Why are “Check-Ins” Important?
Perhaps the commonly overlooked piece of the Facebook puzzle is getting people to “Check-In” at your place of business. Most small business owners either never realized the importance of check ins, or never really paid much attention to it. (Other than maybe when they see one of their friends check in somewhere & post a picture of their meal).
Check Ins play a very important piece to the Facebook “puzzle”. Look at it this way; Facebook’s built in algorithms are looking for a few things from your page. Those algorithms are looking for reactions, comments, shares, and check ins. Today, we’re going to give you some insight on how check ins work…
When a customer comes to your place of business, gets on Facebook and “checks in” at your business, here’s what happens:
- Within 24 hours, 50% of that person’s Facebook “friends” will see that he/she was at your place of business.
- Since nobody ever types “This place sucks” (or something else negative) when they check in, that person is basically endorsing your business to their friends on Facebook. So think about this… If you have 10 people check in to your place of business in one day, and each of those people have exactly 200 Facebook “friends”, do the math. Your business was just endorsed (by a friend) to 1,000 people. Even if the person checking in has friends that already like & follow your page, your business just got put front & center with them!
- A snowball will begin to build. You’ll gain page likes & followers, because friends of friends see that so and so was at your place, or the friend of a friend will comment on the original persons “check In” because they saw that the friend commented. Confused yet? Lol
The funny this about people (in general) is that they’ll do what you tell them to do, IF you tell them in a way that doesn’t sound like you’re telling them what to do! Here’s a for instance: At a local dry cleaner shop, I stopped by to visit with the owner. He’s a friend of mine. He wanted one of our Pro-Pack (available on our PRODUCTS page). Anyway, he set up the countertop display sign, that encourages people to check in. Okay great! But then I told him to have some fun with it. He pinned the “Official Check In Location” sign on the wall & put a 10” long piece of blue tape on the floor, (with his company logo in the background). An hour later, he called me laughing has a** off and told me 3 people had already positioned themselves with their toes on the tape, took a selfie, and checked in on Facebook. His customers are having fun with it, at least 600 people just got referred to his dry cleaner shop, and he’s playing to Facebook’s algorithms by getting check ins! WINNER, WINNER, Chicken Dinner!