You might be wondering, why are followers important? Well, with more followers on Facebook (and, ultimately, on other social media platforms like Instagram), you’ll be able to connect with more people, promote your escape room, and get new bookings. Of course, not all new followers will become customers, but the more you get, the better—and with the strategy we’ll share with you, you can gain many followers at a very low cost.

Get more followers by following 4 simple steps.

Strategy

The strategy is very simple.

  • Create and design a contest offering a free visit to your escape room for one team.
  • Post on your Facebook page to promote the contest.
  • Promote the contest post to people in your area at a cost of €5 per day.
  • Try to engage with all your followers to get the most out of it (bookings!).
  • Choose and announce the winner. Repeat this same process a few months later.

Now, let’s go over each of the steps, where we’ll also give you some examples and templates so you can implement this strategy in less than an hour.

Step 1 – Create the Contest

There are 4 parts of the contest you’ll need to decide on before continuing:

  1. The prize—what people are competing to win—be clear and generous.
  2. Quantify the value—how much is the prize worth? The higher the value, the more people will participate.
  3. Deadline: Be transparent about the deadline and stick to it. It shouldn’t be too far off or too close, so you can get as many entries (and followers) as possible.
  4. Rules—what people must do to enter the contest.

Here’s an example of a contest you can run:

  • Prize = free admission for one person and four of their friends to play in your most popular escape room.
  • Value = At least 100€
  • Deadline = January 19 (assuming the contest starts on December 28)
  • Rules = Participants must follow your page and share your post, tagging 4 friends they’d like to bring.

Step 2 – Create a Facebook Post

Once you’ve decided what your contest will look like, the next step is to create a post to share (and later promote) on your Facebook page. This post will have two parts: text and an image. The text will be used to explain the ins and outs of the contest and the four main elements mentioned in Step 1 that you’ve decided on.

The image is designed to grab the audience’s attention by sharing a small amount of information about the contest, encouraging people to read the main text and participate.

Step 3 – Promote the Post

Once your post is published on your escape room page, you can promote it. “Boosting” is Facebook’s term for promoting the post outside your page using paid advertising. While Facebook’s ad platform can be confusing and complex for beginners, boosting is designed to be much simpler and was created with beginners in mind.

If you want to learn how to boost a post, we recommend reading Facebook’s official documentation at the following link: https://www.facebook.com/business/pages/boost-post

Step 4 – Engage Your New Followers

You’re now ready to launch your contest and gain new followers at a very low cost. However, all this effort will have been in vain unless you engage with your followers. So, how can you engage with them? Here are some ideas:

  • Educate, entertain, inform, or inspire
  • Keep it simple
  • Focus on quality
  • Use (good) images
  • Make a video or go live
  • Respond to your fans
  • Try everything
  • Post consistently and at the right times

And there you have it: how to gain new followers on Facebook with just €5 a day and how to engage with them so they become new potential customers in the future.

An acknowledgment that smells of volcanic soil, high-altitude wine, and the work of the people who make it all possible…