Just saw this video today for the new advertising product from Facebook called Facebook Deals and it has me excited to try this with some of my clients that have local, brick and mortar businesses.

Watch the video here.  I was surprised to see that Facebook didn’t provide a way for me to embed the video, or share it any other place than within Facebook.  Trust me, I would have embedded it if I could have.

According to Facebook, “We launched Places to let you share where you are with your friends and see who’s nearby. Now with Deals, you also can see what offers are nearby and share those deals with your friends.”

You can read the official Facebook announcement on their blog.

Here are my top 5 reasons I am excited about Facebook Places and Facebook Deals:

1. Location-based marketing is all the rage.  Foursquare (have tried) and Gowalla (have not tried) have received a lot of hype, but the fact is that no one likes to manage a bunch of different social networks.  Think about it, in real life, between church, work, friends, and family, it is hard to manage all of those relationships.  Facebook, the largest social network in the world, now has a way for you to “check-in” so you don’t have to login to any other account to tell the world where you are.
2. New, shiny, bright thing effect.  Every internet marketer likes to be one of the first ones to try the latest way to get you or your client’s name out there.
3. More than ever before, consumers are asking their friends about products before making purchases.
4. Facebook is already awesome for targeting specific demographics, and now it is better at targeting specific geographics, even down to the actual location.  Why?  Because now Facebook users are telling the world when they walk into a store.
5. I can’t wait to get the deals.  It will be cool to check-in at Target and see what discounts I can get just for being okay with letting all of the world know that is where I am.  Seriously, do you think I would be ashamed to let my uncle Dave on Facebook know that I am at Target if it means I am going to save 30%?

Even after all the hype and excitement, and having 5 reasons to love Facebook Deals, I will probably hold off a little longer before I test the waters.  If you haven’t read the blog post I linked to above, it talks about who the early adopters are to this new advertising technology.  I am anxious to hear how it goes for them, and let them teach the world how it works, before I use it on my own stuff.  As soon as I do, I’ll let you know how it goes.