Over on Facebook, a consignment shop had a great idea to call attention to their shop…over and over again. It was an appeal to the shop’s fans to post and share by commenting. Take a look at the results.
Good idea to get interaction, but notice how silly the “comments” are. In fact, they’re not comments at all.
Love It Again gave her fans some suggestions, which made scrolling through the “entries” fun. They were day-specific ideas of what to post… since that’s what her clientele was DOING that day! Clever: she was reinforcing that the shop is a real part of her fans’ lives. Shop Local at its best. I’m so proud of this HowToConsign.com Sponsor.
So, maybe make a similar promotion on your shop’s business page do double duty:
Ask them to describe, in 3-6 words, why they love your shop… and tell them they can repost every few hours by simply saying ditto to their first post! That way, everyone sees why everyone else loves your business, and how much they REALLY love you. Chances are, some folks may have been following your contest, but never stopped in… so your regulars are motivating these potential customers.
Which is great, right? But wait, there’s more! The extra benefit?
You can get some really marketable testimonials in a flash!
More on testimonials: How Do you Get Them to Say Nice Things About Your Shop? and don’t forget to print out all those wonderful compliments for the real-life message board in your entryway. And note Resolution #4 here, from 2010… you can fulfill that for the whole year in one short time span!
Photo borrowed from pianoserviceguy.com
Auntie Kate The Resale Expert 
I put your idea out there on my FB page to ask what our customers do on aa snow day, and got ONE response from 480 FB fans! EEK. Doesn’t sound to good to me!
Golly, that’s not very encouraging is it? I couldn’t determine what shop you owned from your personal FB page, but after I did some research, I see what you mean. (BTW your message didn’t show up on my timeline)… What do you think you could do differently? It might be as simple as posting another message. Or refining yours… for example, you refer to “kidlets” in your question, yet you aren’t a childrenswear shop, so perhaps your followers without small children to entertain figured you weren’t asking what THEY were doing. Or maybe they weren’t stuck at home…
Message, perhaps, to take away from this? Remember that just ’cause it’s on Facebook, doesn’t mean everyone will see it, read it, or respond in any way to it. I never rely on my FB as “advertising”, even though I get some business from it. It’s mostly just chatter, which is nice, but doesn’t pay the bills 😉
Great idea–I also get compliments on how clean and tidy the shop is. Also, they all say our prices are better than the competition, so hopefully this idea will spread the word more. Thanks
Great Donna, we’ll be watching your FB to see all the nice things your clients have to say about your shop!
I love this! I get compliments in the store regularly but it sure would be nice to have them public!!
Great Kindra! I wish your gravatar gave us links to your online presences, so we’d all know where yo find you.
Thanks Kate – I already took your advice and posted my own contest.