If you’re on Facebook, and use a smart phone, you’ve probably noticed…

…a new feature called Facebook Places.

Facebook Places allows people to:

• “check in” at wherever they’re at, and
• post a description of what they’re doing.

For businesses that have a store, or an office, it’s a great awareness generator.

Many businesses are starting to leverage strategies to attract people using Facebook Places, and a similar service, the more popular “Foursquare” to build traffic, increase loyalty and sales at their location(s).

Read about McDonald’s increasing foot traffic on “Foursquare Day”.

Here’s an example of me “checking in” at ISG’s headquarters:

Last week, I took some time to:

1. create a place for our business, and
2. properly claim our business (assuring we were the owner, in Facebook’s eyes, of our business information – more on this later).

You might be asking –

Why do I need to create a Facebook Place for my business & then claim it?

The answer is simple – before someone else does (i.e. your competition), and to assure your information is entered properly.

Side note: Here’s why you need to assure you’re the owner of your online business listings (usually, your business is unclaimed) –

Over the last four weeks, I’ve seen my first instances of businesses knowingly ‘claiming’ their competitors’ listings (in Google Business Listings, specifically), and have started my own campaign to assure people know to GetListed — most importantly, claiming their own businesses!

In one case a business not only ‘claimed’ their competitor’s Google business listing, but redirected the phone calls, and web site address as well!

Bottom line – take 20 minutes to GetListed, and then assure you’re also creating/claiming your business on Facebook Places, too!

Here’s complete directions for how to create a Facebook Place for your business:

1. Assure you’re at your business location – the location you want to create a “Facebook Place” for.
2. In the Facebook Places option in your smart phone, you’ll need to “Check In”.
3. It will provide a list of nearby places, if your business isn’t listed, you’ll want to press the + symbol.
4. You’ll want to use your best punctuation & grammar and enter your business name (you get once chance at this!), and a description of your business (use keyword enriched words, if possible!)
5. Press Done.
6. Now “Check In” at your business!

In a future blog post, I’ll cover the proper way to claim your business in Facebook Places (if you want to get started, you simply click the “Is this your business?” link — you can see it in the above photo).

Learn more about Facebook Places, or let me know if you have any questions, concerns or comments directly, or by commenting below.

Enjoy!

Charly