Facebook Begins Its Local Business Advertising Strategy

It seems Facebook is ready to throw its hat into the ring of local business marketing as well.  It’s being reported that the company is sending Facebook window decals and letters to local business owners as a first step to their future local advertising strategy.

Following in the footsteps of Google, Foursquare, Yelp and others, it seems sending window decals encouraging patrons to visit the business’s respective Web-linked pages is the plan of choice for every Web company targeting local businesses.

Mashable today posted one such window decal and letter from Facebook to the Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, California, encouraging them to place the decal “prominently on your window or sales counter.”  The sticker is a large blue “like” icon with a call to action that reads, “text like MuseumofMakingMusic to 32665.”

Facebook is obviously wanting to extend their reach beyond the confines of their network and linking the physical location of businesses with their Facebook local business page is a logical first step.  Facebook has said in the past that businesses who promote their pages off-Facebook tend to see a 20% or greater increase in connections.

Growing the traffic of business’s Facebook pages gives the company greater leverage when it comes to selling advertising, and Facebook is even gifting beta testers with $25 in ad credits to help drive home the utility of the service and propel businesses to participate in on-site advertising as well.

What Facebook has planned for the next step is still unknown, but it should be interesting to see what direction they take and how it compares to others who are taking the same approach.  As Mashable notes, “realistically, one decal will prevail and we tend to think Facebook’s more than 400 million userbase and the value of an instant Fan will make Facebook’s offering especially appealing to local business owners.”