Facebook Offering Businesses $500 to Monitor Their Phone Calls

I just received an email from Facebook offering one of my social media clients a $500 advertising coupon if he agrees to participate in Facebook’s Call Tracking Study.

The goal of the month-long study is “to understand how many phone calls local businesses receive as a result of their Facebook Page.”

What Facebook wants my client to do is replace the phone number on their Facebook fanpage with the special Facebook issued tracking number. Calls to the number will still be routed to my client’s business. Facebook claims they are just “monitoring usage”. According to their website, “Facebook will primarily log the number of phone calls made from the special number on your page. We will not record or listen to your calls.”

Unfortunately the study is only open to a small group of businesses who have been invited to participate. No information was given as to what the criteria were for selecting my client’s business.

You can learn more about Facebook’s Call Tracking Study on their website.

Would you route your business phone calls through Facebook and let them monitor them? I guess it depends on how many calls you receive from your Facebook page. Maybe you should conduct a research study to find out.