10 Yetis Insight - Social Media Round-Up blog - It's the Facebook show

Facebook is looking to become the mobile solution for local businesses and is also breaching into local commerce with the recent introduction of features such as marketplace, where people can buy and sell in their local area, and events, where users can discover what’s going on nearby.

Facebook are also adding more tools for consumers and businesses, such as booking and ordering capabilities, social recommendations and local event discovery. They have even began to roll out a food ordering service and made it possible for users to buy tickets and book appointments on pages via a ‘call to action button’. Facebook are really trying to cover all bases here!

Facebook have been able to do this by forming a large number of third party relationships, in some cases, users can be put in touch with businesses directly through the messenger app.

Let’s take a deeper look at the new tool that allows you to make recommendations from your page. The idea here is that word of mouth is usually the most reliable recommendation that a person can receive, a positive testimony from your mate Dave has never steered you wrong before. Social media has expanded the reach of word of mouth, increasing its power of advertisement, and bringing about the rise of influencer marketing.

The tool works by letting users put out a call for recommendations from your friends. For example, when a status is written asking for a good place to eat, Facebook will identify the query, and turn on recommendations for your post. This will then appear in friends News Feeds notifying them that the user is seeking advice.

A revised version from the 2005 introduction of Facebook Events on the social network. Facebook have a created a standalone app called ‘Events from Facebook’, which aims to help event seekers find what they are looking for. The main Facebook app will offer event features too, so there will not be a need to switch like the with the messenger app if you do not want to.

On the application, users are able to see what is happening nearby, as well as what’s being planned by pages that they are interested in, and what friends are interested in. Users are able to scan through and browse events they may be interested in based on their location or personal interests. Events that users plan to attend through the app will be visible on their Facebook page, making it easy for people to know what their friends are up to.

The move to turn events into a standalone app doesn’t really come as a surprise as Facebook has previously done the same with their messenger and groups tools. Businesses will also be able to use the app to promote events or set up appointments.

Facebook Live scheduling

Verified pages can now schedule Facebook Live videos up to one week in advance, they even have pre-broadcast lobbies that you can wait in 3 minutes before the video starts where users can interact with each other. Once you have scheduled a broadcast, announcement posts will be shared to the ‘News Feed’ section. Users who want to see the broadcast can then set a reminder so that they receive notifications shortly before the video airs. Although right now this feature is only available to ‘verified pages’, Facebook say it will soon also be available to everyone, so don’t fret.