Facebook is not just for photos of small humans and your latest marathon; it can also be a good place to solicit recommendations. The new addition to the social network allows users to request advice from their network about local businesses and events as well as share some tips of their own. Now if you write a post looking for advice, you’ll have the option to turn on a Recommendations feature, which embeds business information to comments, and maps out all your friends’ suggestions in one place. But this helps pave the way for a more public tool to discover recommended local businesses on Facebook. You can now buy tickets from Eventbrite, Ticketmaster or Fandango through a company’s Facebook Page. Customer service issues that fall beyond the remit of the restaurant (payment issues, for example), will still be handled by Delivery.com. It is surprising how much more can be done in the same amount of time when you have a ready source of recommendations and don’t have to go out to buy tickets and book appointments.
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As Facebook sees it, there’s no reason anyone in the internet age should miss out on something – a concert, a barbecue festival, a surfing competition – just because they don’t know it’s happening or because it’s too hard or time-consuming to figure out logistics.
Facebook is unveiling new tools for getting recommendations and ordering food, a move that could help the social media giant take on apps like Foursquare, Yelp, and Seamless.
And Facebook is already bringing the best of its new standalone Events app back to the Events tab in Facebook’s main app. Those businesses can also use Facebook to confirm appointments with customers.
For businesses that require an appointment, such as a spa or hair salons, users will can now view their full list of services on Facebook and schedule their visit. Likewise, companies can now offer quotes for services, directly from Facebook.
Request Time: Coordinate your bookings. Globally available to all pages.
To create these custom experiences, edit the existing call-to-action button on your page-or create a new one-and you’ll be guided through the process.
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“We’re starting to roll out these initial experiences in the USA today”. Facebook promises that even more productive features are in the works, and should make an appearance in “the coming months”. Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team?
