5 Quick Service Restaurants Using Facebook Right

October 16, 2012 - 6 minutes read

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 quick service Facebook pages to come up with our list of five quick service restaurants that are using Facebook right.

Subway – Subway really has their act together. Currently, Subway’s Facebook page has over 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 current 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 Dorito 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 that have used Taco Bell’s Live Más To Win Más application.

 

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 six month old baby holding a Wendy’s cup). We also like the nutrition app available for download which 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 applications. 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 email 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 over 23 million Facebook fans, McDonald’s emerges as the quick serve leader. When the iconic fast food restaurant posted a Happy 40^th 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 five examples will inspire you as you work to develop and grow your own Facebook page.

Tags: digital loyalty marketing, facebook marketing, restaurant marketing