Facebook has formally announced the launch of an updated ‘Nearby’ Tab to its patrons, in what some believe is treading into a territory hitherto dominated by Foursquare and Yelp. If you are already a Facebook user, it will be available to you as a tab. You can give it a try by trying to locate a restaurant or a salon to spend the evening today. You can use ‘Nearby’ by downloading the appropriate app depending on whether you have an iOS or Android mobile phone.
Using ‘Nearby’ is really cool stuff. All that one has to do is, use the left hand menu and find out where exactly your friends on Facebook account are spending their time. If they have checked into a hotel or found an interesting place to dine, you will see it right there on your mobile. Besides, there are also options to locate businesses like restaurants and salons, although not restricted to these. Once you have landed on a particular location, you can tap the location to know who has been there earlier or when the business is open.
It is not always a necessity that you have to be getting recommendations, if you discover an interesting place that you think your friends and relatives on Facebook need to experience, you can do that too on ‘Nearby’. By recommending places you also get the opportunity to become more personalized. What’s more if you have a Facebook page with a location; you get the opportunity to get your business discovered by an estimated 600 million people. Spreading word about your business could never have been easier than that.
In spite of all the information readily available on the Internet, when it comes to selecting personalized services, like a place to dine or spend the evening, nothing can beat word of mouth recommendations. And remember, that is what ‘Nearby’ is all about. Whether you are satisfied or you have reasons to believe otherwise, you can always let your friends and relatives know about it. That way, you can give everyone an opportunity to experience the pleasantness you have been through. It is also a great way to promote your business online. It can even help bring in more traffic to your Facebook page.
You can effectively use ‘Nearby’ to bring in more customers to your business; after all that is the purpose why most businesses keep a live Facebook page and keep it updated frequently. To make your Facebook work harder you should optimize your information. When you optimize, give your readers your phone number, store hours, business details and address so that you can be reached. It will give you double benefits. Not only will you see more traffic coming into your website, but you will also get that much needed honest opinion from people who use your services.
However, as of now, the information available on ‘Nearby’ may be limited, considering that it has been introduced recently. But this situation is soon to change dramatically once people take to ‘Nearby’ in a big way. Facebook is also planning to buy third-party information in the near future, and when that happens you should be getting a more fulfilling experience. In the meanwhile, try categorizing your business to make it easy for your prospective customers and also encourage visitors to rate your business. In the days ahead you can expect ‘Nearby’ to come up with more innovative features, according to officials from Facebook.
In the meanwhile, ‘Foursquare,’ like ‘Nearby’ has also updated its app, presumably with an eye on the competing Yelp, though it is only for the iOS for now. One of the noteworthy features of the update is the ability to display information like ratings, tips and alerts. However, what set ‘Foursquare’ apart from ‘Nearby’ are the offers of badges and other incentives to users. It has also come to notice that ‘Foursquare’ and ‘Apple’ are already in talks for sharing location data to take on Google in the battle for providing better map services. Once it materializes, it can really work to the advantage of both stake holders, with Apple users getting more localized information.
According to Facebook’s statement, it has over a billion users worldwide and 250 million are reported to be using ‘Nearby’ in a big way.
This is a guest post by Lance Goodman of dishtvoffer.com, a site that offers savings and current information on Dish TV. Visit the site to find current dish promotions, as well as.com services.
