Last week, Facebook announced the launch of Place Tips, a new feature on Facebook for iPhone.
What is Place Tips?
When you’re out and about, Place Tips uses your location to provide information about nearby businesses, such as restaurants, stores, and popular attractions in the area. When you tap on Place Tips, a series of cards will appear at the top of your News Feed showing images or posts your friends have shared from that location, customer reviews, upcoming events, popular menu items, and posts from the business’s Facebook page.
Place Tips will only appear if you enable location services on your mobile device, so you can turn Place Tips on and off whenever you’d like. Facebook stresses that this feature does not go against its Privacy Policy and assures that they won’t share your location with anyone unless you choose to do so.
As of right now, Place Tips has only launched on the Facebook iOS app. Since this is a developing feature, it is going to be tested in New York City first for the next few weeks before it continues to launch in other cities.
How can Place Tips help local businesses?
Facebook’s Place Tips benefits both consumers and businesses, because it can not only give consumers a better user experience on the app but also provides greater exposure to local businesses. When the average American spends about 40 minutes a day on Facebook alone, Place Tips has the potential to drive more foot traffic to local businesses and generate a higher social media marketing ROI.
Though Place Tips hasn’t rolled out in every city just yet, you can begin optimizing your business page in preparation. Ask customers to leave a review on your Facebook page, as studies show that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Post more images of your business, tag them with your address, and encourage customers to do the same so that when Place Tips does roll out, it will pull in those images.
As Facebook continues testing and improving it, Place Tips has great consumer value and marketing potential for local businesses. What do you think of Facebook’s Place Tips?