We found a new “Facebook Professional Services” area on Facebook, where the company appears to be taking direct aim at local search companies like Yelp and Google by offering listings of local businesses and services, complete with user reviews. The new feature is desktop-only and hasn’t been announced by Facebook.
Visitors to Professional Services are presented first with a page that has their current location preselected. Searches can be made within that area by typing into a dialog box that serves up business categories like plumbers, dentists, photographers, beauty salons, pharmacies, pizza places and so on.
Here is how it works:
Click on the link: https://www.facebook.com/services/. You can find two menus, on the first menu you need to just enter your business specific search item for example “Movie Theaters” and add on the place in the next menu for example “Chennai” and hit search. Facebook’s new Services Directory will come up with the list of Movie Theaters in Chennai based on the popular Facebook reviews and ratings.
The results page displays businesses’ contact information and hours of business, and excerpts of reviews (with a link to see more reviews on the business’s Facebook Page). The services results page also includes a map that shows where businesses are located and links to similar businesses in adjacent areas.
Quite unsure whether you have observed the new Places Directory another similar feature from Facebook that was introduced a little while ago, which is a local site that is inclined specifically towards guiding browsers based on user reviews to easily locate what they are searching for, though you might not find answers for all your queries.
I am not sure whether you have discovered how it works, and if you have not yet found the amazing feature, just click on the link: https://www.facebook.com/places and easily get answers for your local searches and travel sites. Actually the new Places Directory collaborates the Graph Search, the Page Locations API and many other elements to explode the directory with the best results for local searches.
Facebook in its attempt to enhance user experience with more advanced results, is now helping business pages with popular reviews and ratings to grow and expand their customer reach!