Facebook Places now available in Hong Kong

During the two weeks trip to Toronto, I was able to observe a lot of marketing and advertising that is utilizing the power of social media. One of thing I missed the most was able to check in to Facebook Places and check in with Facebook Deals.

Till last night I was still relaying on Foursqure and Gowalla to check into places. As of today I am finally able to use Facebook Places to check in to places that I love. According to a post from penn-olson.com, Facebook Places will be available to Hong Kong and Singapore very soon.

Last night I was still trying to use Facebook Places on my mobile  but unsuccessful. As of this afternoon, I was finally able to check in to Facebook Places on my mobile in the Hong Kong region!

Facebook Places is now available in Hong Kong so what does that mean? 
With the majority of the Hong Kong mobile users are using either iOS, Android or Blackberry devices, this means there will be a lot of opportunities for Facebook Deals! (At the moment I had yet to see any deals from Facebook Places, unsure is it already available in Hong Kong and Singapore, as it had just make it appearance in Canada).

Location-based service still a relatively new concept to the Hong Kong population, I had previously mentioned that location-based service will be the next big hit, people are still not comfortable to share their location and what are they doing (instead they are comfortable to share their status via Facebook, huh!) and yet to find out the fun of using the location-based services.

Recently I observed there is a slight changes. I found out a lot of my friends are start using Foursquare and sharing their location, and I start to experience major war in Foursquare. The fun part is, these people are not tech savvy at all! I asked some of them why are they joining in the game, and most of their answers are "Coz it's fun!"

According to Internet World Stats, there are 3,587,080 Facebook users on August 31, 2010. This is a huge number of population and even the Hong Kong Chief Executive's Office launched its official Facebook page - "Upper Albert Road". With Facebook Places roll out to all these population, I certainly hope that the Hong Kong population starts to aware of the beauty of location-base services and actually start using and utilize the services.

It will also be nice to see what will be the outcome of Facebook Places launch in Hong Kong & Singapore. Will it sparks up another wave of new Foursquare user registration similar to what had happened in US when Places first launched? What will happen to the China version of Foursquare - Jiepang?

I am anxious to see how Facebook Places & Deals will do in the Asia, mean while the most important part is there will be lots of fun and new marketing tactics for the Hong Kong local advertising and marketing companies. Opportunities are everywhere my friend !

Happy Valentines Day

It's already Feb 14 in Hong Kong, so Happy Saint Valentine's Day to everyone!

Google Doodle is also showing its love to everyone, check it out yourself.

Comparison between store promotions in Hong Kong & Canada

After a year long I am finally back to Canada. One of the purpose of my trip is to get the look and feel of how things go / change due to social media and see if any of these new concepts can be applied to the Hong Kong business model. Often you heard of a lot of successful case and stories about using social media on business, however had yourself witness any these strategies in your own eyes before?

While I was in a shopping mall earlier today I saw couple stores already start promoting using Social Media. Thou these marketing / advertising strategies are directing user to online (social media) medium, however the message itself was being promoted utilizing old media. As always you cannot only relay on a single media (old / new media), instead you will need to utilize BOTH media in order to drive a successful campaign.

QR Code outside at the store front

QR Code was commonly use for mobile app download nowdays, however about 4-6 years ago it was already very popular in Japan and you can simply embed any kinda of message (including links & email with telephone # etc). The above store simply have a A4 size paper and stick it to the front door and indicate there is a new campaign at their site, then ask the user to scan the code with their smart phone.

I had test it with my smartphone and it simply point me to their live site - bench.ca. It's a not a bad approach as it delivers a direct message to the user and actually attracts me to scan the code and check out their new site, not bad at all!

Check-in in Facebook and get a good deal

The second store I encounter that is actively promoting on social media was Garage, right at the front of their store, it asked a very interesting question - Have You Checked In? If you had checked in using Facebook Places, you can then claim the offer (deals) from the store.

This is actually my first hands on experience of Facebook Places and Deals
as the service is yet to be available in Hong Kong

Last but not least, I saw a very nice sign asking me to hop on Facebook to seek for this mall to find out more details. The above sign simply stick on the ground of the staircase. The sign itself certainly get my attention and as an end user, I am anxious to find out what sort of info it has for me on Facebook.

Other then the above, this Canadian mall also has an iPhone location base app that allows user to find out the map of the mall, stores info, promotions and more (Below video shows what kinda info the app is capable of doing)

The above advertising strategies are trying to direct user to the online community and the users' mobile device become a very important medium.

Comparing Hong Kong's local Mall and the Canadian mall I had just been to earlier today, Hong Kong's malls still have a lot potential and room to grow (specially Hong Kong's mobile device models are really up to date, smartphone usage is more then 50% and price of data plan is relatively low). Although Facebook places and deals is yet to be available in Hong Kong, but similar location-base service like Foursquare and Gowalla is available (thou the functionality is not exactly as places and deals) and hence can be utilize for advertising or promoting the brand and the company. In addition, mobile apps can also include more functionality in and hence the app itself can provide the user a better experience.

Social Media and mobile apps definitely the main trend of 2011, however do not simply jump in and invest your time and money to develop an mobile app right away. Before you decided to implement your mobile app, think about as an end user why do I need this app and why should I be using your apps, in addition, what kind of functionality an end user will be seeking for? The usability and the purpose of this app is really important as this is the ley of whether your app will be successful.

Hands on Facebook Places & Deals

This morning when I woke up, all a sudden I remembered I am now in Canada and hence Facebook Places is available so I can try it out. Immediately I turn on my mobile's Wi-Fi and open up Facebook app, I see places finally available and allow me to check in and tag friends - Yay.

First impression of Facebook Places, the interface is very clean and the load time (of listing out nearby places) is a lot quicker in compare to FourSquare & Gowalla. I can also see who had check-in a certain venue and who is currently at the venue I am at. Other then checking in, user can tag friends that's in the same venue. The idea was pretty cool and it's useful in a way that once a user been tagged by another user, he/she does not need to check in again (different from Foursquare and Gowalla, each user will need to check-in each single place. Under my impression, Facebook Places is not much different from Foursquare and Gowalla, however deals is another thing.

Recently Facebook just release deals in Canada and thus I was able to test drive it as well. Deals is something allow you to check out discounts and promotions in stores / places around you. You will be able to tell if a place currently has any deals by observing the name of the venue if there is a yellow / green icon on the right hand side of the venue name, then you can check in and claim  the deal. Simple and easy!

Facebook Deals in action

Facebook Deals is very similar to Foursquare special offers, however it provides various type of deals instead of a single type of special offers in comparison to Foursquare. How will Facebook Deals impact the market am unsure yet, however with the first day of launch (in Canada) I already see a few stores putting up their check-in sign at their store front (and some did mention nothing about deals, but the store itself already set up discounts via deals).

I am uncertain how will Places & Deals impact to the Hong Kong market, when it is available to the local market. I certainly hope it will increase the awareness of location based app and allow Hong Kong to move away from its old media advertising.