feature on a localized basis, there could be some interesting for businesses who participate in town events, for example. It also seems possible they could target niche events based on interest. Facebook has a lot of great targeting capabilities, and there’s no apparent reason they couldn’t be applied to a feature like this.

    Image via Facebook

  • Facebook Offers Place Tips To U.S. Small Businesses

    You know how Facebook has been doing a lot of things that cater to small businesses lately? That continues as the company starts to roll out a major way for brick-and-mortars to get relevant content in front of potential customers.

    Facebook announced that it’s expanding Place Tips support to SMBs across the United States. This enables customers to better engage with businesses from within their physical stores.

    Introducing Place Tips in News Feed from Facebook on Vimeo.

    “Place Tips (first introduced in January) is an optional feature that gathers useful information about a business/landmark—like posts from the business’ Page, upcoming events and friends’ recommendations and check-ins—and shows it at the top of News Feed to in-store visitors,” explains a Facebook spokesperson. “Over the last six months, local businesses that have tried Place Tips saw an increase in Page traffic from in-store visitors. Now, any US-based SMB can sign up to request a Facebook Bluetooth beacon (at the bottom of this new website) to help ensure their customers see Place Tips.”

    “To improve the customer experience, businesses can write a customizable welcome note that appears at the top of the Place Tips feed and use it to promote items or share facts and tips about their establishment,” Facebook explains in a blog post. “A bookstore could use the welcome note to tell visitors where a book signing is happening in the store, while a popular deli may share menu items that famous people have ordered.”

    “Place Tips are shown to people who are in store and who have given Facebook permission to access their location on their phone,” it adds. “They’re also shown to people who check in to the business on Facebook. Because Place Tips are personalized and designed to be useful, we only show them when there is enough content from the business and a person’s friends to offer an enjoyable experience.”

    To take advantage of the feature, businesses can get a free beacon from Facebook. It’s prioritizing businesses with active Pages full of content, including photos, check-ins, and status updates from both the business and its customers. You can request one here.

    Update: A Facebook spokesperson tells us: “Place Tips can be seen on the Facebook app for both iOS and Android, it’s only iPhones that can connect with the physical beacons for now.”

    Images via Facebook

  • Facebook Puts Businesses In Present Users’ News Feeds With Place Tips

    Facebook just announced the launch of a new Place Tips feature, which is (for now) only available on iPhone. For some reason, Facebook is showing this off in a Vimeo video rather than a Facebook video, which it has been talking up all month:

    Introducing Place Tips in News Feed from Facebook on Vimeo.

    These are tips that appear at the top of your News Feed when you’re at various places.

    You can open it, and see posts and photos from friends regarding the place. It also shows updates from the place itself. This information is presented by way of cards:

    “Your location is determined using cellular networks, Wi-Fi and GPS,” explains product manager Mike LeBeau. “In the coming weeks, we’ll be testing place tips using these signals in places like Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty and JFK Airport.”

    “In certain places, we’re also testing place tips using Facebook Bluetooth beacons, which send a signal to your phone that helps us show you the right tips for the right place,” he adds. “We’ll be testing these in a handful of businesses in New York such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dominique Ansel Bakery, Strand Book Store, the burger joint at Le Parker Meridien Hotel, Brooklyn Bowl, Pianos, the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop and Veselka.”

    Here’s what the beacons look like:

    Place Tips can be turned off in the settings, and opening them won’t post on Facebook or show anybody where you are.

    Images via Facebook