Facebook Places still isn’t available in the UK at present even though there are rumours that it is being tested. Unlike Foursquare, Facebook Places is likely to take off fairly rapidly in the UK when it is released due to the large Facebook user base.

In light of this it would be prudent for businesses to be up to speed with Facebook Places, how to register your business and what you can do with it currently. Registration is fairly simple and requires you to do no more than list your premises and then claim your location through a series of security checks. If you have registered with Google Local it is fairly similar, if you haven’t registered on Google Local I would suggest doing this now.

Although it is the early stages of development one of the great things you can do with Facebook Places is send messages directly to all users that have checked-in at your business premises. Offering you the opportunity to target market existing customers.

In the following video Mari Smith coauthor of “Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day” explains how Facebook Places currently works in the U.S.: