As I noted in an earlier post that has attracted a lot of traffic, it is currently impossible for an individual or business to transfer ownership of a fan page on Facebook. This is just one of the ways in which I find Facebook frustrating for businesses. There are enough others to turn me off of the platform entirely.
And yet, there’s that number: 350 million.
More than 350 million people globally are active on Facebook. And that number shows no signs of shrinking. Just based on that alone, I feel like Facebook cannot be ignored, and I have to assume that it will become friendlier for business usage over time
So, with that optimistic mind set, I went looking for actual case studies that suggest how small businesses may already be using Facebook successfully.
As might be expected, there are no shortage of results when you search on terms like “Small business case studies Facebook,” but the great majority of these results simply lay out the usual ways in which a small business can use Facebook. You know: set up a page, don’t hard sell, it takes time, etc. Great stuff, but no real meat.
What I want to know about is businesses that are actually getting business results from Facebook. You know, things like making money and … er … making money. (I know – all you “can’t we just be social” folks want to slap me, but I have rent, and phone, and Internet bills to pay, and so do my clients.)
So, I am looking for great examples of small business success with Facebook. If you have got them, please comment and share them.
To kick things off, one I came across via the New York Times (score one for old media) was Sprinkles Cupcakes. Every day Sprinkles posts a word or phrase that a specified number of customers can use to get a free cupcake. As I am writing this post, for example, the wall on Sprinkle’s Facebook page reads:
Variety is the spice of life… try a new flavor! The first 50 people to whisper “variety” at each Sprinkles receive a free cupcake of your choice!
Now, this strategy would not work for every business, but for a cupcake company based in Beverly Hills, it is a slam dunk. Giving away a cupcake costs next to nothing, and you can be sure that these little teasers bring lots of people into the stores. And let’s face, how many people are going to walk into a cupcake bakery and not buy something? Chances are they will buy something even if they happened to win a free cupcake.
This strategy has been so successful that Sprinkles is now approaching 100,000 fans, and guess what? – they are now running a special promotion focused on hitting that number. When the page reaches 100,000 fans, Sprinkles is going to randomly choose a winner in its “BFF” (Best friends forever 
contest. This lucky winner gets an all expense-paid two-night visit to Beverly Hills during which many cupcakes will be eaten.
And you can bet that trip will feature prominently on the Facebook page.
So, that’s my initial offering. What have you got? Please comment and share. (And consider giving this a retweet so that we can attract as many case studies as possible.)
Jeff
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
As a global B2B conference speaker I ask my audiences to friend me (and refer conf leads) to me. I also dispense advice to them and save them in groups by business or country to tailor specific answers to them). I have received about twenty to thirty bookings directly from fb. I link the page I use to my blog and am gaining two or three new readers per day as a result. The blog is a new initiative but is already hitting 3000 page views and growing every day. I like to think of fb as ‘business electricity’; you need to be plugged in.
Michael – Thanks for offering this example. Sounds like Facebook is a very good fit for what you do. – Jeff