Facebook is once again attacking once-not-so-much-competitors. Their first battle was versus FourSquare, it has been in a fight with Groupon and Living Social, and now, it’s gearing up for an epic match against Yelp and of all bohemoths, Google.
If you’ve been living under a rock (or don’t have Facebook, Mom) Facebook just launched a beta version for their new search program, Facebook Graph. Firstly, the press and I will probably be the only ones to ever call it by its real name. I have a feeling the FB community will naturally come up with something a little bit more catchy. Maybe we’ll just treat it like Kleenex and Xerox and just call it the verb to Google? Probably not.
Anyway, Facebook is developing a search that will help users find businesses that friends give a thumbs up to, which will mean a lot more than any five stars system a stranger on Yelp might vote with. So it is now more important than ever for businesses to jump on the bandwagon and develop loyalty programs to get people to check-in and “like” their establishments. From restaurants, to florists, to dentists – what your customers’ friends want to know is where have they been and do they like it enough to literally “like” it? The like will no longer be a commodity and I think (I think) people might be a little more concientious about what they like, now that pretty much the whole world (that’s right, not just your friends) will know.
I think I’m going to review my likes right now actually. I wouldn’t want to lead any of my friends astray!
Patti is still learning 