Here is the short movie that explains it all, more info after the jump :)
Compare Facebook Places with the “Like Button”, that button, allowed Facebook to become part of every website in the world. Now the platform can become part of any website, mobile application or campaign that can utilize knowing a user’s (and their friends’) location. This will be a big step for brands that have customer POS (“point of sale”) or POI (“points of interaction”). As the internet continues its migration beyond the desktop, people will explore new ways to leverage access wherever they are.Source
So if you are a brand in the US, get involved and claim your POS and POI today before someone else does and if you’re not from the US start thinking about it! Just like on FourSquare, anyone can establish a place. Three reasons why that matters:
You want to put your best foot forward. When folks go to check-in at your location, you want them to see the best, most accurate information not some half-baked entry or worse from an unaffiliated user
You want to harness the content and social graph of users willing to check-in at your location and that will be most impactful if you have established one, comprehensive listing for your business. As a brand, you want to have as many people as possible checking in to your official Facebook Places. You want to consolidate the reach of their social graph around your best location(s). Remember when they check-in, they are broadcasting a message via their New Feed to all of their friends – “hey I just arrived at Pete’s pizza…”
You want to start accruing the benefit of consumer generated media which is what gets created when folks check-in at your location. Brand presence today is created by third parties. That’s what is most credible and most scalable.
Here’s how Inside Facebook sums it up:
“In other words, any business or other organization with a physical presence should make sure to claim and manage their Place page. The most immediate reason is that lots of users will be generating content on the page, with or without an admin to moderate it. The more important reason, though, is that Places is a promising new way to connect with customers, clients and partners.”
What You Should Do
Do three things today to prepare you for a fuller use of Facebook Places. There is little risk inherent in these initial steps save for the effort involved in taking them. For brands with hundreds or thousands of POS/POI’s the combined effort may be significant. And currently Facebook functionality requires individual entries created from the actual geolocation. In other words, the store managers will need to do this.
Claim or establish your business inside Facebook Places - Inside Facebook has the best DIY guide to setting up and/or claiming places for your brand. This site, in general, is a terrific resource to understand Facebook and it remains one of my daily feeds/reads.
If you are brand with many locations, create a template of ‘best-practice’ information and circulate to POS/POI managers to implement
Make it someone’s job to monitor your Places check-ins
More advanced steps – if you are farther along with location-based marketing and/or consumer reviews then you are likely all over this already. You will want to jump ahead and prepare to use the service more proactively:
1 - Create a response plan much like you would for FourSquare or Twitter such that you can reach out to loyalists who check-in at your locations and/or triage customer service issues should they complain via that feature.
2 - Build a promotion around ‘check-ins’ to reward the behavior and build usage. Brands have quickly learned how to use the Facebook “Like” feature to promote social graph pass-alongs. Now do it with check-ins by rewarding the behavior
3 - Add a Facebook Places section to your “Social Media Guidelines”.
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