Los Angeles – In an effort to spruce up its services, social networking humongous Facebook is collaborating with global retailers on a test of a new version of its Offers product, which empowers users the option to shop immediately or get a reminder before the promotion ends. The interface also lets users decide if and when to share the offer with friends, according to a report from Inside Facebook.
In fact, implementation of this latest manifestation of Offers could be more effective in leading to direct sales for retailers, while helping users remember to take advantage of the offers they are interested in and giving them more control over how their activity is shared. Brittany Darwell reports:
A Facebook spokesperson says the company is working with a few global retailers for this test, but for now other pages aren’t affected and their offers will continue to appear in the original format.
Facebook Offers was launched last year, and according to COO Sheryl Sandberg last month reported as saying that offers had already been claimed by 42 million unique users.
And now, the format that is being tested would only help users claim more of them. As for e-commerce offers in the trial, users will see two buttons: “Shop Now” and “Remind Me.” Though previously, users could only select “Get Offer.” When users click “Shop Now,” they will be taken directly to a retailer’s website. When they click “Remind Me,” users will be sent an email and at a later date will be reminded with a notification on Facebook. It is up to each retailer when they will remind users about their promotion, but they can only send one notification per offer.
Besides, it is interesting to note that after users select “Remind me,” they will have an option to pass on to their friends via “Tell Friends.” However, their activity would not be shared unless they click this button. As opposed to previously, whenever a user clicked “Get Offer,” it generated a story in friends’ feeds and in the recent activity section of their Timeline. Users can visit their activity log if decide later that they did not want to share the offer or if they want to adjust their privacy settings on the activity.
Another cool addition is that offers will be saved to a new section of a user’s account. Users will see an Offers bookmark in the left-hand menu. Previously, users were sent an email after claiming an offer, but there was not a way for them to see an offer or retrieve their coupon code on Facebook.com.
Apart from these changes is a new design for offers posts, which includes larger images and calls to action that appear as more prominent buttons instead of simple hyperlinks. The new Offers also lend themselves better to general in-store or online sales, instead of being more focused on promotions that require a unique coupon to redeem.
Overall, this implementation seems aimed at maximizing conversions even if it has the effect of reducing vitality somewhat. Also, it will be interesting to see if Facebook adds Offers functionality to Graph Search, as it expands that to include different types of Facebook data.
Image Credits: (InsideFacebook.com)