If you have a Facebook brand page and you want free WiFi at your business, this is for you.
Facebook announced this week that it’s expanding the free Facebook WiFi hot spot program from Cisco and Meraki wireless routers to include Netgear as well.
The program started last year and seems to have had enough success that Facebook wanted to expand it to Netgear.
Here’s the catch: to get on the Facebook WiFi connection, you have to check in on the social network at the business’s location, and it only works with one of those three brands of routers.
How It Works
A Netgear, Cisco or Meraki router can be enabled by Facebook to become a hot spot. The business must have administrative access to its brand Facebook page and have a verified physical location for it to work.
As mentioned, to gain access to the hot spot, a user must log into Facebook and check in at the business.
Clearly Facebook is trying to up the engagement from both brands and users, and this can be a boon to a lot of small businesses who both struggle with Facebook engagement and being able to provide an open wireless network.
The Caveat
Many users shy away from checking in because they feel that publicizing their location can be a threat to personal security. Of course, as a user, you can easily edit the privacy of your posts to be visible to “Only Me.”
So, when it comes to the customers, there aren’t too many drawbacks to using the Facebook WiFi at a business, but this could impact the effectiveness of publicizing your business’s brand page on Facebook.
Something else to consider is how solid your Facebook updating is. Depending on the amount of customers you have that will want to connect to your WiFi, you could get a pretty good amount of traffic to your Facebook page. If you’re going to have more traffic going to it, you should make use of it.
That means consistently updating it with relevant information, pictures, and deals and being able to participate with and respond to user engagement.
Check out Facebook’s instructions about setting up Facebook WiFi in your business.
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