It’s easy to include Facebook in your marketing plan. The hard part is making it work for your business. You want your Facebook page to be engaging, informative and entertaining. You want your customers to be talking to and about your page. So who’s doing it right? We looked at many quickservice Facebook pages to come up with our list of five that are using Facebook right.
Subway: Subway really has their act together. Subway’s Facebook page has more than 16 million fans. While most businesses indefinitely put up a cover photo and leave it there, without change, for months at a time, our favorite part Subway’s Facebook page is that the cover photo is always changing to reflect their promotions and specials. Subway is smart to use every part of their page to sell and promote. The current Subway cover photo (at the time of this posting) shows their $6 footlong special, the Tuscan Chicken Melt. It’s accompanied by the tagline that they use in offline and online advertising, “Get Your Flavor On.” By doing this, Subway is doing a great job of integrating their Facebook page into their overall marketing strategy.
Taco Bell: Everyone loves a fun contest, and promoting a contest on your Facebook page is a great way to build your fan following and engage your customers. Taco Bell’s current photo contest, Live Más To Win Más, engages fans and builds sales by asking fans to submit pictures of themselves with Taco Bell’s Doritos Locos Tacos. With the availability of picture taking with smartphones, it’s easy to entice a brand’s fans to engage with a contest, especially with amazing prizes. Taco Bell uses an application that requires all contestants to like their Facebook page. Today, there are already 7,000 who have used Taco Bell’s Live Más To Win Más app.
Wendy’s: We give the Wendy’s Facebook page an A for engagement! Almost every post is something useful and/or fun to click on, whether it’s a quick poll asking fans their favorite Frosty flavor or a link to a video explaining what makes a Wendy’s cheeseburger so great. If a post doesn’t have a link, at a minimum it has a photo — either taken by the restaurant or submitted by a fan (we like the 6-month-old baby holding a Wendy’s cup). We also like the nutrition app available for download that allows customers to tap into nutritional information, build and save meals and find locations. Judging by the number of likes and comments on Wendy’s Facebook posts, we know Wendy’s is doing something right.
Pizza Hut: One of the best features of Pizza Hut’s Facebook page is its apps. Apps are a great way to customize your page and interact with your followers (see our article “Free Facebook App Icons to Supercharge Your Bar or Restaurant”). Not only does Pizza Hut use Facebook’s default apps such as photos, events and videos, but Pizza Hut also uses several custom apps that appeal to a wide variety of participants. There is a World Hunger Relief app that allows fans to participate in helping to end child hunger. Want to sign up to receive Pizza Hut e-mail deals? There’s an app for that! Need a job? There’s an app for that, too! Check out the Pizza Hut Facebook page and explore these apps and more.
McDonald’s: With more than 23 million Facebook fans, McDonald’s emerges as the quickservice leader. When the iconic fast-food restaurant posted a Happy 40th Birthday to the Egg McMuffin picture, 53,000 people liked it. Offering a multitude of engaging posts such as promotions (Monopoly game is back!), product information (ingredients, food info), engagement posts (quick polls, free game codes), fan pictures and food photos sprinkled in between, McDonald’s Facebook page offers a great balance to its fans.
Whether it is by creatively advertising ongoing promotions or working to increase your brand awareness or number of fans, we hope these examples will inspire you as you work to develop and grow your own Facebook page.
Ola Ayeni is the founder of Dining Dialog and eateria, a digital loyalty marketing company for restaurants and foodservice businesses. Dining Dialog is a cutting-edge, full-service new-media marketing company servicing the restaurant, bar and foodservice industry. eateria™ is a loyalty e-mail marketing tool that empowers clients and help them build a customer base by generating repeat business and attracting new business. Find eateria on Twitter @eateriadotco, and check out more of Ayeni’s blogging.