Cheese pulls always play well on social media but, as a shop owner, the ultimate goal is to win hungry new customers and turn them into regulars. Before you publish your next post, check out these expert tips from Facebook Creative Strategist Mallorie Rosenbluth, who specializes in helping small businesses with their social media strategy.

How to Build Your Business with Social Media

Social media should be the cornerstone of your local marketing strategy. However, many pizzerias have it on the back burner. If you’re not engaging with your audience, then you could be missing great opportunities to grow the pie:

• 90% of businesses say social media has boosted their exposure 
• 71% of customers recommend brands (i.e. pizzerias) to friends after a positive social media experience
• The average person spends ~2.5 hours on social media every day

In other words, smart social media management is a must.  Whether you’re an Instagram pro or a beginner, you’ll want to hear what Facebook’s Mallorie Rosenbluth had to say at MAKE by Slice. 

Social Media Starts with Consistency

“I compare it to inviting [people] over to your house. If you have company over, the first thing you’re going to do is clean up. So, make sure that you’ve got everything decorated the right way.”

Your profile photos and cover images should showcase your brand in a way that is immediately recognizable. For example, you can keep it simple by using your brand logo, which should be the same across all of your marketing materials. 

Then, keep your bios up to date with your shop’s key info. That includes store hours, a link to your Slice menu, and your address. Then, you can tap your location to see your geotag, which will inform your content strategy.

Study Your Audience

“With food content, it’s especially important to gather insights from your community. Look at the geotag and all the content that’s been shared from [your shop]… Now, you see all the comments, which will give you insights on what people like.”

“Maybe you think you have the best meatball sub in town, but people may actually be sharing more photos of your buffalo chicken pizza.”

So, in this case, you may want to focus more of your attention on the buffalo chix. From there, you can build stories, quizzes, and other content around your customers’ favorite dishes.

Educate, Engage, Excite

“When you’re thinking about your content, we don’t want you to be tossing pizza dough and thinking, ‘OMG, I need to take a picture of the dough as it’s flying in the air.’ That’s going to be really disruptive to your business.”

Instead, Mallorie suggests avoiding content overload with a mix of these three key pillars:

• Educate: These posts share important info, such as extended summer hours, Slice-exclusive specials, and how to interact with your business.
• Engage: Share the pics and details that will make your customers want to order. For example, you can show how that tasty buffalo chicken pizza is made. Or, show why you’re the local go-to for workday lunch. 
• Excite: Offering a bundle with pizza, wings, and a large soda? Let your customers know and build up some social media buzz.  

Build and Grow Your Social Media Community

For more great tips from Mallorie, check out her full sit down chat with Slice Social Media Manager Charlie Balk:

Hungry for more? Good! Next, we’ll show you how to get to the top of local Google searches for pizza.

In the meantime, head to slicelife.com/owners to learn more about what Slice has to offer and get started with no fees until 2022.