Local businesses want to access the Facebook Beacon program too. Pain of being left out.

December 2nd, 2007

As many of you know, Facebook launched the very welcomed Beacon program that allows participating web sites to send feeds back to Facebook about all customer activities. For example, if you buy something on Overstock.com or movie tickets on Fandango your friends will be immediately notified via news feed. It’s brilliant and innovative but unfortunately not everybody is happy. As more and more websites are joining the Beacon program the more and more local brick-and-mortar businesses are getting that bitter feeling of being left out.

My client’s office in Riverdale, MD is in the walking distance to the University of Maryland College Park campus. Last Friday I spoke with a liquor store owner who sells beer to UMD students. UMD as any other college community is heavily facebooked and typical student has hundreds and hundreds friends on Facebook. He said that involvement into the Beacon program would allow a local store like his to broadcast the “dude, I’ve got beer” feed to all student’s friends . Beer means party and the “I’ve got beer” feed will mean the party invitation. “If you are in fact invited to a party don’t be a cheap dork, bring beer, that’s why local businesses are very interested. We do not care about virtual reality because it’s not reality at all. Beer cannot be virtual. ” On the question whether Beacon should report amount of beer bought he was absolutely positive. “Yes, two 30 can packs of Natural ice sound more convincing than 6-pack of Corona. The first means that you are throwing party while the second means that you’re joining party or drinking alone. People know where to go”.

Without Beacon program for liquor stores, students have to login to Facebook and send invitations to his friends manually which is tedious. “And look at those beaconed web sites. Coca-Cola, Verison, Epicurious.com. Do you really think that a college kids need to know that somebody posted a new recipe on Epicurious or bought a cola. O, comm’n. They need fun, they need booze, parties and action”. (for more Bacon web sites click here).

I think it perfectly make sense. All you need to do is to buy beer, your friend are automatically invited. And I think local bars and restaurants should join Beacon too and be the most aggressive proponents of the program. If a client buy a beer at the bar and slide his Visa then his friends automatically know what bar their buddy at. For a bar it’s a serious advertisement. It is not a usual boring flayer “come to the Corner Stone, we have the best buffalo wings and always fresh beer, go Terps”. The customer’s automatic message “hey, I am in the Corner Stone bar, drinking beer” to several hundred friends much more effective. Bars will save on advertisement enormously and can offer good discounts for beer or longer happy hours.

Additional benefit for customers is ability to track back where they’ve been and how much they drank. Yes, let’s be honest we not always remember that. And what they drank is also important for hungover management and choice of drinks in future to minimize impact.

And do not get me wrong. It’s not booze-related only! Your adult DVD rental can be nice surprise for your friends to come over and share together a good movie after hard day (Netflix even with its 90,000 DVD selection still sucks).
Conclusion

Both local businesses can hugely benefit from Beacon program.
Businesses:

• effective target advertisement
• increased revenue

Customers:

• your friends will be automatically invited into your real and local (not virtual) activities
• you could track back some events if you blacked out or passed out (happens all the time do not be ashamed)
• you could analyze you drinking come up with list of alcohol that cause less hangover
• you could have real beer and real beer contest (virtual beer is pathetic).

But probably Facebook target wrong companies for their Beacon program. How many people on Facebook need a new strawberry cake recipe?

Entry Filed under: Facebook, Just Kidding