Just when you thought you were up-to-date on the latest dental marketing trends, Facebook adds a new feature to its mobile app “Nearby.”
The update to Facebook Nearby will now enable its mobile users to rate and “like” businesses nearby, taking the app beyond its existing check-in ability.
The idea is to for Facebook users to find nearby businesses with the help of their Facebook friends and recommendations.
According to Forbes online, when users click on the “Nearby” section of the left hand menu on the mobile Facebook app, they will see a list of nearby businesses. The locations are sorted by those that friends have recommended, checked-in to or liked. Then people can select categories such as restaurants to find all nearby businesses in that category.
Each business listing will also show friends who have checked in there and other details about the business.
The Facebook Nearby product manager, Josh Williams told USA Today, “The visualization of the information is what’s dramatically improved. So instead of a plain list, the new tab will pull up a map based on where you are, and a list of places that are around you that we think are the most interesting, based on where your friends have been, or their recommendations…now, after I check in or add a photo to my location, it gets shared in my (Facebook) newsfeed, and a friend might find it later.”
How this effects a dental practice’s Internet dental marketing is that once a mobile user has found a business they are looking for, the ability to look at additional information about the business, such as phone numbers, email addresses, hours of operation, and (this is the the new dental marketing opportunity) a button to “Like” the business on Facebook.
Smartphones are now past the 50% mark in the U.S. and continue to sell at a brisk pace accounting for over 75% of the devices sold in Q3 2012, reports the strategic advisory firm, Chetan Sharma consulting.
If your dental website isn’t ready for the wave in mobile use, what is your main reason for resisting the growing mobile trend? Do you still think that having a Facebook business page is unnecessary for a dental practice?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
To read more about Facebook Nearby see: Facebook Takes On Foursquare And Yelp With ‘Nearby‘
