Social Media Spotlight: Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza

For this week’s Social Media Spotlight, we are pleased to introduce Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza. New York native Anthony Bruno moved to South Florida more than 25 years ago with his father to start Anthony’s Runway 84, now a Fort Lauderdale icon. Unable to find the great pizza he remembered, Anthony decided to introduce South Floridians to the old-world art of coal-fired cooking and opened the first Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza in 2002. The concept caught on like wildfire.

Known for its high energy atmosphere and simple menu, Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza uses 800-degree coal burning ovens to create a “well done” taste. Signature menu items include specialty pizza made with the freshest, top-quality ingredients, coal-oven-roasted chicken wings topped with grilled onions and Italian-style salad. Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza’s food and service have continually been ranked “very good to excellent” by Zagat Survey, the distinguished dining and entertainment guide.

Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza has 20 locations throughout Florida, as well as 9 locations throughout the Northeast (DE, PA, NJ, NY), including White Plains. Expansion plans include additional locations in the Northeast and South Tampa, FL. We had the pleasure of speaking with Toby Srebnik, the Director of Social Media for O’Connell & Goldberg, the PR firm that represents Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza, and here’s what he had to say about their social media marketing strategy.

How to Manage Your Social Media Comments

If your social media strategy is anything like ours, then your brand is probably on numerous social media sites. That means you have a bunch of fans visiting and interacting with each post that you publish. There is a certain response etiquette that is important to follow when answering your fans. Let’s take a look at each social platform and see how to enhance our response strategy.

The Profile of the Social Consumer and How to Interact With Them

Let’s face it; social media has changed the way businesses have to interact with their customers. What used to be a one-way, company-centric selling process has become a customer-driven procedure. Social media has revolutionized the way consumers go about buying their products and services. If your business doesn’t understand the new-age purchasing behavior of your consumers, you are sure to be left in the dust.

The Benefits of Outsourcing Your Social Media Marketing

There is no doubt that social media has become an integral part of many business marketing strategies. It seems that if your company is not on Facebook or blogging by now, you may have been somewhat left behind. But there are many reasons that small and medium sized businesses have not established a social media presence yet.

Social media marketing is very easy to be overlooked in small business environments because of the amount of employees the company has. When there are not enough employees to manage the daily tasks of social media marketing, it is likely to get cut from a business model. Additionally, there may be enough employees, but not enough time in the workday to complete the social media initiatives.  So what do you do when there’s a need for social media management, but you don’t have enough resources? Outsource.

Social Media Spotlight: Behind the Burner

For this week’s Social Media Spotlight, we are pleased to introduce Behind the Burner. Behind the Burner is a food based e-brand that focuses on bringing the tips, tricks and techniques of culinary masters, entrepreneurs and more to the masses with videos, recipes, blog posts and product reviews. The vision for this business was to educate and share experiences on numerous culinary topics, and that’s just what they did! We were lucky enough to speak with Kaitlin, the Social Media Manager, and gain insight to their marketing strategy. Let’s see how social media has helped Behind the Burner to reach their audience.

Social Media Content Strategy: How, When and What to Post

A large portion of my job is to conduct research in order to find how and if local businesses are using social media. For the most part, many companies have a Facebook and Twitter page set up, but seem to post infrequently and only use content that directs their fans to their website. This is upsetting for me, as I’m sure most of these companies believe they have a good social media strategy in place. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Content is king when it comes to your social media strategy, so let’s see how, when and what you should be posting.

Are You a Social Media Expert?

The answer is no. No one is a social media expert, and you shouldn’t believe an agency or person if that is what they claim to be. This statement may seem controversial, as it is coming from a social media marketing and management business owner, but it is the truth. I’m not going to sit here and tell you that my partner and I are experts because we’re not. We are extremely good at what we do and are very knowledgeable about how social media marketing works in a business sense, but to call ourselves experts is a straight out lie. And if you think you’re an expert, you are lying too.

Social media is constantly changing. Therefore, it is not a communication channel that a person can ever fully understand. New social sites, like Google+, pop up every other week. How can you be an expert in something that is new to everyone?

Our Top Ten Social Media Tips

Here at Progressive Media Concepts, not only do we like to explain to our readers why social media is important and why businesses should be using it in their marketing plan, but we like to give advice on HOW to use it. Every Tuesday and Thursday we are posting new social media tips and tricks for our fans. Today, I am selecting our top ten tips and tricks, and sharing them with you. These are shortcuts and strategies we have learned along our own social media journey. Enjoy!

LinkedIn Goes Public on the NYSE

LinkedIn, a popular social media networking site for business professionals, has officially made history. On May 19^th, 2011, LinkedIn went public, offering 7,840,000 shares, and making it the first social media site ever to be publicly traded. Now this may not seem like a reason for celebration, except for the rapid increase in share price. The IPO was priced at $45, which within 24 hours has skyrocketed to over $100 per share. Any investor should be very happy with their return in only one day of trading.

If you aren’t already aware of what LinkedIn is or how it can offer you any sort of value, read about it here. Founded in 2003, LinkedIn has grown to over 100 million users in over 200 countries and offers its members a variety of amenities, such as connecting with professionals and providing a job database.

The Don’ts of Social Media Marketing

There are so many blog posts out there explaining what you should do when using social media to market and expand your business, and yes, we are also guilty of that. But have you ever stopped to think about the things that you SHOULD NOT be doing when using social networks to build brand awareness? Let’s go over the top 5 what-not-to-do strategies.