John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing offers “5 reasons why businesses should use Facebook Places.”  He suggests:

• Facebook is building a suite of advertising tools that will allow you to list, claim and advertise your place on Facebook
• You no longer have to educate your customers – they all know what Facebook is
• People checking in at your business are naturally telling some part of the word about your business
• Offering coupons and special offers for people who check in is a natural way to tap the power of using online tools to drive offline sales.
• Data that you can collect on users and amount of times they checkin will prove extremely valuable in tracking customers and advertising spend

Read John’s full article here.

Now I’m a Foursquare finatic, so I’m not sure I will convert to Places or try to integrate the two location-based services into my social media strategy (but see this about 4sq integration plans).  I don’t play Foursquare (4sq) for the social gaming aspect (Facebook’s Places is not a game; only a networking tool) – except I’m curious how businesses will learn to reward extreme loyalty to those who are “mayors” of their place of business.  I mean, if there’s someone out there who is so fixated on returning over and over to your business, AND willing to socialize their loyalty to their friends on Foursquare, that’s a referral marketing dream – why wouldn’t you reward them with a coupon, a free this-or-that, or some reasonable acknowledgment.  By the way, here’s a reasonable argument on how Foursquare can beat our Facebook Places.

The one thing that intrigues me about Places is that there is ALOT of people doing it.  Foursquare has its adopters but it is far from mainstream.  Even the integrated gaming into Facebook annoys folks (“who cares if you checked-in?”!) because it imports graphical icons that look alot like Farmville which alot of people do, but it also annoys more of us!  But so many people are checking in on Places – perhaps some of the same people who earlier yelled at me, “who cares if you checked-in?”  Perhaps since it’s Facebook, it’s more tolerable in your news feed.

So the second bullet is most intriguing to me – Foursquare requires education.  Facebook doesn’t. The process of checking in somewhere is not complex on Foursquare OR Facebook Places – but people have an affinity for Facebook and they assume it is easier because it’s within the same Facebook culture.  Getting people to download another mobile app and then teaching them all the 4sq badges, etc….well, I can see how Places might take the place of Foursquare.

However, 4sq still has 4 million users which is maybe more than any other location-based service.  And as a result of the news of the launching of Facebook Places, did you hear that Foursquare had a record number of NEW subscribers?

OK – first of all I haven’t checked-in anywhere yet!

But I plan on it.

I have been using Foursquare for a while now and Donny has been using Gowalla.  Competiting location-based services (LBS), we decided we could divide and conquer and compare the two major LBS giants (there are plenty of other sites, not to mention Yelp).  There are others out there as well, but these are the ones we wanted to play with.

• If LBS is new to you, here’s a Wiki page about it (make sure you got your coffee first!)
• Here’s several articles about Foursquare that could help explain its advantages
• Here’s a forum on Gowalla’s site that (obviously biased, but they make their case why they are better)

Now Facebook Places is announced yesterday.  Rather than writing my own review (since I really haven’t experimented enough with it), here’s a good one from TechCrunch.

A couple of surprises:

• It’s only available in the U.S. – really?  I know they will roll it out internationally, but Foursquare did a huge deal with the recent World Cup in South Africa – why roll out something in a global social media economy that is only available in one country?  I think I would have waited.
• I also hear that it is not available everywhere in the U.S. yet.  Same question as before.  Really?
• Why call it “Places” when Google just recently announced their new “Pages” feature which is more geared toward local search?  Confusing.

I’ve got alot of ideas on how these LBS tools can be used by businesses and even churches to reward loyalty and encouraging social word-of-mouth (aka, “word-of-phone”).  This article from the NYTimes also highlights how Places will be used to compete with Google for advertising space (although I really don’t pay attention much to Facebook advertising now).  I’ll be curious if Facebook Places offers something special that taps into their overwhelming dominance in the social networking world.  Alot of research still to do.  But know that we’re looking into it for you!

-Randy

This morning, I’m sharing a few quick links to highlight some real practical articles on various social media tools:

Twitter: Scott Williams claims that while MySpace was once the thing, then Facebook, for him, Twitter is the best tool in his arsenal.

Foursquare (4sq): Still relatively new on the scene, Brian Solis describes Foursquare as “social currency” – if location-marketing doesn’t make sense to you, read even more about Foursquare here.

Facebook: If you’re a nonprofit, watch this video on harnessing the power of Facebook for raising money and awareness (this is no guarantee of your own future results!)

Blog: Here are 14 tactics to help you get the word out about your new business blog.

There are a number of basic realities of referral marketing.

• People make referrals because they need to – it’s built into who we are!  If we see something we like, we tell others.
• Referrals are risky because I’m putting my reputation at stake – so while it is inate to refer, I’m cautious to do so.
• Rarely do people talk about things they are bored with – so unless you offer relevancy, you’re not going to get mentioned by me
• When I have a consistent experience with you, I will more than likely become more trusting of you, thus referring you more . . .

These are just some of the realities of referral talked about in John Jantsch’s book, “The Referral Engine”.  As one of John’s Duct Tape Marketing authorized coaches, I am also allowed to give away a FREE download of the first chapter of his book where 5 realities of referrals are talked about in more detail.

Download a complimentary copy of Chapter 1 of “The Referral Engine” (link to my Duct Tape Marketing Coach page and see right sidebar)

Facebook Pages for your business offer a tangible opportunity that support a strong referral marketing system:

1. Having a dynamic, customized Facebook Page allows you to stay top-of-mind without having to leave Facebook. When communicating via Facebook about your business or nonprofit, consider the reality of Facebook culture:  people are in their “Facebook time” and don’t want to have to go elsewhere to read about you.  It’s like having some friends over for dinner, affording you opportunity to hear about their lives, their kids, their struggles – and the knock at the door is a man selling the latest money-saving device to come into the market.  The catch is that he wants you to leave your dinner party and go down to his store to see the product demonstration.  Sure, it could save you some money on your bottom line, but you don’t really want to miss out on time with friends.  So you say, “I’ll stop by later.”  Asking people via a Facebook status update (or Facebook ad) to “check out my website” will likely result in fewer results. While Facebook Pages do have custom features that allow you to bridge people to your hub (your site), a Facebook Page presence gives you a outpost within the Facebook culture where people can see  your wares, hear your story, and contemplate further dialog with you.
2. Having a dynamic Facebook Page gives you 0pt-in permission to remain top-of-mind with your Fans. At a minimum, having them opt-in to your Facebook Page is like getting them to opt-in to your email database.  To continue the story above, rather than standing at the door (in your status update) and asking guests to leave their dinner party (the “Facebook time”), I am extending an invitation for a 3-minute product demonstration right there in your home.  Because you want to save money where you can, you agree because you don’t have to miss out on time with your friends, but you also have easy access to something that is important to you that you don’t want to miss out on.  To further the analogy, you see the demo and you love it so much you not only ask for repeat demos, sign up for product information emails, but you also tell all your friends to put down their chips and guacamole and “come and take a look!” (see tagging reference below)
3. Having a dynamic Page customized showcases your very best – you have some incredibly practical instructional videos and rather than forcing your Fans to go off Facebook to visit your YouTube channel, why not important some of those videos onto a unique video tab. You may want to share your 3-4 most popular videos and then invite them to see more videos over on YouTube.  Once you’ve proven yourself to be relevant, they will have no problem leaving Facebook to go to YouTube.  Just don’t force them to go in the beginning.  You may also want to remind your potential/current Fans that you were on the local news lately, and that they can watch your 5-minute claim-to-fame on your Facebook landing page (here’s an example of how one franchisee shares about her segment on a local TV station – scroll to the bottom of their landing Page).  A nonprofit may even want to provide a simple way for interested Fans to make a quick donation – again, not asking the Fans of your nonprofit to leave Facebook to find out HOW to donate, but rather, provide them a custom tab where they can immediately see donation options.  Once they see the opportunities to do something significant, they are more likely to take the next step in actually giving you money.  Give them compelling reasons on Facebook and they will gladly step away from their “Facebook time” to make a difference.
4. Having a dynamic Facebook Page gives you a referable outpost for your Fans – with a simple tagging feature (here’s Donny’s easy video on “tagging” friends and Pages in your personal Facebook status), you afford your goldmine of Fans an easy opportunity to share with their friends about the impact your organization makes or about the kind of business you are.  In their own personal status updates, they can make reference to you and do so in a way that very likely increases more opt-in and new Fans!  Here’s a quick pic of how I used a recent status update to not only tag a friend, but refer my friends to 2 different nonprofit groups I love to talk about . . . the words in blue are linkable to directly to that person’s or Page’s Facebook page (see screenshot below; click to view larger image).

There’s a lot of clutter out there, too many distractions, and admittedly, we all miss important things because life is so busy all around us.  So while referrals are built into who we are, even the most important things are often not shared because they are “out of sight, out of mind.”  With Facebook Pages, you afford yourself a practical social media tool to stay engaged in the mind of your goldmine of referral sources.

View our gallery of custom Facebook Pages to get further ideas.

-Randy