Facebook Business Protection

There had been no official announcements from Facebook Marketing, Facebook + Commerce and even Facebook Pages about their Facebook Business protection and listing features.

However, today as I was updating the Facebook Page for the foodie community that I’m managing, I noticed something new at the bottom of the page. Just above the Add to My Page’s Favorites, I saw this Protect Your Page option. When I clicked on the [?] portion of the said option, it explains: In just a few steps, you can prove you are authorized to represent this business page, which will prevent anyone from claiming your page. 

It looks like the said feature would be helpful for brands and perhaps even celebrities to prevent unauthorized persons or posers from managing Facebook Pages when they are not even who they claim to be. Could this be Facebook’s answer to Twitter and Google’s Verified Pages? It’s just about time.

The photo below shows the difference between the two different options for the Admins and Non-Admins of the page. Non-admins would see the the option, Is this your business? while admins of the page could see the Protect your Page option.

Once clicked, you will then be directed to the page where you would asked to verify whether you really are an authorized representative for the said page which make your eligible for extra features that are only available to trusted page admins.

Facebook Business and Places Listing

The Facebook Business Page protection however does not only seem to provide protection and verification. It actually is some sort of inclusion to Facebook Business Pages listing as it requires information such as the Official name of the business, Business address, Business phone number, third party listing or reviews (from Yelp, CitySearch, etc).

The verification does not only end by providing the usual business details. It also requires actual verification which could be done by email (authorized company email) or through documents that shows your company’s business name and address.

If you choose the verification to be done through email, you need to make sure that the email address associated with your Facebook account is actually primarily set to your company page or you will end up getting the message below.

In your Account Settings, simply add your company’s email address as a secondary email address then make it as your Facebook account’s primary email address.

You will then immediately receive an email from the Facebook User Operations confirming that they received your Place Claim Request. 

Curious, I immediately checked other similar pages to see whether the said option is also available. I checked out Yelp, CitySearch and Menuism yet failed to see even a single one. Getting a hint from the email above from Facebook, it looks like it’s only available to Facebook Pages that actually provided their company’s complete address and it’s also important that someone has checked in to their page using the Facebook Places Check In option. Went to Starbuck‘s page since there are now over 3 million people who checked in through Facebook Places yet failed to see the Protect this Page option because the page doesn’t contain their complete address.

Small businesses like restaurants might want to consider putting their complete address in order to help their customers easily check in to their page through Facebook Places and actually enable the Recommendation option which helps their customers to recommend and share the page to their friends. Also, it could help your business become verified, get listed and be protected from unauthorized representatives.

For the meantime, if you’re a restaurant owner and want to claim your business listing, FriendsEAT now allows you to do just that! Having your business listed in the foodie community helps you to view reviews from the foodies, share your company’s latest news, and many other features which will be rolled out pretty soon. From the conference we had last night with our product development team, there will be some really exciting features for the mobile, commerce and so much more but I’m afraid I couldn’t share them with you yet! Restaurants that sign up before the end of the year will be put into a special Alpha list and get access to new features before any other restaurant (and we have some really exciting features coming soon). Like super duper exciting ones.

So yeah, it looks like Facebook is focusing in promoting the marketing for small to medium sized businesses and perhaps even Facebook Places and listing.

Have you noticed the Protect your Page or Claim your listing on your page too?  Do you think this will help in bringing back the sexy to their Facebook Places?

One thing is for sure. Facebook Places is NOT dead. Let me know your thoughts below!

UPDATE:

As a result of the page protection which I claimed, all the other admins no longer have Admin access to the page and Facebook prompted me to fill out the About Us and Page description all over again like the page was just recently created. There had not been any visible changes so far and there’s still an option to add a few more Admins (thank God it’s not like the Google Plus Business Page).