The New Social Media Arena

Social media plays a huge role in today’s marketing arena.

Mastering this notoriously fast-moving, ever-changing landscape is an ongoing challenge for pizzerias.

Are you wondering whether you’re missing some critical developments in the social media world because you’re too busy crafting amazing pizzas? We talked to a couple of experts in the social media marketing profession to find out what’s new.

Sara Huntington is a content producer and TikTok specialist at Firebelly Marketing in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Chad Richards is the founder of Sidework Social.

Do I Really Need To Be on Social Media?

“Social media is where the people are, right?” says Richards. “So, in order to reach people, they really need to be where the people are.”

Social media platforms are actually some of the most cost-effective places for paid advertising. While platforms typically launch with a focus on free user-generated content, “it’s increasingly difficult to reach people organically or for free,” according to Richards. “You are competing with everybody’s friends that they follow, with other brands that they follow, and with brands that are running ads trying to reach your same audience. So, if you want to guarantee exposure you really need to be running paid ads.”

He emphasizes that “you don’t have to spend a lot of money.” For example, instead of posting every day and relying on organic exposure, “you’re better off to just post one time a week, and front an ad promoting it through the end of the week.” He observes that many smaller pizzerias may devote virtually their entire marketing budget to social media, whereas larger brands will diversify their efforts.

What’s Hot in Social Media?

Video is extremely hot, and it’s got an obvious affinity with food of any kind. Nothing can match seeing the sizzle and stretch of nice hot pizza straight out of the oven.

The two most influential platforms today are TikTok and Instagram Reels. Many other platforms are capitalizing on the video trend. YouTube, dedicated to video, has initiated “YouTube shorts” to capture this element of the market, and Facebook has long been video-friendly.

The appeal of video is obvious. “It’s storytelling, right?” says Richards. “Video’s very popular. I would include that in your arsenal because there are people that love to consume video content, so that should be available for your guests.”

What’s Not?

Both Richards and Huntington warn operators against trying to anticipate the trends by being an early adopter.

“I hate to come on as the contrarian, but I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I’ve seen so many new things come and go. It’s the shiny new object syndrome, but really, I just say focus on where your customers are,” offers Richards. “There aren’t any new emerging platforms right now that I would say are must-have for pizzerias outside of TikTok.”

Your Video Marketing Strategy

The advice is to be where your customers are, and today that means the big, dominant platforms.

Huntington emphasizes that you need to cultivate an authentic identity. “To be able to grow on social media, you really have to be able to find what your niche is,” she advises. “There’s a level of realism you have to show on social media. Is it family owned? Is it artisanal? People want to see more than just half-off coupons. They want to see where do your ingredients come from? What’s your family’s background like?”

Richards says “the recipe for success for pizzerias, no matter which channel they’re on, it’s really simple. You want to provide guests with content they wish to consume and provide them with an amazing customer service experience. And these pizzerias are already doing this in their restaurants, so they just need to do the same thing on their social channels.”

Utilizing Metrics

That’s where metrics come in. They enable you to evaluate whether your content is resonating with your audience.

Huntington says valuable metrics are available “with pretty much any platform. You can see your engagement rates, your reach, your audience, it’ll tell you the age of your audience, where your audience is located. TikTok will show you a graph of your retention rate — at what point people stopped watching your video. The average length that people watch a TikTok video is around three seconds, but you’ll know if you have a good or bad video if it drops off before those three seconds. If they watch the whole thing, then you had a good video. Even if it didn’t have your highest engagement, people still watched the entire thing.”

Richards says metrics can reveal clues such as “when we post a trivia question, that has a really amazing engagement rate. Or maybe when we post a coupon, we don’t get many comments, but lots of people share it and we’re reaching so many people. So it helps you know what to include moving forward in your content mix.”

Different Social Platform, Different Style

TikTok expert Huntington emphasizes that the different platforms favor different productions styles.

“The thing with TikTok is it’s not this overproduced video showing how beautiful the pizza is. It would be an actual person in their kitchen showing them how they make the pizza.” TikTok users “wanna see live raw footage, which is so different than what we’ve seen in other social media in the past.”

She refers to research her firm did on Taco Bell. “If you look at their Instagram, it’s all pretty overly produced. And then you get on their TikTok and it’s just someone that they’ve hired, showing how they make each one of the tacos and the ingredients and everything. And then you get on YouTube shorts and it’s just some young employee in their kitchen making Taco Bell. It just progressively becomes more realistic and not so highly produced.”

Benefits of a Social Media Pro

Both experts encourage you to enlist a professional.

Huntington emphasizes that pros will know the trends and how to get a video to land on users’ “for you” page. “There’s a cadence of when to post, and what sound to put on it that’ll make it trend with other videos.”

Richards observes that when businesses DIY their social media, “they run out of steam.” He says professional service ensures pizzerias post consistently in terms of schedule and voice. He also notes that community management should be a part of your customer service experience. When guests reach out via direct message on social media apps, they expect a prompt response.  You should make sure they get one, which takes dedicated monitoring.

Annelise Kelly is a Portland, Oregon-based freelance writer.