Facebook Places, the location-based feature of the world’s largest social networking site is expected to put Internet marketing to mainstream.
Introduced last August 19, Facebook Places, looks promising to Internet marketers because of its location-based features. This will help in finding new consumers via the social networking site.
Consumers that use Places share their whereabouts and hot new places, giving marketers a hint on where to find potential customers. Information about what people like, what they do, and places that they go to are critical data for marketers
Auggie Ray, senior analyst at Forrester Research, said, “What I find interesting is where people check in says even more about what they like. Now we’re actually looking at their real-world behavior, instead of just a button they click on a website.” He also said, “I think this really will continue to help Facebook offer much better targeting and permit marketers to do a better job of understanding their consumers and targeting ads at those consumers.”
The launch of the new smartphone feature is good news for marketers wanting to build customer loyalty but only in the long-term sense.
“It’s going to take a little bit of time for this to be adopted by users,” Ray said. “At first it’s only available to advanced smart phone users. This isn’t something that’s going to change the social habits of a hundred million people in the next six months”, the senior analyst added.
Industry professionals said that what Facebook ‘Places’ basically do, is creating a welcome event for professionals.
“I would say this is a tipping point for geo-marketing,” said Lawrence Kimmel, CEO of the Direct Marketing Association. Kimmel emphasized that Facebook could have a bigger impact given the sheer size of its audience. With a community of over 500 million, ‘Places’ will make Internet marketing more mainstream.
From Seedol.com published on Aug. 04, 2010