Buffalo Wild Wings Facebook Page Serves Up Everything But Napkins

You've been there. Your friends across the table are listening intently as you're about to deliver the punch line to a great new joke. You pause for effect and are interrupted by, "Did you folks save some room for dessert?" A great social media destination - like a good waiter - knows how to facilitate fun and sharing, without interrupting the natural flow of conversation. Part of the "secret sauce" of the Buffalo Wild Wings Facebook Page is how it unobtrusively feeds fan participation. Agency 22Squared manages the page for Buffalo Wild Wings with a careful mix of social media theory and best practices, spiced just right with the latest technologies. Yesterday, the page achieved a formidable two million fans - a greater count than many dining brands with more locations. These are active fans, with status updates sometimes eliciting thousands of comments and likes, supplemented by a regular stream of fan-initiated wall posts. Fans fanatically participate in a Tuesday trivia contest for the chance to have his or her picture featured for a week on the page's Wall. David Rollo, SVP/Director of Digital & Social Media Strategy for 22Squared, told Social Times that the goal of the page was to serve the passions of Buffalo Wild Wing's guests - wings/sauces, sports, beer, friendly competition and special offers - in reasonable portions and to emphasize the fans over the brand. User posts are gently moderated, allowing other fans to chime in on both positive and negative comments. Contributing to the fan-focus is the page keeping the "action" on the Wall. There are tabs, but they are clearly secondary. Status updates are provided nearly daily and are managed using Vitrue Publisher. Vitrue also provided the Buffalo Wild Wings page with Facebook's first in-newsfeed coupons. Keeping the user on the Facebook page reduces the chance that s/he will "click-off" when taken to another site. 22Squared is engaged with Buffalo Wild Wings full brand strategy that connects all elements, from social media to media buying/planning to in-store activities. We didn't ask Rollo to reveal 22Squared's recipe, but a few of his comments are worthy of consideration by brands on Facebook: More than a third of the Facebook users who follow a brand do so to get offers. Keeping those offers strictly on Facebook adds value - fanship merits exclusivity. Metrics such as comment-to-post ratio should be monitored carefully, but weekly and/or monthly analysis of trends may better inform brands' (re)actions than an overly granular examination. Brands need to get past the old notion of Return on Investment to the new ROIs - Return on Influence and Return on Interactions. There are three categories of interaction on Facebook. Owned (the brands' conversation), Paid (those look-alike ads on home pages and in the marketplace) and Earned (the consumer participation) each require unique consideration and be appropriately interleaved into an overall strategy. Rollo commented that success for brands on Facebook and other social digital platforms rests on the brands living authentically in the social medium. We observe that "living the demographic" of your customers has been a key factor in the success brands since the first days of mass media. And, yes, Rollo loves the wings.

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Buffalo Wild Wings Facebook Page Serves Up Everything But Napkins

Neil Glassman

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Neil Glassman