Whoever said there's no such thing as a free lunch obviously never visited the Facebook page of Einstein Bros. Bagels. Last year, Einstein Bros. launched its Bagel Bonanza promotion, giving away a bagel and cream cheese to anyone willing to sign up as the franchise's fan on Facebook. At the time, Einstein Bros. had only 4,700 fans across the social network, but when the digital coupon campaign wrapped up a week later, that number had skyrocketed to more than 300,000.
Einstein Bros. revived Bagel Bonanza during the spring, and it continues rewarding its online followers with discounts, menu previews and nutritional information. By the end of October, it had more than 600,000 Facebook fans.
"Social media is a place where consumers want to be," says James O'Reilly, chief concept officer for Einstein Noah Restaurant Group, the Lakewood, Colo.-based parent company and franchisor. "We're not a national advertiser, so we decided to make social media a pillar of our marketing efforts. It's a whole new channel for businesses to engage their customers in a two-way dialogue."
Einstein Bros. is far from the only company embracing social networking as a marketing platform: Nearly 75 percent of franchise businesses are now leveraging social media, according to a 2010 survey published by market research firm Franchise Business Review. And consumers are responding–69 percent say they're more likely to patronize a local business if it offers information on a social networking site, per a recent comScore research study.
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