This great read on Eventmanagerblog.com highlights the latest in event technology that can assist in captivating your event attendees by using Facebook Bluetooth Beacons.

What is a Facebook Bluetooth Beacon?

Facebook launched Bluetooth Beacons in January 2015 to support the Place Tips feature. Place Tips can work without a beacon, using cell tower, WiFi and GPS location data, however Bluetooth Beacons are fixed transmitters placed at the business location that are more reliable at pinpointing the precise location of the visitor. Facebook beacons are easy to set-up and have a 2-year battery life.

To work the beacon requires Bluetooth to be enabled on the user’s mobile device, then the Facebook Bluetooth Beacon detects when a Facebook user is within a 100 foot range and triggers tips at the top of the user’s news feed as soon as the Facebook app is opened. This enables unique messaging to the user based on a mix of friends’ recommendations, check-ins, events and page posts.

The Potential of Facebook Beacons

Although beacon technology has been available for events for several years, via event mobile apps, many planners haven’t explored this fully yet. The huge advantage of using Facebook Bluetooth Beacons is that with 989 million mobile daily active users in the world, you can be certain that the majority of your attendees will already have the Facebook App installed and many will check it whilst on the premises. Mobile usage of the Facebook mobile app is grew by 21% in the last year alone.

How Can You Use This Opportunity for Events?

This is a great opportunity for venues in particular to apply to set up Facebook Beacons. It is a great way for a venue to promote all forthcoming public events at the venue and the information can be tailored each day to a specific event happening at the venue to give them prominence on the live event days. Venue marketing teams should be taking advantage of this to help the event planners using their spaces.