Consumers in SA who check-in to their favourite retailers and other local businesses on Facebook, could soon reap rewards for the effort.
Habari Media, Facebook's official sales partner in Africa, is introducing the highly anticipated Facebook Deals in SA during August.
The application, which is an extension of Facebook Places, is a mobile add-on to Facebook. Like Facebook Places, it will also enable users to inform their friends on the social network where they are by allowing them to 'check in' when they have physically arrived at a particular destination.
In this instance, the destination will be a shop or another sort of business. Whenever a user is out and about and ventures within the vicinity of a participating business, Facebook Deals will appear on their cellphones and inform them where the establishment is located and whether it has any on-going specials or discount coupons available.
If the users are enticed into visiting the business, they can 'check in' via the app, in this way making their Facebook friends aware of the deal too. Not only is this a way for business owners to generate publicity for their establishments, but it also provides a means for them to reward that highly sought-after commodity: customer loyalty.
“It's precisely this amplification which equals more connections with consumers,” says Paula Raubenheimer, group commercial director at Habari Media. “For the first time, technology and location have merged to deliver rich consumer experiences in a way that a pure online or offline experience could never deliver.”
Businesses can offer consumers various kinds of Facebook Deals: Individual deals, which are one one-time discounts or free merchandise given to existing or new customers; loyalty deals, which reward the most loyal customers after they've checked in at the same business a certain number of times; friend deals, which offer discounts or vouchers to a group of up to eight friends; and charity deals, which allow users to donate money every time a user checks in.
Facebook Deals has proven to be enormously successful in those parts of the world where it has already been implemented. Yo Sushi, a UK-based restaurant franchise, was one of the first participating brands when the app unveiled in Europe. Within 24 hours, all of the deals they were offering had been claimed, with queues of consumers snaking around the block outside some of the restaurants.
Habari Media believes that the app could be just as successful in SA, citing the more than 300 000 local Facebook users who already check into Facebook Places on a daily basis, without even having any incentive to do so.
Facebook does not generate any revenue from Facebook Deals, unless businesses choose to advertise their deals on the social networking site to specifically target consumers in their area.
For further information, visit www.facebook.com/deals.
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