DUKKY

Einstein Bros Bagels made waves last week by distributing coupons for a free bagel and schmear to people who became fans of the brand’s Facebook page. According to this article on Fast Company, the pr0motion gained the company over 331,000 fans in 3 days. Currently, that number stands at 374,0898.

This is the first time an advertiser has distributed digital coupons for free products via Facebook.  Was it, as Convince and Convert’s Jay Baer asked his Twitter followers,  a “good promotion or pointless?”

The coupon promotion was definitely successful in terms of gaining attention and gaining fans on Facebook, but as Fast Company reminds us,”Numbers don’t mean everything, though–how many times have you followed and retweeted a company on Twitter during a contest just to turn around and unfollow them when it ends?”

The end goal of any social media promotion is not gaining fans and followers, it’s gaining customers. The promotion is now over, and while it’s a little bit early to say for sure how successful it has been at increasing customer loyalty, the indications so far are, to say the least, encouraging.

In addition to adding fans, the promotion encouraged food bloggers to review Einstein’s Bros bagels, with generally positive reviews. For example, Grub Grade reviewed the restaurant’s Double Chocolate Chip Bagel, spurred on by “a free coupon — courtesy of the restaurant’s new and dare-I-say swanky Facebook page.”

Despite some hiccups with the coupon campaign noted on the Facebook page’s discussion board, people seem happy with both the promotion and the bagels (at least, based on a totally unscientific survey of the Facebook page,  Google and a couple of pages of tweets). Einstein Bros fans also seem engaged, starting discussions with the brand and responding to questions.

I think this promotion is a great use of social media to build awareness, and Facebook is an amazing vehicle for creating viral promotions like this. But, at the end of the day, it’s all about the bagels.   Before you give your product away for free, you have to make sure it’s worth paying for!

As long as Einstein Bros continues to impress its customers with the quality of  its bagels, the Facebook promotion will be a success, as first-time customers lured in by the free coupons are converted to regulars. If people don’t like the bagels enough to come back, they just wasted at least $840,000 worth of free bagels.  Fortunately, most people seem to dig the bagels.

If you have a product that’s worth giving away, Dukky can help you create your own viral campaign quickly and easily.  With Dukky, you can allow your customers to consumers to share your offer through their email, mobile and social networks, including Facebook.