After a visit to my local Chick-fil-A I immediately took notice of the Facebook logo on a flyer attached to my bag from the drive thru.  Can you spot what’s wrong with this promotion? They don’t provide any link on this promotion to direct users where to go.  When you search for Chick-fil-A Southlands I get one result. After looking at that page, there is no mention of the current promotion.  It makes me think, “am I even on the right page?”   There is no way of telling.  If this is the page, how am I suppose to know if I made the “next 50″ people that like the page? I don’t, there is absolutely no way in telling.  I love Chick-fil-A, I eat it often, I even made a funny Chick-fil-A video for my girlfriend about it.

The link to the only Chick-fil-A Facebook page is: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Chick-fil-A-at-Southlands/126960847361549, it doesn’t have a vanity url set up. Any page can set up a vanity url if they have over 25 fans.

They have no way of telling or recording anybody’s name on a list.  They have no app setup for this promotion at all.

Now, what they should have done is setup a vanity URL and had it on the promotional flyer. They should have hired a  Facebook developer to show how many people have liked the page since this promotion has started with a button to register for the free meal.  It would record 50 people’s name through the app and showed when the limit is reached and when the promotion is over. Or a QR code to direct fans to the Facebook page.

This is not the first time I have noticed that companies try and do some type of social media experiment with no knowledge of what they are doing. Recommendation: hire the right people to do the job, don’t try and wing it together.

If you have a story about a company that setup a social media promotion or experiment the wrong way, please email me the story so I can post.  These companies need to know they are doing it wrong.