We all trust our friends and their recommendation on things to do or things to buy. Facebook knows this very well, so it’s launching several new features to help its users better use their friends and connections to discover things to do and ways to connect with local businesses.
Facebook wants to help you use your connections to experience the world around you and to share those experiences with others, so that they too can discover and experience them. So, it’s giving them some new features to make this possible, as easily as possible.
Get Recommendations
Looking for something in particular? Use your friends. We all do it. Say, you you’re “traveling to a new place, looking for a hair salon, or searching for the perfect place to eat”. Most of us use our friends and family or local Facebook Groups to get advice. Facebook now organises all recommendations in one place, so that you don’t have to search.
The new tool allows you to turn on Recommendations for any post with which you are asking for advice. After a specific local service? It’s in there. By turning on the feature,
[quote] your friends can comment on your post with suggestions, and you’ll see all of them mapped out and saved in one place. You can also go to your Recommendations bookmark on Facebook to ask a new question or help your friends.[/quote]
Discover Local Events
Most of us are not really interested in events on the other side of the world. We look for things that are happening in our area. And now Facebook is making it even easier to discover new things to do with your friends, with an update to the Events bookmark.
[quote]You can catch up on the latest events activity from friends and hosts and browse event recommendations based on what’s popular with friends or events you’ve connected with in the past.[/quote]
The new events dashboard won’t be available to all at the moment, and will start rolling out in the US within “the coming weeks.”
Get More Out of Your Interactions With Local Businesses
So, you’ve found what you’re looking for. You’re ready to take action. Facebook is “introducing some new ways for people to take action faster. For this, it’s updated Call to Actions on Pages.
Order food: You can now order food from restaurants directly from any Facebook Page that uses Delivery.com or Slice. Just click “Start Order”.
Request an appointment: You can now book an appointment, directly through a business’ Facebook Page after viewing its entire slate of services and offerings. The business will then “then get back to you on Messenger to confirm your appointment.”
Get a quote: If you want to get a quote from a local business, it’s now as easy as tapping the “Get Quote” button on selected Facebook Pages for local businesses.
Get tickets to movies and events: Facebook now works with Ticketmaster and Eventbrite to buy free or paid tickets straight from a Facebook Page. Also, integration with Fandango allows you to be able to “buy movie tickets straight from […] Facebook Pages.”
The new features will be available in the United States initially. In the next few months, these and other features will allow users to easily “get things done, make confident decisions and communicate directly with businesses.” What do you think about these updates?
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