In an ever raging battle to increase engagement, Facebook launches their Online Deal for pages. This feature was launched about three weeks ago by Facebook to allow page owners promote special discounted offers for their businesses. According to Wildfire Interactive, in an article at Mashable.com, online deals and coupons comprise the highest rating in engagement, above giveaways and quizzes. The report also stated that coupons are the most shared posts on social media presences. Given the successes of online deal sites like Groupon, TravelZoo, and Fab.com, many users are on these sites to find the best deals. Most share it with their friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. Foursquare and Yelp also allow business owners to post special deals to their users. Another, yet not so successful one, was launched by Google.

Facebook already allows users to check-in, as well as do online polls, which draws large amount of participants. By adding online offers to pages, it allows the companies to centralize their user base on Facebook and perhaps increase engagement. The advantage of the Facebook Offers is that it is simple to implement as well as containing the users within the Facebook page. The data collected on the participants may also allow for businesses to adjust their messaging to increase engagement.

The Wildfire Interactive study also encourages adding personality as well as incorporating gamification components to allow further engagement. Don’t just do offers for the sake of doing offers, perhaps target and analyze the company’s user base first before launching an Offer Campaign and perhaps test and adjust as more offers become available.