The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses • Hacker News Board

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#11

Post by joebeetee » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:13 PM UTC

bobsy wrote: post #8

Interesting. My local chipshop has had a like us on Facebook sign up for the past year. They have 13 likes.. The only use for this I can see is in an office so everyone can see the count going up. Putting it on the shop front of a small business would be a bit embarassing as the majority of small businesses have a miniscule number of likes..

I don't think a minuscule amount of likes is embarrassing. People expect that for a small local business. The big difference is that those likes really count for something - 13 likes at a local chip shop probably means 13 people who go there once a week.

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#12

Post by joezydeco » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:17 PM UTC

91bananas wrote: post #10

joezydeco wrote: post #7

I just want those split-flap modules. Those would be fun to play with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYhlQDS03KM This fellow built a controller for some, looks pretty simple

The controller part is pretty simple. The hard part is finding these modules. Most were made by Solari in Italy, Omega in Switzerland, or Salient in Australia. All are either out of the business or won't sell to consumers.

Like the youtube like you posted, the modules are surplus or salvaged ones. I've seen kickstarters for little cardboard replicas, but nothing more durable than that.

I've also found one guy that built his own module and put his designs online:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-based-Split-Flap-gam...

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#13

Post by Gauhier » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:25 PM UTC

nubela wrote: post #5

is there a counter where i can actually connect to my own metrics?

Yep, we'll work on that, we wanted to make it very simple and very clear at the beginning and in the future we'll expand this device with an open api!

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#14

Post by aresant » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:27 PM UTC

This is genius and fills a real need, here's why:

I've spent the last two years building out a customer acquisition program for a brick & mortar chain with ~50 locations.

We CONSTANTLY try to train the people in the store to ask for reviews / likes / etc which is a cornerstone of local SEO and the customer acquisition process.

The biggest issue that we encounter is that store employees have trouble figuring out how / where to have the conversation, and how to ask.

With one of these on every store counter we literally have a conversation starter and the novelty for the customer of clicking the "like" button on their phone and seeing the physical roll over is just enough bait to make it worthwhile for them.

I see two issues with the hardware:

a) €300 (~$450 US) is steep. I get this is prototype. But at $100 I would put them in every store.

b) There's nowhere on the sign for the URL / or a call to action "Like us at fb.com/blahblah" which means literally every Like you get requires a transaction / discussion w/a store employee to guide people there vs. just letting it hit organically.

Regardless I'm going to buy one, and if the devs are here and watching and would like us to knock out a case study of how well this works feel free to drop me a line via my profile -

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#15

Post by Gauhier » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:29 PM UTC

joebeetee wrote: post #9

This is a cool idea. Although isn't 5 digits a little limited?

We've build this device for local businesses such as little stores, shops, bars, restaurants...etc, it seems that the average number of fans of these types of fan pages is comprised between 0 and 99 999 fans.. Plus we are sure that Facebook pages with over 100 000 fans would prefer a custom version of Fliike.

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#16

Post by Gauhier » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:39 PM UTC

aresant wrote: post #14

This is genius and fills a real need, here's why: I've spent the last two years building out a customer acquisition program for a brick & mortar chain with ~50 locations. We CONSTANTLY try to train the people in the store to ask for reviews / likes / etc which is a cornerstone of local SEO and the customer acquisition process. The biggest issue that we encounter is that store employees have trouble figuring out how /…

Wow, that's encouraging for us, you totally seized what we are trying to do with this device. Let's get in touch!

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#17

Post by MartinCron » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:43 PM UTC

Once you've saturated the local businesses market, you can also sell this to narcissists.

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#18

Post by wtvanhest » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:46 PM UTC

Gauhier wrote: post #16

aresant wrote: post #14

This is genius and fills a real need, here's why: I've spent the last two years building out a customer acquisition program for a brick & mortar chain with ~50 locations. We CONSTANTLY try to train the people in the store to ask for reviews / likes / etc which is a cornerstone of local SEO and the customer acquisition process. The biggest issue that we encounter is that store employees have trouble figuring out how /…

Wow, that's encouraging for us, you totally seized what we are trying to do with this device. Let's get in touch!

You should definitely make it easy for them to "like" the store they are in while they are on their visit.

I understand that searching for he business on the mobile device would work, but if there was faster way, you should consider adding it as an upgrade.

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#19

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:50 PM UTC

aresant wrote: post #14

This is genius and fills a real need, here's why: I've spent the last two years building out a customer acquisition program for a brick & mortar chain with ~50 locations. We CONSTANTLY try to train the people in the store to ask for reviews / likes / etc which is a cornerstone of local SEO and the customer acquisition process. The biggest issue that we encounter is that store employees have trouble figuring out how /…

[deleted]

Re: The first physical Facebook fan counter for local businesses

#20

Post by twilightfog » Tue, Jul 02, 2013, 4:53 PM UTC

Gauhier wrote: post #16

aresant wrote: post #14

This is genius and fills a real need, here's why: I've spent the last two years building out a customer acquisition program for a brick & mortar chain with ~50 locations. We CONSTANTLY try to train the people in the store to ask for reviews / likes / etc which is a cornerstone of local SEO and the customer acquisition process. The biggest issue that we encounter is that store employees have trouble figuring out how /…

Wow, that's encouraging for us, you totally seized what we are trying to do with this device. Let's get in touch!

I agree that the $450 price tag is too steep. At a stretch, I think that anything more than $100 is not attractive, even if its a novelty item. Why don't you raise the money for mass scale production on Kickstarter. IMO its better to sell 10 K for $100 than a few hundred at $450.