Facebook success stories: Marketing lessons for small businesses, too

Small Businesses Can Learn From Major Brands

By Mark Whittaker

Facebook has published a website containing a series of brief case studies to present itself as an indispensable business marketing tool.

The site, www.facebook-sucessstories.com, even has a tagline near the bottom of page: “Social technology that drives business growth.” So far, the site links to examples of Facebook marketing campaigns undertaken by 17 major brands, including AT&T, American Express, Ford and Starbucks.

Take Advantage of Cost-Effective Facebook Features 

Even though the examples come from major brands, there are some lessons for small businesses, too. For example, restaurant chain P.F. Chang’s celebrated its 18th birthday by offering a coupon for its popular lettuce wrap. It started the celebration with a three-week Facebook Ad campaign that sent clickers to a coupon app on its Facebook Page.

P.F. Chang’s also used Facebook’s Sponsored Stories, e-mail, its website and other social media channels to drive traffic to its Facebook Page and the coupon.

Did it work? The company doubled its number of fans to 420,000, and engagement with its Facebook Page increased 3,000 percent. The campaign also sent 50,000 guests to the restaurant, and 40 percent of them were first-time customers.

Even if you’re a small restaurant or business, Facebook advertising, sponsored stories and coupon apps are reasonably priced.

Focus on Enhancing Customer Lives

Country Crock, the soft spread brand, is also among the Facebook success stories. The brand launched an effort to show moms that their families would eat more vegetables if they enhanced the flavor with Country Crock spread. The brand created a special tab where moms could look at vegetable recipes. It also used premium ads to post questions like, “What’s your family’s favorite vegetable?”

Country Crock also offered a coupon to everyone who “liked” the Facebook page during the campaign. The brand generated more than 1,000 likes and comments per post during the campaign, and says it raised the purchase consideration of moms by 5 percentage points.

The Country Crock campaign is a good example of focusing on how a product can be used to enhance customers’ lives, in this case, by improving food flavors.

When you have 15 minutes, check out the “success stories.” Some of the case studies even include some interesting videos (The Huggies Hong Kong story is cute).

Benefit from Facebook – No Matter Your Size

Facebook is pushing harder and harder to position itself as an important marketing channel. For small businesses, it’s relatively inexpensive compared to traditional media, and because of Facebook’s huge audience, it’s become a great place to try innovative ways to reach potential customers.

Interested in leveraging Facebook and other social media to grow your business? Contact Dream Local Digital and get started now.

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