Facebook may not have made any big announcements about local business marketing at last week’s f8 conference, but the company is certainly stepping up its efforts in that area. Today, we discovered that Facebook is sending out window decals with text-to-Like SMS instructions to select local businesses.
Twitter user B.J. Drums, who works with the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California, sent us proof that Facebook is officially getting into the local business marketing fray.
The company received both a window decal and an accompanying letter (see below) that encourages participating businesses to place the decal “prominently on your window or sales counter, since businesses that promote their Page off-Facebook tend to see a 20% or greater increase in connections.”
The sticker in question includes a very prominent Like icon and the iconic blue Facebook branding, as well as a call to action that reads, “text like MuseumofMakingMusic to 32665.”
Facebook is even gifting beta testers with $25 in ad credits to help drive home the utility of the service and propel businesses to participate in on-site advertising as well.
This first step toward serving local businesses is an extremely smart maneuver very much like Google’s Place Pages offering. Also, the day that Facebook correlates your physical location in the real world with their local business Pages does not seem too far off.
If Yelp, Google, Fousquare and Facebook all get their way, local business windows will be covered in window decals. Realistically, one decal will prevail and we tend to think Facebook’s more than 400 million userbase and the value of an instant Fan will make Facebook’s offering especially appealing to local business owners.
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Tags: facebook, local businesses, MARKETING, window decals
