As the world moves towards a post-pandemic era, hospitality businesses can attract customers with ... [+]
If you run a small business and want to offer your customers free WiFi access, what’s the best way to do it? You could set up a guest network using your router and hope your data will be safe from hackers or over-curious customers. If you do, then there some other things you need to consider such as setting up a secure password and a limit for how long a customer can stay online. No one wants someone who has mistaken your café or shop for a home office and buys just one coffee while staying all day and using the toilet, heating and lighting.
Instead of setting up your own customer WiFi, there is an easier way. You can outsource your customer WiFi to Facebook and Instagram. My attention was drawn to this service by Camilo Breddels from Engenius Europe. Engenius makes wireless routers, switches and access points for businesses and I’ve reviewed some of the company’s products in the past. They are well made and certainly on a par with Netgear when it comes to quality and functions. The company says its Engenius Cloud routers are the only models that support both Facebook and Instagram WiFi, although I’m sure it won’t stay that way for too long.
Facebook WiFi does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to setting up a customer WiFi portal. All the parameters and security settings required for getting a customer WiFi portal up and running are done for you.
The Engenius ECW230 is just one of the company's range of routers and wireless access points that ... [+]
Setting up Facebook WiFi is easy and almost anyone can do it by following the instructions posted here. There are video guides available on YouTube and the whole process takes around 20 minutes at most. Once set up, your business will be listed in Facebook’s WiFi directory and that could bring in more business as more people rely on Facebook to get access to free WiFi around the world.
The advantages of having Facebook handle your customer WiFi access include being advertised in the Facebook WiFi directory, enabling customers to get online without having to enter lengthy passwords into their smartphones, plus you also might get likes and check-ins on your Facebook Page from grateful customers.
If you use Instagram WiFi, it could help you harvest more followers for our account as there’s an option urging the customer to follow your Instagram account. Businesses offering Facebook or Instagram WiFi also show up on a map that appears when Facebook WiFi users are searching for internet access. As a Facebook WiFi provider, your business also gets to access demographics and stats of customers accessing your WiFi.
To find out how you can set up Facebook and Instagram WiFi on an Engenius wireless router or any other compatible routers, you can access a video that shows exactly what needs to be done. Of course, not everyone will be keen to turn over their customer internet access to Facebook WiFi, but it’s worth investigating to see if it will work for your business, especially if you’ve already set up a Facebook Business page or Instagram account. Best of all, because Facebook WiFi offers seamless access, that could mean far fewer customers asking for your WiFi password.
More info: www.engeniusnetworks.eu and www.facebook.com
