The Pharmacy Business Advice Blog

Facebook Places and Independent Pharmacy

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Last week Facebook unveiled Facebook Places, a smart-phone location check-in feature that allows users to share their location, find the location of their friends, and discover new places based on other Facebook user recommendations - much like Yelp!, Google Places, and Foursquare.


After reading numerous articles discussing the new application, the following is a brief recap of the impact Facebook Places will have on independent pharmacy. 

Why Facebook Places is a Big Deal for Small Businesses

As an independent pharmacy owner, you need to be aware of Facebook Pages, and you need to be aware of it even if you have no intention of ever using it. Because some of Facebook’s 500 million users are your customers and, regardless of your feelings, they’ll be using it.

Small business marketing gurus, Ducktape Marketing, recently posted the Top 5 Reasons Facebook Places is a Big Deal:

• Facebook is building a suite of advertising tools that will allow you to list, claim and advertise your place on Facebook. 
• You no longer have to educate your customers - they all know what Facebook is and are using it on a daily basis.
• People checking in at your business are naturally telling some part of the world about your business - each time someone check in, and instance is created on their profile and newstream for all of their friends to see.
• Offering coupons and special offers for people who check in is a natrual way to tap into the power of online tools to drive offline sales.
• Data that you can collect on users and amount of times they check in will provide extremely valuable in tracking customers and advertising spending.