Day before yesterday I got an alert on my iPhone that there is a new version of Facebook available. I updated to the new version and saw few changes. There was a layout change and then there is a new option “CheckIn” on the home page. I didn’t check it as I was busy and just checked my facebook messages and updated status, checked my fan pages and other usual stuff on facebook.

So yesterday I was in the car sitting next to my friend who was driving the car. My phone vibrated and I pulled it out from my pocket. There were some Facebook messages and some direct mentions at twitter and some emails. After checking all that I decided to check the new feature “Check In.”. I clicked on it and it asked for my geographical info. Usually I turn off my geographical location during status updates on facebook and while tweeting on twitter for security reasons. But to use this feature I turned the location on to see what the heck it is. For those who have iPhone you know what I am talking about. You have to go to “Settings” > “General” > “Location Services” and then choose your application (Facebook in this case) to turn On/Off the location.

How it works.

Check In is a feature where it shows you the nearby businesses according to your current location. It shows you what businesses are near you and it also shows their description. It also shows if they have any deals going on. So you go to the facebook application on your mobile device (iPhone in this case) and click on “Check In.”

By default it will show you all the businesses around you. As I was in the car and going down the road my geo location was changing also and so did the businesses around me. This is very powerful as you can literally scan your surroundings and see what businesses are out there in your competition. You can scroll from the list what kind of business you want to see. The below marked with the red arrows are the ones I created for illustration purposes.

Once you find what you are looking for or find something interesting, you can tap/click on it and it will take you to the main page for the business. By default it will take you to the “Activity” tab. Click on the “Info” tab to see the description of the business.

Now if you go to that business then you can click on “Activity” tab and click on “Check In” tab. This will show on your profile that you are right now in that particular business place. From your profile your friends can see also that where are you right now. This way you can promote that business and create a viral effect.

There is another feature called “Tag Friends With You.” You can see that in the picture above. What this does is that you can tag your friends along with you. This will show on your facebook profile that you and your tagged friends are at this particular business place right now. This will show on your friend’s profile too that they were tagged and then their friends can see where they were tagged too and what is their location and what business place did they go to. So it just creates a huge viral effect to promote something, a business, a restaurant, a barber shop etc etc. See the picture below that see where it says “Tagged”

How to make money from it?

Now lets say you have tie up with a printing shop and they give you 10% commission everytime you send a business to them. So by promoting that you are at that (Check In) printing shop you can promote that printing shop among your friends. In other words you are referring your friends to that printing shop. This way you can make a lot of commissions. You can also put comments for that printing shop about their service.

Now other aspect is if you have a Home Based Internet Marketing Business and you help others to start one. In other words you want to promote it then you can do a trick. Again, this is just an example. I tested it myself but use your own brain. Possibilities are endless.

How to add and promote your business?

So you want to add and promote your Home Based Business and you want to target the people who work in corporate sector. So you can go to any place where it’s a corporate hub and then using your location (since you are standing on the street or sitting in the lounge of a building) you can add your Home Based Business profile.

1.       In the search bar (as in the picture) start typing something. In this example we are typing “Hello.”

2.       At the bottom where it shows the results it will say “Add (whatever you typed) In this example its “Add Hello.” Then you tap on it.

3.       After this it will take you to a different screen where you have to enter your Title for the business and the description for the business. Then click “Add” on the upper right corner.

Once you have saved your profile your business is set to show up in the vicinity where you added it (remember its all geo location dependant). This way if someone else is scrolling from the list of places around him/her and they see your Home Based Business they can check your description and then seeing your site there they can go to your site. This way you are driving the traffic to your site (by adding your site URL in the description/info). Now this was just an idea. Just your brain and figure out what massive amount of traffic you can get from different places and it is all super laser focus targeted leads. You are directly targeting the audience by literally sitting among them. You can go to any kind of audience and create an Ad and start targeting.

Moral Responsibility.

This is massive. I see it coming in a big way in future for getting super super targeted traffic. Possibilities are endless. Its just your imagination and creativity. BUT I also want to mention something that do not SPAM. Do not just randomly do it. You have a social and moral responsibility also. If you SPAM and overdo it then guess what? You will turn away the prospects from your Ad in “Check In” and might end of negative commenting. There is also a provision in Check In that if you think some place or business is fake or inappropriate or has been closed etc then you can flag it. So chanced are very high that if you spam you will be flagged quickly and removed quickly. It just takes a second to do it. This could also ruin your image on facebook rather than building one. Remember, its all about giving value to people and making an image of yourself.

People who are desperate for leads and want to get rich quick often end up in spamming. Home Business industry is all about your image. Its all about how you brand yourself. I will soon come up with an ebook on how to brand yourself. Stay with me on my Facebook Fan page for updates. Click here to become a fan of my page on Facebook.

Signing off!!!

Harprit Singh

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