FACEBOOK HAS taken a further step from the virtual to the real world with the launch of Facebook Deals, an initiative allowing retailers to provide special offers when Facebook users “check in” at their venues.
Users of Facebook’s mobile app – of which there may be 400,000 in Ireland, according to the social network – can check in at venues to share their location with friends using a feature called Places.
Eight launch partners – Insomnia coffee shops, Milano pizza restaurants, the Guinness Storehouse, retailer Champion Sports, mobile network Meteor, grocer SuperValu, fashion chain A-Wear and insurer Axa – are providing discounts, free products or charitable donations when people check in at their premises.
The advertisers are not being charged to use the service, confirmed Emily White, Facebook’s director of local, and the company is not sharing users’ personal data with other businesses.
“This is really early for us and we are trying to understand what level of reporting is valuable to the retailer,” said White.
Some of the deals are provided if friends and family are brought to a venue, but the brands using Deals also benefit because users’ interaction with them is broadcast to their friends on the social network. The average Facebook user now has 130 friends.
Ms White said retailers were extremely keen to use the service.
“They love the idea that someone is doing something in their shop and they have the chance to influence that and get them to tell their friends and take advantage of word-of-mouth marketing at scale,” she said.
Facebook has launched the service in other markets, including the US and Britain, where it has proven popular. It is a response to mobile services such as Foursquare and web-based deal-of-the-day services such as LivingSocial and Groupon.
Gap gave away 10,000 pairs of jeans in 24 hours in the US, while Mazda sold 100 cars in Britain discounted by 20 per cent for Facebook users. “We’ve had an overabundance of user interest in this and brands and local businesses have been benefiting from that,” said Ms White.
She said Facebook Deals and Places differed from services such as Foursquare because “Facebook is an ecosystem of lots of different tools for users to interact with each other”.
At the launch of the service, Facebook confirmed two million people in Ireland use the network monthly, while one million are daily users. "That's a bigger reach than X-Factor," said Rick Kelley, head of mid-market sales with Facebook.
Brands and businesses are increasingly using Facebook as one of their primary forms of online marketing. Mr Kelley said coffee chain Starbucks has 20 million “friends” on Facebook, but only gets 1.8 million monthly visits to its corporate website. “That’s because it’s a two-way conversation on Facebook, and brands aren’t just trying to sell to you.”
