Recently updates were announced that will make it easier for local businesses, specifically, to increase their exposure on Facebook, and effectively utilize the strategy of word of mouth.
Recommendations: This is a new feature that has been added to Pages. Users are now able to include text, photos, and related business tags when leaving a review of your business. If these reviews are going to be seen, having text with at least 25 characters is what will count. Recommendations can be clearly seen on Pages.
What are business related tags? These tags will make it clear what your business is known for. Which means, you’ll be categorized and easily found when users make related searches or seek business recommendations. These tags essentially work like hashtags. This is good news as it has the potential to make your business recognizable.
But what if your business receives a fake review or false keywords are used? Facebook has given Pages the ability to report Recommendations content that is fraudulent, spam, or paid for.
Action buttons: These buttons will be more prominent on your page. That means your visitors, with ease, can book an appointment, order food, send a message, or write a Recommendation. These buttons are based off of the template you’ve chosen for your Page. Now the actions of your users can be specifically directed to them.
Page stories: With one simple click on your Page profile picture, your stories are made visible.
According to Social Media Today, in addition to these updates, Facebook’s also rolling out:
Updated product and services listings: Pages will now be able to feature information like hours, price range, Recommendations or a restaurant menu more prominently on their Pages, while service businesses will be able to highlight new content “such as your most recent Events and Offers”.
Selling event tickets: Facebook’s also making it easier for businesses to sell tickets for Events directly on their Facebook Pages with new ticketing integrations. Facebook’s also adding new event-specific ad options to make promotion easier.
Expanding job listings to all regions: And lastly, Facebook’s expanding its Page job listings to all people and businesses across the world. Facebook first opened job listings to North American businesses last year, and expanded them to more regions back in March. The option will be available on all Pages, globally, “within the next few months”.
Author: Katey Crean, Hello Social Co.