How to get Facebook "likes" for your fan page

We have a pizzeria in Rural, Central PA. Our town has 1,500 homes. Our Pizzeria was one of the first in this area and is still going after 54 years. We joined facebook pretty quick (2010) and was “liked” by many. We ended up with about 3,000 likes by 2014.

I tried something this year to see how well it would work to get “likes” and it seems to be working very well. We decided to start give away food on facebook. All we had to do was post a picture of food and say: Enter to win! Like, comment, share this post and you could be the random winner chosen on Thursday XX!

Our customers have been more engaged in conversation about our pizzeria and each time we get about 100 new “likes”. We now have 4,700 likes and the fan page has a very positive vibe to it. It is so nice to see all the compliments from customers. Very Rewarding!

I am curious to see how it may work for others like you guys. Let me know if you give it a try.

It is unfortunate that these days so few of those “likes” end up seeing your posts…Facebook does not distribute your feeds to very many of your likes…
http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/925-facebook-ambassador-reach.html

According to the Insights, we get 25K who see it and 10% of those engage (click) with the post! We also see a 30-50% increase in online sales the next 5 days after the original post about the contest!

Not sure how you get 25k with only 4700 likes…I have to do some more research…I guess I do not understand what the stats mean…

When you like a page you see status updates. When share a status…That’s The Key! When we do a contest it states: “Like, Share, Comment” to win! Our contest’s usually get 600-900 shares. When someone shares, all of their friends see the share. That’s how to get 25K with only 4,700 likes.

But only a very small % of your likes sees your status updates these days…Way less than 10% as far as I can figure…

How do you see everyone that shares a status? If I am not friends with them on my personal page, I cannot see a lot of the ‘shares’.

That is true. Facebook will show you how many shares on a status but you can’t see all of them.

I am sure you would like to think that, being in the business you are in. Once again, The Key Is Shares! Way more people see shares. Facebook is still a powerful marketing tool when used correctly.

I agree Facebook is a powerful tool…I am just not understanding how their stats work…So I must be looking at it differently than you…

Pizza Of The Month - Thanks for sharing your results with us here. This is certainly something I need to do more with. I don’t completely understand all of the numbers either, but the one that cannot be denied is the increase in online sales! I am about to launch a new online ordering system that is supposed to have nice Facebook integration - I say supposed to, because I have not yet added that into our FB page. Do you have any direct integration between the online ordering system and FB? Also, what percentage of your business comes from online sales? Last, but not least, can you share you FB page with us here? I would love to follow your efforts there!

I don’t have FB integration. Our online sales are less than 2% of our overall sales. We don’t deliver, so most of our business is “come and order”. My fan page is: www.facebook.com/claysburgpizza

Another algorithm trick to get your pizzeria’s page into more newsfeeds is to spend some time as the page liking things. Apparently the more things you like, the more you show up in people’s feeds. Also, like your own statuses because if someone missed the original post, they may see the sidebar where it shows that you liked your status.

Thanks - PMQ just liked you (sorry we hadn’t before!) Congrats on 55 years. Have we done a time capsule yet? If not, be sure to notify Tracy at pmq.com

We did an article for our 50 year anniversary. It was " A Cut Above The Rest" in 2009. The next year (2010)we did major renovations: Doubled the dinning room, Remodel the whole place inside and out! It looks so much more inviting now.

25K is a huge number. Are you limiting your promotion to local FB accounts? I am wondering how you get that many impressions in a town of 1500 people?

Also, I was impressed with your Pizza Stromboli fundraiser posts. How does that fundraiser work exactly?

Our trade area is 15 mile radius so we have way more than 1500 houses. We do not deliver but we are considered a destination eatery.

The fundraiser is a box of two strombolis that are partially baked and frozen and each box sold gives the seller a $4 profit.

I’m at about 715 likes… I advertised with them for the first time ($40) a month or two ago and I think I got 20 likes from that. Not quite sure it was worth it… as likes obviously don’t translate into more eyeballs on my postings. I scratch and claw to give people reasons to check out my page on their own, weekly contests help.

i went to a FB seminar today…spent a couple of hours hearing their mantra…in days gone by, I was VERY successful in doing events…I think the plan now is to do “boosts” to page posts…and, of course, content is king…ya need to give people a reason to like your page & post…you also need to make sure/tweak your setting so u r reaching new folks, and not preaching to your choir…people are indunated with FB $hit, so little appears in their news feeds…

I noticed a little video posting trick worked for us,
check out this thread http://thinktank.pmq.com/threads/the-facebook-da-vinci-code-i-think-i-got-it.15776/