How Businesses and Brands are Stuffing Their Facebook Pages for Thanksgiving

With Thanksgiving less than a week away - and one week until Black Friday - brands, local businesses and non-profits can use their Facebook pages to get shoppers ready for the holiday season, promote Thanksgiving dinners, recipes and ideas, and even help feed their communities. Brands With the economy still struggling, many national brands, retailers and online sellers have decided to start their holiday pushes this year even before Black Friday. A few pages have launched promotions already, but they are tied more tied into the holidays and not specifically Thanksgiving. Sears ran a promotion on their page until yesterday for Fans to be eligible to receive "VIP" notifications and offers via SMS for Black Friday, and Best Buy (which with over 150,000 new fans in the last week is only about 1,200 fans from a million) has two tabs devoted to holiday shopping already, but nothing that seems specifically about Thanksgiving. Wal-mart also has two tabs for the holidays, one called "Holiday" for social shopping, and one labeled "Giving" that is aimed at supporting US troops and highlighting how Wal-mart gives back to the community, including feeding the hungry. The Food Network's Page has a really nice tab dedicated to Thanksgiving that breaks down the parts of the feast and then links you off to The Food Network's website for recipes. Local Businesses and Non-Profits Unlike many of the large brands, local businesses and non-profits are generally not lumping Thanksgiving into "the holidays" and are actually focusing on it as its own event. It's no surprise that restaurants are especially keen on promoting their Thanksgiving dinners, as the Baker's Drive-Thru in Southern California is doing with a sweepstakes to win one of 72 dinners, the Four Points Sheraton Ann Arbor has a dedicated Thanksgiving tab for their dinner, and the Big Fish Grill in Delaware and Moody's Diner in Maine being other good examples of using Pages to rally local fans to dinner (if you're near Waldoboro, Maine, Moody's dinner is only $14.95 - take that, economy!). Other interesting promotions that we found included a bank in Kentucky giving away a FlipCam, the band Underoath (which has 115,547 fans) giving away a $5 coupon off their t-shirts -- this has generated 176 Likes and 40 comments, and a ski resort giving away passes to its opening weekend (the weekend after Thanksgiving) to new Fans. Finally, a number of local non-profits and individuals are using Pages to help feed the hungry this Thanksgiving. The Salvation Army San Diego will serve 2,000 Thanksgiving dinners, an individual is trying to feed 500 families, and a surfing shop is trying to gain support to feed kids. Thanksgiving Page Trimmings As we've seen, local seems to win out when it comes to Thanksgiving. Perhaps larger brands don't see the value in separating Thanksgiving out of the rest of the holidays, and there is probably some wisdom in that. For local restaurants especially, if you are planning on serving dinner next Thursday, we highly suggest at the very least to do a Wall post about what you're doing, and if you have a little more time, put up a dedicated Thanksgiving tab - even if you just list the event and menu, it may just be enough to entice people out of their living room for the afternoon. Finally, if you just want to become a fan of Thanksgiving, here's the unofficial Page.

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How Businesses and Brands are Stuffing Their Facebook Pages for Thanksgiving

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Chad Catacchio

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Chad Catacchio