Using Social Media to the Max

Savvy businesses know that these days, success is not based on Web sites alone. As huge swaths of the population tune to tweets and status updates to stay informed, companies, including QSRs, are joining the act.

Subway, Au Bon Pain, Corner Bakery Café, and others are using social media —Facebook, Twitter, and their brethren — to not only talk up new menu items and promotions, but also to cement their brand image through trumpeting pet causes like environmentalism and heart health … even to chime in with a favorite Subway sandwich, or to wax philosophical by answering questions such as “What is Au Bon Pain?” (One response: “It is a relaxing break from the real world and an escape into heaven.”)

Facebook, Twitter, and the more career-oriented LinkedIn each have different strengths that companies can tap. While Facebook allows room for photos and discussion boards, Twitter is better for firing off news tidbits and URLs to television spots, or just planting snack ideas in the heads of hungry consumers (from Panera: “Have you tried the hot cross buns today?”).

QSRs wanting to take advantage of social media can take cues from companies outside of the industry that have grown business using these tools. “With social media, you want clear objectives of what you’re trying to do,” says Greg Straface, vice president of Business Development at PJA Marketing and Advertising, a business-to-business firm in Cambridge, Mass. that has shored up its presence through Facebook and Twitter. “We look at Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as different channels for different things.”

“We look at Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as different channels for different things.”

Greg Straface, VP, PJA Marketing and Advertising

Facebook, Straface says, allows his firm to “pull back the veil” and give viewers a glimpse into the company’s culture. Because “friends” of PJA know the people who work there, Straface says that PJA will sometimes post office and employee photos, employee baby shots and fun facts.  Applied to QSRs, this practice might be suitable to a local franchise at which customers know the employees, rather than the QSR’s corporate headquarters.

Given the brevity of Twitter, Straface says that PJA uses the tool “to build awareness and to channel content that individuals who are like-minded, or have an interest in marketing or social media, could find useful or interesting.”  For PJA followers, many of whom are in the healthcare, technology, or advertising fields, sending out statistics (the types of phones people dump for an iPhone, for instance) and jokes (“Sonia Sotomayor, Bruno, and Harry Potter walk into a bar…”) works well. Some eateries, meanwhile, have found great success in tweeting their promotions: A recent issue of the marketing and media magazine AdAge tells of a New Orleans-based pizza shop that ran a one-day, Twitter-exclusive promotion that brought in 15 percent of the day’s business.

LinkedIn, commonly used for making work-related connections, could be used by quick-service restaurants to keep franchises abreast of one another’s doings, Straface suggests. “I could see people posting questions like, ‘I’m having trouble making sales; what’s moving at your shop?’” he says. “People can share advice.”

If one thing is certain, it’s that businesses are placing their money on social networking sites. According to the Boston Business Journal, companies are expected to spend $2.4 billion on social network advertising this year  — 17 percent more than last year. This is even as overall advertising spending is expected to fall. 

QSR personnel who are preparing to dip their toes into the social networking waters should have patience in the beginning. “In order to gain followers, it does take a little time,” Straface says. “We’ve found that the more you tweet, the easier you gain followers. But you’ve got to be posting information your people care about.”

Once your brand is noticed, followers will likely re-post or re-tweet your words, so that your followers and fan base grow exponentially.

“If you stick with it, it’ll happen,” Straface says.

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