After the Aurora, CO shooting during the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises", the nation mourned the passing of many young heroes. This incident hit home as we discovered Navy Intelligence Officer John Larimer, 27, was killed as he valiantly shielded his girlfriend from gunfire.
During the weekend of his funeral in his hometown of Crystal Lake, IL, many of his friends from the Navy stopped into one of their favorite places for a slice of Chicago deep-dish pizza - Georgio's.
Georgio's management thanked John's friends for stopping in and shared their condolences publically on Facebook. They did not expect this post to go viral.
The president was surprised that so many people had a newfound interest in Georgio's...and wanted to keep interest high in his local pizzeria. But what could he do? They have hosted beer dinners, holiday events and offered countless specials, but none of these activities sustained traffic for too long.
He called upon the social media strategists at Freshly Baked Communications to help solidify his presence in the community, strengthen social media engagement and bring more traffic into the restaurant.
We suggested two promotions - the first was Georgio's Fan of the Day.
The Fan of the Day was launched August 8th to an overwhelming response. By offering one free appetizer on a daily basis to one fan of the Facebook page at random, Georgio's saw an immediate increase of page views (48.6%) and dine-in traffic surged by 32% within the month of August, alone.
This promotion worked because people had a reason to check the Georgio's Facebook Page daily to see if they were a winner, gave them an incentive to remain a fan of the page, allowed their friends to use the "Share" feature when someone they knew became the Fan of the Day and increased foot traffic, as winners had one day to redeem their free item.
This promotion was also modified to offer a free individual pizza, which sent Facebook traffic up another 8% and carryout traffic increased by 17%.
Next up: National Pizza Month Trivia - with an emphasis on Georgio's trivia. In October, we launched a series of pizza trivia questions that true Georgio's fans could answer.
Not only did the Georgio's National Pizza Month trivia contest allow fans to guess the answers to Georgio's pizza history, it allowed their Facebook community to understand more about the work that goes into the preparation of various popular menu items, the history of the local pizzeria and start to identify and connect with the owner of the 10-year-old restaurant, who was only 32!
And, with over 1,000 views per daily post, the questions were a big hit and encouraged fans to stop in for a large-one topping pizza on the house for answering the questions correctly.
The pizza trivia and Fan of the Day giveaways culminated on November 5, 2012 - the 10th year anniversary of Georgio's. We encouraged the notoriously shy owner to express his feelings publically with a heartfelt 'thank you' message to the fans. With almost 1,800 views and over 100 likes, it was obvious to see that Georgio's Pizza had finally emerged as a community favorite, and they continue to enjoy heightened levels of traffic and customer loyalty today. Next up, a Zagat rating!
