Facebook Places UK - How to Claim your Business

user Aaron Charlie

date 17 Sep 2010

Facebook Places UK - How to Claim your Business

If you haven't already heard - Facebook Places went live in the UK today. Facebook's new rival to Foursquare will allow anyone using Facebook on a mobile device with geo-location to "check in" wherever they are and have it display on their status. This will provide businesses with new opportunities to promote their services and offer discounts for customers who regularly check in.

To learn more about other ways to promote your business using Facebook, we run a 2-day Social Media Training. You can also combine this with our Email Marketing Training and other Internet Marketing courses with our Pick'n'Mix deals also offering Search Engine Optimisation Training and PRINCE2 training.

If you want to promote your business using Facebook Places, the first thing you're going to have to do is to claim your business.

This step-by-step guide explains each part of the process...

How to Claim Your Business on Facebook Places

OK - First step is to "check in" at your business on Facebook. To do that you're going to need a smartphone with geo-location and the Facebook App installed. If you don't own one, chances are there's probably someone sitting within 5 metres of you with an iPhone - nab it off them and log in to Facebook!

First up - click on the Places icon on the dashboard (if it's not there, update the App to the latest version)

Give it a couple of seconds to find you, and Facebook will provide you with a list of Places nearby to choose from.

If you're an established business already, there will most likely be a Place for your company already so you can just click on that.

If not, you'll have to create a Place for your business. To do that, just click in on the "+" icon in the top right hand corner to enter your business

to enter your business name and create a Place for it.

We were already listed, so we just clicked on the Silicon Beach Training entry.

Now you can check in to your own business. If you like, you can add some text to say what

you're up to ("I'm at work"!!), and then you're done. If your colleagues are also at work, you can check them in with you.

OK - now you're done with your phone (or whoever's phone you purloined for the task), and you can go back to your desktop to complete the process.

Step 2 - Find your Place on Facebook and claim it

So - now you can log in to Facebook on your computer, and your latest status update will be that you have checked in at your place. Click on the place and you'll be taken to the Place page. In the bottom left-hand corner of the page, there's a button called "Is this your business?" Click on that to begin the registration process (see screenshot below):

This will start the process for you - you will have to provide evidence that you represent the place (otherwise any Tom, Dick or Harry could nick your business. This will be either telephone confirmation, or via submitting documentary evidence - read more on Facebook's Places FAQ

Note - Facebook Places is so new that this feature hasn't fully rolled out yet - so be patient, but be ready to get in there!!

That's it! Once you've claimed your place you can start encouraging your customers to check in and reward them for their custom!

Right - as a reward for writing this I think I'll head over the road and "check-in" for a pint!!:

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