Facebook Deals came into play. It’s Facebook Places, just with a tangible reward added.

Before conducting our latest Digital Pulse study, Facebook Places was nothing more than friends sharing their location with others through their profile. Now, Facebook has integrated LBS Saving functionality which helps provide an economic reward for checking in.

Already, Facebook Places is the second most used LBS application in Australia, but runs a distant second to Google Maps. You might assume that the audience mainly engaged with this new piece of functionality falls into the youngest demographic, but in truth the core age group checking in are aged between 26-55 years of age. This means that the people earning the bucks are looking to cash-in on rewards for simply checking in.

There’s a lot of latent consumer interest in check-in rewards that big brands are now just starting to tap.  We found in our study that this type of instant reward benefit is the single most attractive to Australian mobile device users, in particular – females.

Key brands are taking cognisance of this trend, ranging from retail banks to quick service restaurants – all with the idea of increasing customer footfall through rewarding visitation.

Below are snapshots of the brands currently on the Facebook bandwagon.
7-Eleven; KFC; CommBank; Westfield