This is a Facebook post from newsXpress Eli Waters Tuesday this week putting out a challenge – seeking likes to get Allan Wickham, one of the owners, into a Mrs Claus outfit. The post generates 1,475 likes with more than 20,000 seeing the post thanks to viral sharing.
This is excellent use of Facebook – it’s fun (for most) and engaging … without being commercial. It’s the type of post that facebook as a company likes to see from businesses. Their new rules and policies for 2015 indicate they prefer this to blatant business advertising in their free posts.
This photo shows the result of the post. Allan was dressed as Mrs Claus for the day and from all accounts customers loved it. It certainly made for a different experience in the shop yesterday – probably a welcome break to what is usual at this busy Christmas time of the year.
I thought Al was going with a more risqué outfit but I suspect he decided to go conservative and protect the eyesight of his customers.
What I love about this is the business, the owners and customers all getting in on some fun.
Well done everyone involved. It has been executed well. As I said: brilliant use of Facebook.
Newsagents can learn a lot from what they have just done at newsXpress Eli Waters. The best part? It all cost nothing except, as Al told me – his dignity.
FYI newsXpress Eli Waters are the newsXpress Retailer of the Year. This facebook campaign is a small example of how they play outside the pack and why they deserve kudos.
We love this. Out staff all dressed as elves one year and went over to the employment agency and asked for work. It was strange that they did not have any jobs available for elves at Christmas time!
Thanks for the promotion here Mark.
Just an update on the numbers.
Our page has had over 30,000 views, which is massive.
The post has recieved close on 1600 likes.
Our shop page has had an extra 65 “locals” follow us which is probably the most important of any of the above. We need local support to fully utilise Face Book. Whilst we think it was super impressive to have over 30,000 see the post it is more important to have that local following so we can harness that.The whole thing started as tongue in cheek but very very quickly became far more than that. The amount of comments from shoppers who said that they had seen me on FaceBook was mind blowing, especially as they had come in to see me dressed as Mrs Claus. We had fun with it in the shop and offered specials to those that had seen it on FB. The whole week really has been an eye opener on the power of social media…..and as you said…”it`s free”….it only cost me what little dignity I had left…LOL.
Cheers
Al
P.S. I`m glad I went for the conservative dress rather than the risque one…..as I`m sure most of my customers had probably just had breakfast or lunch.
Great to see fun being had. The key to success is not worrying about what you look like. Just have fun and enjoy your work. Well played
Really Al? You don’t need to go to so much trouble to hide your desire to cross dress mate! lol