How To Promote A Pub or Bar Using Facebook Fan Pages
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
I keep hearing stories about the pub industry being on it’s knees and being in real trouble but when I sit back and take a look at it, the only issue is that people have changed a few habits and the pub industry in general has not changed and kept up with the times. When I look back to 22 years ago when I ran my first pub things were a little different, I really only had to open the door and people walked in, add a little entertainment and a good atmosphere and that was the recipe for success. I was packed out and at the start of my career I didn’t even know how to serve a clear pint of real ale, and people still flocked in.
Promote a pub
22 years later and pubs are practically the same, exactly in some cases, and a lot of landlords are still doing the same thing, opening the door and hoping that people will walk in. The difference now is that people have a lot more reasons to stay at home and landlords have to get their thinking hats on to promote a pub and come up with different ways to get people away from their computer and 100 television channels.
Even an advert in the local paper is no longer a good investment, people don’t read the papers any more, and they certainly do not read adverts.
There are literally 100′s of new ways to market a pub with the emergence of the internet, and in some cases using the internet as a tool to bring in customers. There are many free online tools to promote a pub and get bums on seats, Facebook fan pages are just one tool and when you sit down and actually think about it, there are many ways to promote a pub using Fan pages.
Ideas to Promote a Pub or Bar On Facebook
Facebook have built a nice little platform for all of us to use to comunicate with our friends, they also gave us fan pages or business pages. If you have a fan page you can also add extra pages to it and do what you wish, like a little website within a Facebook Page. When your customers become fans of your page, they in turn tell their friends, if you make it fun, people love to join in which is also viral.
1. Image Treasure hunt
Everyone has their mobile phone with them when they are out, Everyone has Facebook on their phones and the ability to take pictures. Using your local area you can set a challenge with a prize, to get the prize, your fans need to take a picture of local landmarks or people and post them on your Facebook wall, and the treasure hunt ends up in your bar.
2. Live Streaming Busy periods
People love to watch people, if you downloaded UStream for free you can live stream your pub to the outside world, even onto your Facebook page, you can livestream a pool match, a music night or an event, people start to watch and share and you can get massive publicity which is free for your venue, it could be the Big Brother hour.
3. Like us on Facebook posters
Get a few posters made and put them up in the venue, people will like your page while they are in your pub, if you have DJ’s get them to shout it out on a regular basis too. Again, this is viral and works well when you are live streaming at the same time.
4. Name of your page!
You might want to name your Facebook page “Enjoying a night at The Red Lion” then everytime someone likes your page it tells their friends the “Jim Smith Likes Enjoying a night at The Red Lion”
5. Like and Promote other local businesses
This is a biggie to get your name around, when you log in as your fan page it allows you to post as your page, never go onto other peoples walls and spam your business name, but do go and join in the conversation and have fun, share their promotions, mention them on your wall and help them to promote too. Always be nice, what comes around goes around.
6. Specials to Facebook fans only
If people are helping you to promote online, reward them, try a Facebook fan Happy hour a couple of times a week, that will increase your fans and your trade. If you have anyone in the bar that isn’t a fan, get them to like your page in the bar.
7. Order Lunch on Facebook
Let your customers order on your Facebook page, people are in a rush on their lunch hour, speed it up for them!
8. Facebook vouchers
On your custom fan page, offer people a voucher which they download after they become a fan, and they can redeem the voucher when they pop into see you, this is great for tracking how well your page is doing in terms of converting to customers.
9. Video
Encourage anyone who takes great video clips while enjoying your latest event to post to your wall, third party validation is the best.
10. Make it fun and promote a pub
There are 100′s of ways to use Facebook to promote your pub, sit down with your staff and brainstorm some unique and fun ways of attracting new customers and bring your bar into the 21st century.
Enjoy