This is a guest post by Brent Alvord, President of Lenny’s Sub Shop.

At Lenny’s Sub Shop, a 150-unit sub sandwich franchise, we are excited to continually lead our competitors in the industry by expanding personal relationships with tens of thousands of fans through social media. As we strive to validate our motto of More Food, More Taste, More Personality!, we are converting new people into loyal followers through the power of social media, and by keeping existing followers engaged with the brand through new promotions, contests, and incentives.

Lenny’s has surpassed the goal to reach 75,000 Facebook fans during Valentine’s Day week by relating to our fans’ enthusiasm for Lenny’s with special offers and deals on their favorite menu items.

Brent Alvord, President of Lenny's Subs Shop

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From February 14th through February 20th, we showed love to all fans who “liked” the official Lenny’s Sub Shop Facebook fan page by giving away a coupon to receive one free regular sub or salad with the purchase of a second regular sub or salad, chips, and drink.

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In addition to the coupon, Lenny’s is giving all of our Facebook fans 20 percent off ilovelennys.com orders placed until March 31, 2012. As a result, our Facebook Fan page has increased from about 62,800 to 80,000 in a week’s span.

This is the second year that Lenny’s Sub Shop has hosted a Valentine’s deal on Facebook, and it has been tremendously beneficial for us in terms of expanding brand recognition and social media interaction. Offering new and existing guests something of value has helped our page reach over 16 million friends of fans, which is exactly the audience we want to target moving forward.

Besides building brand awareness through incentives, Lenny’s also had a total reach of 1,182,000 people through viral spread and paid ads during Valentine’s Day week. We plan to continue to engage with our fans, expand on the relationship with our biggest brand advocates, and increase our fan base exponentially, with a year-end goal of 100,000 fans.

By hosting frequent promotions on social pages, Lenny’s wants to show how much we value our fans and followers and the importance we place on brand loyalty. Generating social media excitement allows Lenny’s Sub Shop to continue to connect with our fan base, and use positive word of mouth and online presence to drive more guests to try our menu items long after Valentine’s Day.