By the end of February 2012, Facebook announced that they launched a new feature called Offers. Offers are basically coupons for people to redeem and the platform already began testing this feature last year.

Facebook has previously launched Deals, which is a check-in product in relation to Places. Offers are however not location-based, but focus solely on the relation that the customer has with a given business on Facebook. If you are managing a business page, Offers is a good way to combine online with offline activities and to directly engage customers in your products and services.

Offers are still running in beta and are only available to a limited number of business pages. But according to Facebook, they are soon planning to do a more broad roll-out.

How does it work?

As a Facebook Page admin, you are able to post an offer to your page free of charge. The users who have liked your page then see the offer in their news feed. Users can redeem the offer by clicking on it. They will then receive an email from Facebook with the details of the offer, which they then need to show to the staff in the store.

When a user has claimed an Offer, a story will be published in their friends’ news feed and possibly also on their timeline or as a sponsored story, depending on the user’s settings.

The offers therefore normally spread through the users’ news feed as they are being claimed. Now, there are still not that many offers floating around. But if a user is following many business pages, it could end up as an annoying feature. As a page owner, you should therefore think of how many offers you post. In stead of posting offers every other day,  you should rather spend some extra time on having an offer that performs well. Users cannot choose to hide offers as a feature, so if they get overwhelmed by the number of offers, they will much likely either unlike your page or choose to hide all of your updates.

Still, you will probably need some time to figure out what kind of offers that perform well for your business. According to Facebook, offers that give big discounts (more than 20%) are normally the ones that perform well. As well as offers that give away something for free.

If you wish to promote your offer beyond the news feed, you can choose to run an Ad or a Sponsored Story.

How to create an Offer

• Go to the your page and choose Offer in the update field of your timeline. Fill out the offer with an appealing headline. Direct language that describes the offer is normally more effective than using catchy phrases or slogans.

• Choose an expiration date for the offer. Normally people will need some time in order to discover the offer and claiming it before it gets effective.

• Upload a square photo. Photos of people using the product are usually more engaging.

• Add terms and conditions. Remember not to make them too advanced as this can sometimes make the offer less attractive.

•  Post the offer. To promote your offer, pin it to the top of your Timeline and share it. As with any other update, people can Like, Comment and Share it with friends.

• You also have the option to limit the number of people, who are able to redeem the offer.

• Finally, make sure staff is trained and informed of how to handle offers, when customers come in to redeem them.

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Tags: business page, claim offer, create offer, deals, facebook admin, Facebook marketing, Facebook Offers, Facebook Page, Marketing, online marketing