How to get more Facebook fans

I saw this promotion late last night as I logged onto Facebook and I thought it was worthy of sharing it with you. 

Everyone seems to want more Facebook fans…but really you actually want Facebook fans who know a little bit about you or are willing to try what you've got to offer.

That's what makes this Kraft Macaroni and Cheese promotion so smart.

Screen shot 2010-04-12 at 11.39.31 PM 

On my NewsFeed page, I noticed this ad to the right.  It offered me a free box of Mac and Cheese (hello…cheesy explosion to boot!) if I'd become their fan. 

Now I will confess two things.  1) I really love Kraft's Mac and Cheese.  2)  I would have never even thought to fan their page without this free offer.  If the ad had simply said..please be our fan, I would have ignored it.

Lesson:  If there's not a very apparent "something in it for me" we don't go around fanning pages.

Screen shot 2010-04-12 at 11.40.55 PM So, I clicked on the become a fan button and was taken to their fan page. 

I almost left because I could not see how to get my free coupon.

Lesson:  Be blatantly obvious and then some.  We are only going to look for about 5 seconds.

Fortunately, others had either been smarter or more persistent, so as I scanned the messages, someone had said – go to the third tab (wall, info and voila..free cheesy)

So I stuck with it long enough to click on the Get The Coupon button.

Screen shot 2010-04-12 at 11.41.43 PM From there, I was taken to this capture screen where Kraft got the goods on me… my name, address (so they could mail me the coupon) and the holy grail — my e-mail address.

They also snagged a bit of demographics in the check boxes below.

Lesson:  If you're offering something of value, don't be afraid to ask for something of value in return.

I'm betting they scored a huge number of new fans.  And now for about the cost of a click, they are actually putting product in the new fan's hands.  Think of what most businesses pay to get a consumer to give their product a try.

Compare and contrast this effort — where Kraft not only gets you to sample their product but also gets your contact information and some demographics to the lady standing in the grocery store, handing you a little cup of the mac and cheese.

How would you rate the relative value?

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11 comments on “How to get more Facebook fans

  1. Sarah says:

    I have to wonder if the data given in the demographics gets somewhat skewed because of the fact that their target segment (i’m assumming is ages 4 to 15) really probably is not on facebook to get this offer. Unless of course you’re targeting the parents of those who may have children in the target segment. That’s a tough call!

  2. Karl Sakas says:

    I’m not sure I’d turn over my contact info just to save $1 or $2. I agree it makes sense to offer an incentive if the value proposition isn’t immediately obvious…but are their new followers actually going to spend more money on Kraft products because they’ve started following?

    Maybe they will, but Kraft *must* do a good job executing. The company needs to avoid what Sean D’Souza illustrates in his “Bad Landing Pages” cartoon: http://www.psychotactics.com/cartoons/bad-landing-pages/

  3. Kelly says:

    Drew,

    They lucked out when you noticed the ad, because it was relevant to you as a lover of the brand. Relevancy is the holy grail, but in this case it was pure accident. “Pure accident” as a marketing tactic is a hard sell to me.

    Granted, Kraft’s online costs are nothing compared to sticking ads in national mags or even compared to the lady with the sample at the store (though I’d expect that to have higher return, it’s also a much bigger investment).

    So, value? Since they’re doing it, it seems they’re doing it well. As you say, they’ve got most of the elements in place to make it successful with folks who want to hear from them, but I’d advise them to make it only one prong of the campaign. IMO, it seems pretty darned hit-or-miss to hope Facebookers are closet fans of cheesy explosions.

    Regards,

    Kelly

  4. Thanks for the great article and good advice, Drew. For our automotive dealership clients, we implement several different ways for them to gain social media fans/followers through incentives like 1/2 off oil changes, weekly national restaurant gift card give-away trivia, even creating scholarships that are run through Facebook! See how at http://www.xspond.com

  5. Zane Safrit says:

    I agree with most of these comments. Luck seems to be the driver more than relevance unless you regularly mention Macaroni and Cheese. Advertisers are not the only recipients of our behavior on FB. And regardless if you completed that contact grab page, FB would have tracked your behavior and who knows what they do with that.

    I never click FB ads. I can’t see the URL for the destination site when I hover my cursor over the link. I see a FB URL, though.

    Having said all this, I have a FB fan page and offer an ad to promote it. But my goal with the page is to learn what it takes to inspire word-of-mouth about the page and its content. That’s a longer journey. Slower. But I and the fans if they’re interested own the knowledge.

    They don’t call me Ahab. But they could call me control-freak. I want to control, with the fans, this page and our journey to making it important for each of us. I can only do it like this.

  6. Excellent strategy there from Kraft. I wonder how many fans they snagged who gave up before they found the voucher?

  7. John says:

    I think that the facebook advertising platform offers something unique within the PPC arena – really detailed demographic data about their advertising space. When you go to place an ad you can select to display that demographic by gender, age, marital status, keywords, occupation amongst many other things. Although the CTR is relatively poor, the targeting is really great. I wonder what Kraft targetted to get that ad in front of you Drew?

  8. Sarah — I am guessing their influencer is the 5-14 year old, but their true customer are the parents.

    Karl — agreed — the execution and delivery of the promised coupon is critical to how well this works. It will also be interesting to see if/how they use that contact info.

    Kelly — from what I could discover, it is only one prong of their effort. But remember, with Facebook ads you pay per click. So it costs them nothing to toss out their net and see who they can catch.

    Drew

  9. Mike — how well are your efforts working?

    Zane — Valid points. I wonder if some of the methodology is or should be based on how much of a considered purchase you are. Hiring you is a more deliberate and considered choice (albeit a good one!) than buying a box of mac and cheese.

    Andy — that was definitely their weak spot in the campaign. I wondered the same thing.

    Drew

  10. John — Agreed. It’s one of the core reasons we use FB ads for some of our clients. There is literally almost no waste.

    I am guessing they used age and the fact that I have the words dad and parenting in my profile.

    Drew

  11. Ashish Jain says:

    Hmm Good tips but there are few sites as well where you can get lot of facebook fans for free. You can check my post on How to get twitter followers and facebook fans for free here:-
    http://www.learntoearnmoney.net/2012/02/how-to-get-twitter-followers-and.html

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