Facebook introducing Place Tips in USA

Facebook is finally introducing Place Tips program to all users in the USA after the six months of the initial trial. Places Tips will provide all information about that specific location to users when they enter the location. This information could be the friend’s recommendations, reviews or recent check-ins etc.

Place Tips will help users to connect with the place when they visit the location. It will collect all the important information about the locations like posts from the business owner, upcoming events, friends’ recommendations, recent check ins, photos taken at that location and reviews of the place. It will be shown to the in-store visitors on the top of the news feed. Suppose you enter into a restaurant, place tips will show you the menu, reviews, most frequently shared information about that restaurant, best table, Photos of yours at the restaurant, etc. It can also help users to find the popular product or the busiest hours of the store.

Every store/location has a unique place tips. Store owners can add the custom welcome message to offer a delightful customer experience. You can also promote your specific product or share the information about the upcoming events at that location. Since the company has started testing this feature, they have noticed a steady increase in the page visits from the in-store visitors.

Users who have given the location access permission to the Facebook app will get the place tips. It is not a compulsory update. You can turn off the Place Tips anytime in your settings or you can also turn off the tips for some specific locations only. Facebook determines your location using the cellular networks, Wi-Fi and GPS. Facebook has also developed a separate Bluetooth device Beacon to determine the location. Facebook is testing place tips using Bluetooth Beacon at certain locations.

Mark Zuckerberg explained about the Beacon –

These beacons use Bluetooth technology to send a one-way signal to the Facebook app on your visitors’ phones to help us show them the right information.

The beacons don’t collect any information from people or their phones or change the kind of location information Facebook receives. They’re designed not to disrupt the operation of your Wi-Fi or other equipment.

Only people who have enabled location services on their phone and have Bluetooth turned on will receive Place Tips from the beacon at your business.

So, users who have enabled location services and kept the Bluetooth on will be getting the Place Tips on their devices from beacons. Good news for the retailers in the USA is that Facebook is offering beacon devices for free to some of the retailers. The only criterion is that your Facebook business page should be favorably active and should have ample information to share with the users. So the pages with more photos, check-ins and status updates are more likely to receive the device from Facebook. You can request a beacon for your store in USA here.

Facebook has announced on their blog that Place Tips is  available for Apple users in the USA from 8^th June 2015. Android users have to wait for a while, as android version is still in development phase. Hopefully it will be available for Android users as well pretty soon.