How to set up a Facebook Offer (now available in Australia)
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Big news last week was that Facebook rolled out Facebook Offers (still in beta testing) to five countries – Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan and Turkey. Below is a short overview of what Facebook Offers are, how they work, and how you can set one up in a couple of minutes.
What are Facebook Offers?
First of all, let me clarify that Facebook Offers are completely free to set up and redeem. There are no costs on either side. Hurrah! Facebook offers are essentially coupons that you can offer to Facebook users that appear on newsfeeds (desktop and mobile) and through wall posts that can be promoted as sponsored stories (ads). When people redeem the special offer they are prompted to share that story on their wall so that their friends can also take advantage of it (plus get you some much-appreciated viral spread).
At this point they are only available to bricks and mortar stores – that is Facebook place pages. If you have an address on your Page so that people can check-in, you have access to offers (if you’re in one of the countries trialling it). Once someone claims your offer within Facebook they are sent an email with the details to redeem within your store.
How do you set up a Facebook Offer?
Excellent question! I was not sure of this myself before I did some research – mainly because it actually isn’t available for my Social Skinny Page given I don’t have a place attached to it. If your page is eligible (ie. you’re in one of the beta testing countries and you are a place page), you can set it up following these easy steps:
1. Go to your Page (DUH)
2. Below your status bar, click the ‘Offer, Event +’ image
3. Fill out the fields as required – including your image, your offer itself, the date the offer expires and any terms and conditions you need to include. You can also limit the number of people who can claim the deal.
4. Click preview, check that it all looks good and then post!
It really is that easy, but just in case you are confused, you can watch a step by step video put together by Facebook on how to set up your own Facebook Offer.
What do Facebook Offers look like in action?
Quite handily Target Australia have put their own offer out via their Facebook Page today, so they are the lucky ones that get to be made famous on this post. This is the step by step journey a Facebook user goes through to redeem a deal.
1. The deal shows up on their Timeline
2. They click ‘get offer’
3. They see a ‘Offer sent’ message, telling them to check their email for details and when they need to redeem the offer by
4. They choose who to share this story with – the offer redemption will be posted to their timeline and just like any other post you can choose who will see this. If you’re like me and don’t really want people to know you’re going to buy some cushions on sale, you can choose ‘only me’ and click OK.
5. The activity is displayed in their timeline and newsfeed (to those who they selected could see it) – if this post was public or visible to their friends they will then also be able to claim the offer, even if they are not fans of the Page
6. Check their email to see the details of the offer
7. They go instore and get the special deal!
Last few words of advice
My advice is to trial a Facebook Offer if you’re able to. I would. I think they are an awesome way to get more people into your store and get some viral spread – everyone wins. Particularly as they are free to set up and you can limit the number of people who can redeem. The only words of caution I would give would be to make sure your offer is something people will get excited about – if you just offer 5% off one item in your store, the offer may not work that well. However if you offer something that gets people excited – like a buy one get one free or a 25% off deal, well you’ll probably find that your offer works well in driving more sales and new customers.
I’d love to hear if you have run a Facebook Offer – specifically how many people redeemed it, whether it led to a growth in your Facebook community and most importantly what it did for your bottom-line.
Please share with the group 
Hey! My name is Cara Pring and this is 
awesome, awesome, awesome!
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LikeDislikeIt’s probably because it’s only the beta version and the testing period, but my page/business is from Australia, and has a location you can tag yourself at, but I cannot do offers – there is no option anywhere on my facebook. Just letting you know – is it likely that not EVERYONE in Aus with a page will be able to post offers at this time?
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LikeDislikeHi Sherelle – good question and unfortunately one that I cannot answer at the moment.I’m not sure why your Page hasn’t been given access, but yes I’m assuming it has something to do with the beta testing. I was under the impression any place pages within Oz could do so though, so thanks for sharing that issue. I’ll see if I can come up with an answer over the next couple of days
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LikeDislikeHi Cara,
We’ve been waiting with baited breath for a while now. One of our clients got this feature about 2 weeks ago and none of our others have. Like putting a child in a candy shop and saying ‘you can’t have any’.
K
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LikeDislikeI am actually speculating whether it has something to do with number of Facebook fans – it seems on initial inspection that the place pages I’m shared admin for that have thousands of fans have access, whilst those with only a nominal community do not. Possible answer? Kate does that seem to support your clients’ communities?
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LikeDislikeSo far haven’t found any Pages with under 650 fans that have this enabled. I think there must be a minimum number of fans to gain access at this point.
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LikeDislikeWhat do you think about Huon Bush Retreats’ experience with Facebook Offers, Cara?
I pulled some lessons for other businesses together at effectivedeals.com and sure you have more insight. Ultimately they got a lot of publicity – but upset a lot of Facebook users inadvertently in the process. Could they have done anything differently, or is there a risk in the way the Offers appear to be ‘claimed’ when they’re really not?
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LikeDislikeHi Simon – to be honest I think it is just a symptom of Facebook’s lack of communication. The process for Offers is legitimate and the offer should not have shown up in people’s timelines unless their friends were claiming it (hence considered relevant in Facebook’s eyes) – the fact is that the promotion type was so new that no one had seen it before, hence people suspecting the company of ‘hacking’ their timeline.
As Offers become more prevalent people will come to understand it’s another ‘feature’ that Facebook is offering that should (theoretically) benefit both users and businesses. At the end of the day I think it worked in their favour – so what if a couple of people got annoyed – those who were genuinely interested in their product would have redeemed offer and booked in for a stay!
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LikeDislikeI just wanted to let everyone know that you can change your page info to a place page (we were formally a company/organization page), create the offer and then switch back. The offer still seems to be working so far for us!
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LikeDislikeHi Claire,
This didn’t work for my page… Any other suggestions? I’d really love to get an offer up and running but a google search isn’t helping any.
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LikeDislikeHi there,
I am unable to activate this feature as well. I have changed the page info to be a place, but that didn’t work.
Possibly need more likers….
Keep me posted if you work it out
Ta
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LikeDislikeHi Cara,
I wanted to clarify if the Facebook Offers can be initiated without actually having people come to the office to redeem offers. Is the criteria only to have a brick and mortar address or is it also that consumers will have to redeem the offer at that physical address.
Do let me know, please. Thanks.
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LikeDislikeHi Shailey, the criteria (as far as I’m aware) is just to have an address attached to your page – facebook can’t control what the actual offer is so you could definitely have an online offer. It’s just a matter of whether they allow you to set one up in the first place, which I believe you will need to have the address to be able to do.
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LikeDislikeThanks so much Cara. That was helpful. Will let you know my experience
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LikeDislikeCara, have you seen that all Page types can now access offers and not just bricks and mortar businesses? More details here: http://impactiv8.com.au/now-everyone-can-access-facebook-offers-for-a-price
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LikeDislikeThanks for the update Loren!
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LikeDislikeHi Cara
Is there any way we can see who has claimed our offer?
Thanks
Leon
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LikeDislikeHello,
Just wondering if anyone here would happen to know why my Offers tab isn’t visible. I have over 400 Fans on my page and can’t figure out what the problem is.
Thanks,
Adem
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