14 Social Media Campaigns that Won't Cost Your Company A Dime in Advertising. Yes, Free.

14 of the Best Free Social Media Campaigns to Help you gain followers!

When Helene and I hosted last month's Total Social, I quickly learned how many of you manage all of the social media for your company. When I was Marketing Director for my former employer in Knoxville, a chain of salons across three states, I had an absolute ball coming up with the in-store and social media campaigns. That company franchised out to a large chain a few months ago, so today, I thought I would bring you some of those campaigns that were especially effective, so you can use them for your company!

1. BINGO

Hands down the biggest and fastest way I was able to increase our "likes" was when I had the idea to play BINGO. The first two weeks was simply distribution of the bingo cards. Our clients could pick up their bingo boards IN-STORE. The bingo boards were free, the catch being you had to like us on Facebook to play.

Anything you can do to utilize the clients you already have is the best because it is effective and free.

Then after boards were distributed, I would call out a few bingo terms each day over the Facebook airwaves. For example, I would make a FB status, and call out the squares: Mystic Spray Tan, Bronze and Fusion UT Campus. If you had one of those squares, you got to cross it off your board.

The first person to fill up the whole board won 6 months of free tanning. But to be honest, it could have been a t-shirt and people would have still played. SO EFFECTIVE! (spoiler alert: people go bonkers for t-shirts)

Click here to see more of that promotion on Facebook!

2. Guess the Number

I ran a “guess the number of bottles of lotion on the shelf” contest. I posted a picture of the lotion shelves at one of our salons, and our fans guessed the correct number to win a gift card. This promotion didn’t gain new followers, but it was still effective. Remember, the more people begin to interact with your status, the more people who will actually get to SEE your status!

Click here to see that campaign in action!

3. All You Gotta Do is Ask

This one was really effective, and painfully easy. All I did was ask them to click like, in exchange I awarded one lucky person a gift card. Remember, the more interactions, the more visibility on your client's news feeds!

Click here to see that campaign in action!

4. Elf (or whatever inanimate object you so choose) On the Shelf

When I first ran this campaign, I was downright giddy thinking how good of an idea I had just come up with. But it was actually a gigantic bust. Surprisingly. I think the issue was that the elf was at a store in Kentucky, and most of our fans were in Tennessee. I still would try this one again.

Click here to see that campaign in action!

5. Pick A Team, Any Team!

I think one important thing to remember is to have fun. Just because you sell tanning, for instance, doesn't mean every status has to blah blah snore snore tanning facts over and over again. Have some fun with your clients. I asked them to tell me which college, NFL, NBA, MLB, etc... team they were rooting for, then switched it up based on the time of year. Everyone wants to brag on their teams, this one was a piece of cake!

Click here to see that campaign in action!

6. Holiday Promotions for Facebook Fans Only

I would post Facebook only (as opposed to in-store) flash sales. For example, my status would offer 15% off any lotion or 50% off a spray tan. I would then have my sales associates remind their in-store clients to like us on Facebook, and we could honor the posted special for them!

The person would get their smart phone out, and immediately go like us on Facebook to get the offer. You do the math, we had 18 locations, saw around 250 clients per day, per location. I'm sure you can see how quickly those likes rack up by doing this strategy!