Auto Dealers Meet Facebook. Facebook Wins.

Yes Trevor I caught that in the article and I intend to give paid facebook ads a whirl so I can learn about them.

I think you have to be careful but they seem to have a great platform that starts with custom audiences (that is what really interests me).

Let me use Dien's example for how I would approach it
1) Have the burger contest... it is your widget to advertise/promote
2) Do everything you can at the time the customer is with you to get them to be your friend on facebook (you need that to tag them).
3) Tag the person in your picture post
4) Here is the magic... since you are friends with them, you can see the facebook user ids of anyone that has liked or commented on things on their page.... gather those ids.
5) Post a facebook ad with a custom audience of the ids you gathered and also add geographical restrictions (you really just want to reach the subset close enough to drive to the restaurant). The ad text would be personal to this audience... "Did Adam Jones have what it takes to conquer <<whatever>> ... Do you? Click like and view the messy pics"
6) I would just leave the initial photo ad up for a limited time but maybe switch to a similar ad later for this custom audience. Then maybe pause for a bit and then maybe turn on a 'throwback style' ad referencing the original person.

This is a very low volume but very targeted systematic approach. Also very cheap. The roadblock (i.e. opportunity) is that in order to make it worth the time you would probably need to automate the gathering of ids and ad creation. That could be done (probably against terms of service but again low volume so I wouldn't worry about that myself). The exposure should be trackable as well.

Just a few ideas bouncing around in my head.

Rob Yaggie