Tag: Local Business

Facebook Updates Pages To Add More Website-Like Functions

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has added new tools to Pages to allow users to interact with local businesses without leaving the Facebook app. An update to the “call to action” button on Pages brings more options such as “Start Order,” “Book Now,” or “Buy Tickets,” which are powered by tech partners such as Delivery.com, Eventbrite, and Fandango, respectively. Even if the business is not using the services of those integrated tech partners, they can still manage bookings and answer quote inquiries with this update.  

What Brands Need To Do
This update builds out the business-oriented functions of Facebook Pages, making it easier for businesses to manage customer interactions. Instead of driving customers off Facebook and to their own websites, now businesses can provide online customers a more frictionless experience. As Facebook and other major digital platforms continue to make their sites more business-friendly, brands should take advantage of the available tools to modernize their customer experience.

 

Source: Facebook Business

Header image is a promotional image courtesy of Facebook Business

Uber And Visa Team Up For Rewards Program

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Visa is expanding its existing partnership with Uber to drive customer loyalty through a new rewards program called Uber Local Offers. Starting this week, Visa cardholders in San Francisco and Los Angeles can earn points toward discounted Uber rides when they use their Visa cards at select local businesses such as Barcito, Lucille’s Smokehouse BBQ, and Peet’s Coffee. They will earn one point for each $1 spent at an enrolled merchant—100 points lead to a $10 Uber discount.

What Brands Need To Do
This is not the first time Uber has tried to incorporate brands into rides. Last January, the company launched “Trip Experiences” to allow third-party apps to serve up notifications and content via Uber’s app to keep riders entertained during their trips. As Uber officially start rolling out its Local Offers program, brands should consider joining this rewards program to reach Uber’s urban and affluent users and leverage its booming popularity to build customer loyalty.

 

Source: AdAge

 

Facebook To Take On Yelp With Local Listings

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook is quietly testing a new feature that would make Yelp anxious. The social network has started to test out a new feature named “Facebook Professional Services” on its desktop site that will help users discover the best-rated and reviewed local service providers in their area.

What Brands Need To Do
As Facebook continues to make its platform more brand-friendly, brands should learn to use these new customer service tools and reach out to consumers on Facebook. Also, given that the local search results in a number of categories are pulled in from local businesses’ Pages, it is important that businesses and brands make sure their Page information is correct and up-to-date.

Source: The Verge

Facebook Offers Local Businesses Two New Awesome Ad Tools

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook’s local ads are about to get more powerful. On Thursday, the social network introduced two ad products that can greatly benefit local businesses. One is a free analytics tool called “Local Insights” that shows SMB owners the foot traffic around their stores, collected anonymously via the Facebook app’s location services. The other is a location-based ad tool that enables brands and multi-location businesses to dynamically change their Local Awareness Ads so that a user would see a slightly different ad copy depending on the store that they’re closest to.

What Brands Need To Do
The foot traffic tracking tool can help businesses better understand the groups of people near their store. By looking into aggregate demographics and local trends, which the “Local Insights” also provides, local businesses can see when their store would likely be busiest and adjust staffing and retail strategies accordingly. The new location-aware dynamic ads allow businesses to select which stores they want to run ads for, making ad targeting more effective. This also means businesses should create multiple Facebook Pages for different stores so that the call-to-action button in those ads can correctly direct users to the designated store’s Page.

 

Source: AdWeek

Fliike Is Your Real-World “Like” Counter

Posted on by Lab Team

French startup Smiirl has created the Fliike, a design-oriented display of a simple metric of increasing importance to small business owners: their Facebook likes.  The Fliike is meant to be displayed in a storefront to bridge the gap between a business’ physical and virtual presences.  The Internet of Things is hardly a new concept, but Smiirl’s delivery of it in such an elegant package could redirect the Internet of Things movement towards simple, single-data-point-driven devices providing the link between the digital and physical worlds.