Overnight Facebook Places finally went live in Ireland. So what does that mean for you and your business. At the moment people can check into places update their friends letting them know where they are and what they are doing, if they are in your premises this means that they will be promoting your business. Here is my experience so far:
First thing I did was to create my Facebook Places page. This morning I added my business while lying in bed watching TV using my iPhone. There is a Check In button on the iPhone app that allowed me to check in, as my business was not listed it asked me to add it. It really was that easy.
The next step was to claim my listing, to do this I went to my laptop, opened my Facebook home page, clicked on my business name. On the left there is a link “Is this your Business?” allowing me to claim my listing. Great easy so far.
It is asking for my contact details, address, all the usual things. Oops, a stumbling block, it is asking me for a utility bill showing my business name and address, now I have a problem and I foresee other people may have the same issue. Being a small business I work from home, so do not have any utility bill in the business name. They are in my or my husbands name. So what do I do here.
I have submitted another bill from a .ie domain registration, it is the only bill that I have that looks professional and includes my name and the business name. Now I will wait, come back later to see if I have been accepted.
Update Saturday 05th Feb 2011:
I got an email back from Facebook stating that they had accepted my application to claim my Places listing, the email included a link to manage the page. The first thing I looked for was if there was a way to sync it with my business page and on the left I found a link to merge it with my business page.
This is a good move by Facebook but when I merged my places page with my business page the layout totally changed, this I do not like. It now has the same layout as a personal profile page, instead of tabs at the top they are now links to the left. I do not like this feature and I doubt I can do anything about it. I received an email from Facebook saying that they had received a request to merge the pages and that it may take up to a week, so lets wait a week and see it anything else changes.
The post Facebook Places is finally here – adding & claiming my business listing. appeared first on Be Dynamic.
