Warning… the article doesn’t offer a solid solution or answer for what you should be doing… just like all the other articles on this topic… there’s no true ANSWER… yet. I hope some side of the fence doesn’t get screwed in the end though. It’ll help though… read on.
For a while I thought I was the only one having a problem with this and that there was some key feature of FB for business integration that i was just not seeing in the interface but after reading this Mashable Article which didn’t answer any questions but did let me know I’m not the only one freaking out other this.
Keeping up with FB is already difficult. Things Move Fast. Administrating and assisting in the social marketing efforts of several storefronts in several locations can be even more difficult. You don’t want to break up your resources. I was reading an SEO blog the other day and the old adage “Divide and Conquer” came up. Except in the sense that… you may be doing it to yourself if you’re splitting up scarse and valuable resources by breaking your efforts up, instead you should be pouring all your efforts into a MAIN PAGE. If you as the small business owner, and you’re going it alone…. just use one…. one is enough. Let’s be smart about this.
Now… if you want people to be able to “Check-In” at each location… you’re going to need Brand Ambassadors for each store. NOT YOU!!!! NOT the same person!!!! Its too much… what are you going to do?… post the same thing to all the walls if you have 4 locations. That doesn’t seem too genuine and peoples bulls shit meters are pretty finely tuned these days. Your brand will get BS called on it in the back of your customers mind.
Brand Ambassador: Find an employee you trust… or who isn’t an idiot:
Some companies with multiple storefronts are maintaining individual store pages and assigning each location a “Brand Ambassador”. This allows each storefront to take advantage of Facebook’s Check-In feature and functionality and location based services to help spread the word about your store virally. While a single brand page will not let you do this. I like the “brand ambassador” model for locations… I think Check-Ins are a valuable. When someone “checks-in” at your location the people who subscribe to that person’s News Feed will see it and it will help spread word about your brand (and Location) virally.
At any rate, you’ve got to be on FB anyway… choose your poison.
