Food Ordering Comes To Facebook

What’s this about?

I kinda like the thought that I can order my dinner through Facebook (if I was in the US).

Although, I’m not so sure I want Facebook knowing what I have for dinner – that’s Insta, so maybe the same thing, ultimately.

Facebook is continuing its slow turn into WeChat. It has way more users, but much less “complete life” functionality. It must wish it could own that much data about its users instead of having to piece it together from likes.

Read this extract from TWIS SEO News & Updates 20th October 2017.

#SEO #SEONews #Facebook #SocialMedia

Key Issues Summary:

Facebook has launched a new food ordering service extension in the US, allowing users to order food from participating restaurants.
This is nominally aimed at shortening the funnel from “check menu on Facebook”, “look at Facebook reviews” and “open app”, or “find website”, to link the menu or review actions directly to being able to order.
Of course, this convenience also ties both parties tighter into the ecosystem.
Facebook neglect to mention if there will be advertising options available to food companies shortly.

Key Actions To Take:

If you’re in the US, check it out!
If you’re not in the US, drool at the food you could be ordering if you were in the US.
If you’re a restaurant, you need to investigate how to get your food options listed on Facebook. This slow turn into WeChat will continue.
Click here to contact me to discuss this further.

Insights & Discussion:

This is one of those “that’s handy, but I’m not sure I like it” developments. If I regularly ordered food from outlets on Facebook, then I’d say it’s great. Now I don’t have to click an extra button or two to order. Also if I wanted to order from unknown places, it’d be handy as the service can run through delivery aggregators.

The trouble is that in most instances I’ve come across Facebook reviews are as useful as a chocolate fireguard: either 5-star “it’s okayish” reviews , or 1-star “something incredibly minor has ruined my entire life” reviews. The reviews are just not that useful.

I have to say that if I regularly order food from a place, I tend to have their website bookmarked, or their app loaded, or the number in speed dial.

Of more interest is that fact that Facebook as it slowly realises it’s dying (Facebook is Dead) is morphing into a one-stop, do everything brand a la AOL as was. The frustrating thing is that being out of the US, most of these fancy features are very slow to release, which means Facebook’s value to me, and other non-US users, diminishes further.

More Information:

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Mobile First is NOT Mobile Friendly

I recently wrote about how Google’s Mobile First is Not Mobile Friendly. Read it now.

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TL;DR

Mmmmm, Facebook dinners….
The new TV dinners?
This new Facebook feature could be handy, but could also be annoying, if you go by reviews.
Read The State of SEO in mid-2017.
Read about how Google’s Mobile First Index is not Mobile Friendly.
Finally, get your content ranking well on Google by starting to understand Find Crawl Index.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to discuss what these changes mean for your web property, or would like to know how to implement them, please feel free to contact me.

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