Local business owners who have claimed a Facebook Places Page can now get reporting on how many people are checking-in to their business, and how many are redeeming deals they’ve offered through Facebook. The new reports, announced today, can help business owners refine the deals they’re offering and track foot traffic from Facebook users over time.

The report will display a chart, in daily increments, showing how many check-ins and deal redemptions occur per day.

Image courtesy Facebook

Making new data available is likely to encourage usage and refinement of the Place pages, and of the Deal functionality. Facebook announced the check-in to Places functionality back in August 2010, and the ability for businesses to offer deals — without Facebook taking a cut — in November. Users of Facebook apps on their mobile phones can see a yellow “coupon” icon, which signifies that the place has a deal, when they look at a list of nearby businesses.

The new reporting brings Facebook a little more in line with Foursquare and Yelp, both of which offer substantial reporting to local businesses. Foursquare yesterday announced an upgrade to its interface for businesses, which included the ability to offer different types of Specials and a revised analytics dashboard. Yelp rolled out analytics on mobile check-in offers when it rolled out the offers in November. Google just announced its own test of check-in offers, which will be taking place in Austin, Texas, during the SXSW interactive conference.

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Features: General | Top News

About The Author: Pamela Parker is a contributing editor for Search Engine Land and Executive Features Editor at Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998, including a stint as managing editor of ClickZ. She’s also worked to help monetize independent publishers’ sites at Federated Media Publishing. She blogs about media and marketing at The River and about cooking, gardening and parenthood at Free Range. She can be found on Twitter as @pamelaparker. See more articles by Pamela Parker

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