Facebook Deals
In the beginning of November 2010 Facebook-CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced the new service “Deals” in San Francisco: In the future companies can add all their subsidiaries on their Facebook Places and hence be located easily. They can also offer special bargain offers exclusively to Facebook members who check in at their Places. Initially “Deals” is available in Germany only for the fashion chain store H&M, but as is the usual practice in Facebook, it won’t take long for this service to be accessible on a wider scale to other companies.
Thus, today, we are showing two possibilities as to how the combination of Facebook Places and Facebook Deals can make the dream of many marketers and bargain-hunters come true:
Marketing with Facebook Places and Deals
What can the companies achieve with Facebook Places and Facebook Deals?
With Facebook Places the user can check-in at his current location for e.g. a restaurant, a concert or a railway station on his smart-phone. This only signifies that the user indicates his location on the Facebook application and inbuilt GPS receiver of the smart-phone and thus becomes visible to his friends on a map.
Places can be added by the users themselves or registered by companies. Facebook Places is especially interesting for marketers as each subsidiary of the company can get its own Place-Page and can advertise special price offers on the so called Place-statusupdates. Moreover Facebook-users have a rapid access to all the important information along with a map of the surrounding areas.
Facebook Places get really attractive for marketing purpose only with the arrival of recent Facebook Deals service. These Deals are offers which are published uniquely on Facebook and which can be used by a Facebook-user, only if he checks in at the appropriate place. Here’s an example from the USA: The first 10,000 Facebook-users, who checked in at the fashion chain GAP were rewarded with a free pair of jeans. Companies of all sizes and belonging to different braches can benefit from Facebook Deals in several ways:
- Attracting attention of potential customers: If an user approaches a shop or a restaurant the latest Deals appear on his cell phone – a big incentive for a spontaneous visit and check-in.
- Visibility through the viral effect: When a user checks in at a place, this action is released in the news feed. Thereby the check-in as well as the Deal becomes immediately visible to an average 130 friends of the user.
- Rewarding loyal customers: Regular customers can be rewarded with Facebook Deals for e.g. for their regular check-ins.
Four Categories of Deals:
Facebook Deals is divided into four categories:
Individual Deal
The customer is rewarded with a one-off special offer for his check-in. For e.g. one can think of possibilities such as a free give-away on purchase, discount on purchase, or a new product at a really favourable price. This can also promote stock clearance sales.
Friend Deal
In case of a Friend Deal several friends have to check-in at the same place in order to bring-off the Deal. The number of friends is limited to eight in such cases. The marketer will find it more interesting as this triggers off a bigger viral-effect as opposed to an individual deal, as several users redeem the offer and thereby release an action in the Newsfeed.
Loyalty Deal
This Deal can be compared to a loyalty card. Facebook-users are rewarded for their regular visits: After a certain number of check-ins at the same place, the user can use his special offer.
Charity Deal
For each check-in by a Facebook-user, the company donates a fixed amount to the Charity Deal. Yet another example from the USA: McDonald’s und Starbucks donate one Dollar for charity purposes for Deals-customers.