• Tweet
• Sharebar

Lately, the hottest ticket item on Facebook has been the ability for Fans to check-in and tell their friends where they are, tag their friends in the Places they visit and view comments made from their friends about the Places they visit. This is a great product for keeping Facebook Friends in the loop, but what’s does it mean for your business?

Well, the Facebook Places Page allows businesses to further promote your company as well as grow your Fan base. By giving your potential customers and Fans the ability to check-in at your place of business, you are also giving them the ability to tell their friends about your business.

Facebook Places allows you have to have a physical location that makes the most sense for those who wish to mark they have checked-in at your venue. The best part? Facebook has provided a guide for those businesses who wish to merge their Facebook Page with their Facebook Places into one single Facebook Page. In doing so, you can have a uniquely designed Facebook Page that contains location information.

Below are easy step-by-step directions based on the Facebook Guide for creating your Facebook Place and merging it with your current Facebook Page.

Step 1: Create Your Facebook Place

First, you want to make sure that no one has already checked-in to your businesses location. To do so, find a Facebook compatible phone and perform a search for your company. If no there are no results, you can then create your Place by clicking on “Add” or “+” sign.

Step 2: Making the Place Yours

When you add your Facebook Place, It will automatically pull your phone number for your device. If you wish to choose another number, you can change it. Before you confirm the phone number change, log into Facebook and perform another search for the Place your created. You will see a link located near the bottom of the Place page “Is this your business?” Click to confirm.

Step 3: Merging Your Page with Your Place

“Merge” your Facebook Page and Facebook Place once all steps have been confirmed. You will now have one Page serving as a local business page and you are DONE! Please keep in mind the design will be altered from your initial Facebook Page and you are currently unable to unmerge once all the steps have been verified. At this point in time, you can only designate one general location for check-in purposes. Facebook also blocks the ability to select a landing page, however, all Facebook Pages might adopt this new product moving forward.

Author Byline:

Lauren Horn is the Digital PR Specialist for ProspectMX, an internet marketing company based in Lancaster, PA that provides social media marketing consultation services to businesses of all sizes.