Who are you and what does your company do?
Jack Hoover, Director of Digital Marketing for Mr. Delivery. We provide a delivery service for local restaurants in 19 different cities. Customers go to our mobile and desktop website and place an order from choice of around 40 local restaurants, and we deliver them their order.
This allows consumers to have their food delivered without having to find restaurants that already have delivery service, and also avoid the problems of waiting in that restaurant's delivery queue, which can sometimes make for long waits.
How and why did you get started in social media?
I got started about four years ago when I was working for an NBC affiliate news station. My job was to produce and monitor the social media for the news and sports on the website. We actually used a CMS server at the time.
I moved through different roles after that. At Olympia Media Group I became Editor-in-Chief and ran social media there as well. Most recently I worked for the University of Miami as a social media intern for the athletic department, and now I'm with Mr. Delivery.
What do you believe the benefits of using social media for business?
There are several. The number one reason I like it is real-time engagement with consumers and targeting audiences. The ability to create a loyal following comes from being able to monitor our audience via CRM systems that tell us who's buying the most, where they're buying from, what kind of behaviors they have, how often they're buying, how much they're spending.
Then I can target what kind of product we want to advertise to them through social media, such as promotions for restaurants they order from regularly. So if they're ordering from, say Chili's, twice a week, then I can send them a coupon, thank them for using us, and ask them to retweet and follow.
If there's a problem they have, we can handle it through the digital sphere instead of having to call in or email. In today's business world people take to social media to vent their problems or issues, so that gives us another opportunity to engage with them through social media.
What do you think are common mistakes business owners make when building brand awareness on social media?
The number one mistake I see is producing quantity over quality, just blasting posts to the audience that aren't tied or tailored to any specific date, time, or event. We like to post at specific times and days during the week that have been shown to be the optimal times for people to check their feeds. And producing great content is important.
For example, I've seen other sites that just post their menus, but that's not really tailored to their audience. We like to post specials and events for the week based on the area, so the posts are more targeted to the audience we're trying to reach.
What qualities do you think social media managers should have?
They need to listen, be very attentive, and be consistent. They need to listen to their target audience, what they're saying, how they respond to different posts, then analyze their responses, re-evaluate your plan from there accordingly.
You can't just keep just keep pounding away doing the same thing over and over again without listening to your customer base. You have to change your ideas based on what they like and how they respond. 99% of business is customer service, so it's very important to stay attentive and listen to your audience, and then tailor your message to what they tell you.
How do Business owners know if their social media campaign is working?
There are several ways to do that, but obviously number one is the analytics through the platform you're using, whether it's Twitter or Facebook or whatever. Google analytics is a huge one that we use. I use the transactions to conversion rates a lot. Your traffic can be high and your site getting tons of hits, but if you're not converting that traffic into purchases or subscriptions, then it's a waste of an investment.
Social media lets us engage with visitors that don't purchase, thank them for visiting, offer them a coupon, ask them what we can do to improve, etc.
How do you see social media evolving over the next 5 years …what do you hope to see?
I see social media becoming the primary and most direct form of marketing. Each year business investments in social media marketing grow about 15-20%, so I think it's becoming the best way to communicate with any customer base. As technology improves and people are now on their phones all the time, tweeting every five seconds, it's the best way to see what they're saying in real time and stay involved with them.
What are your favourite platforms for social media marketing?
Sendible's a great platform. I use the advanced search every single day. We have so many markets that I oversee that creating a list of keyword searches for each market, for things like hiring drivers or finding people that are hungry but stuck at work, is a great way to stay organized. Instead of having to search, remember, and write down information about 19 different markets, like I would have to do on Twitter's search for example. Sendible's a great way to oversee all of our activity on all of the various platforms.
