Two Cousins’ Pizza Co. knows Facebook like few others as they have grown to almost 10,000 likes in two years.
Bill Konves, one of two cousins who own the pizzeria, shared with us his secrets from his home in Powell, Ohio.
Q: When and why did you
join Facebook?
A: We joined Facebook six months before our first location opened
in 2011. We now have three locations. We used Facebook heavily before opening
so that we could generate interest and build a customer base. That digital
preparation paid off and the opening of each of our stores created tremendous
buzz both online and off.
Q: How the heck did you
get so many followers? What is the population of your town?
A: We are closing in on 10,000 “real” Facebook likes and the combined
population of the three cities we are located in is 58,000 (Mansfield,
Lexington and Ontario, Ohio). We have obtained so many likes through paid Facebook
advertising and through fun and unique contests that engage users by asking
them to share, like and comment on our posts. We run weekly contests for free
food and that drives a ton of traffic and engagement with our page.
Q: We have found only
about 50% of pizzerias have a presence on social media. What advice do you have
for pizzerias in terms of social media?
A: For established pizza shops, if you want to grow, there is no easier
or more cost-effective way to target your customers or your potential customers
than through social media, in particular Facebook. For those thinking about
breaking into the business, we opened all three of our restaurants through
social media marketing – and that’s all. Without Facebook, we would not have a
business today.
Q: What you have found
to be the most effective posts on Facebook?
A: Our “free food” contests generate the most engagement and subsequent
business. Every Friday and then one through the week, we come up with something
to get people talking. We tweak every single word we put into these free food
contests to elicit the best response. We even look at the best time of day to
send these out. We always boost these posts as well through Facebook paid
advertising. A new contest we did last week asked people to post pictures of
their food and it was extremely successful. Our page was filled with pictures
of our food. We then gave $5 gift certificates to all those that posted. As you
know, all of those posts also landed on the news feeds of those that posted, so
all of their friends saw it, got hungry and called us. Our sales shot through
the roof the week we did this promotion.
Our promotion that went viral the fastest is below. We posted this at
6 a.m. on a Saturday before a local football game. The game was just six hours
later. These stats are amazing for a town of 58,000.
Q: What is the key to
success with social media for any pizzeria?
A: Dedicate time to it every single day. If you open a Facebook page, it
is a commitment. If you are not on it for an hour a day, you will frustrate
your customers. Customers want to leave messages, ask questions and get answers
back quickly. If you put the time in, the results will come.
Also, commit to using the Facebook insights. You will learn what is
working, what is not and also a lot about your audience. Just like
traditional marketing, if you don’t measure your return on investment, you will
get frustrated with all the options and just give up. It’s important to focus
on content and performance equally. Facebook is real time marketing. Take
advantage of it.
Q: What is unique to
your restaurant that you try to highlight on social media?
A: Our ties to the community are what make us unique. We are actively
involved in our community through many different fundraisers. We even open for
24 hours on Christmas Day to feed all safety forces in our county. This program
has been huge on social media. Without Facebook, we wouldn't be able to be the
community-focused business we are today and we wouldn't be able to share that
brand and value position with our customers. For us, we developed our brand on
Facebook instead of developing the brand first then creating a Facebook
page.
