Dueling Pizzerias

Comparison Analysis:

Social Media Presence of two separately owned franchises of Falbo Bros Pizza.

The world of small business come with a plethora of challenges and hurdles many larger companies don’t have to worry as much about. Small business means personal money and personal loss. The investment in yourself and the product you are sharing with the community is often one of passion, motivated by personal reasons beyond the concept of just being a job. Social media allows a single location business to cast a wide net and notify the community of its presence and what its offering. Depending on the area and community this can either be a drop in the bucket or make a world of difference. For this exercise I compared Falbo Bros Shorewood with the Falbo Bros in Davenport Iowa. These two businesses are by no means a carbon copy of the other and the impact of social media likewise has had a different use and impact for both.

Falbo Bros Shorewood

The Shorewood location is privately owned and is a single entity. Their delivery range is serving the north shore and part of the east side of milwaukee. FBSW only has facebook as its social media outreach. Initially I found that this might be a hole that needed filling but as i search on and continues my observations I began to notice the usefulness of each service in this context. Their facebook page contains the standard reviews and feedback as well as holiday and promotional posts. The page has the ability to order online as well which I thought was a great use of the page. The page has 627 likes and 622 followers and is rated 4.7 stars out of 5. The numbers seem small and they are a bit, but for the community they serve it covers all the bases. These days people are scrolling by Ads and promotional content on social media unless they are looking for it, which most don’t use social media for. Using their base and presence to expand awareness of their business seems like the obvious goal and the delivery range limits how much reach is actually needed. The owner is very active when complaints and compliments arise, they are quick to respond and the reaction from the community often turns positive when feedback is given from ownership back to the customer. They do not have a twitter account, but in this context, the resources expended vs the payoff to manage more social media is very important to note. All and all the presence they bring to the internet matches their real life vibe , which is a very mom and pop franchise that has many personal touches and personal feel. That’s something that is very hard to convey over social media but somehow they seem to pull it off regularly.

Falbo Bros Davenport Iowa

This pizzaria was located in the heart of downtown Davenport beneath a live music venue similar to Turner Hall. As of january 16 they have closed and are relocating in the spring. This location served a much larger population than Shorewood, as well as having a lunch buffet and full bar, complete with trivia nights. Their Facebook page has over 10k likes and 10k followers with a 4.2 star rating out of 5. The feel of this page seems to mimic more large scale corporate businesses while still juxtaposing itself as a community fixture. The page contains reviews and feedback but no option to order directly. The facebook is rife with complaints and stories of bad experiences but their responses to the scathing reviews is non existent unless its an employee infraction or a compliment.They do have a twitter account, but upon reviewing that it’s more depressing than anything else. They have 100 followers and less than 200 following. A quick scroll and you’ll find yourself back in 2015. They used twitter to promote lunch specials, new items and drink specials, although no one is liking any posts or commenting. There is really no community presence other than promotion on twitter and the lack of followers makes its use fairly redundant and a waste of resources and time for a small business. The business did close with an undisclosed new location and no set date, time will tell if they will actually reopen or if perhaps this marks the end for them.

Conclusion

After carefully examining the pages and accounts of these two very similar but different businesses the glaring fact stood out that a small business, depending on its function may not benefit from twitter at all and perhaps might make a bigger splash with instagram as its what the youth use more than even facebook. The social media presence of a small business should mimic its physical location and convey the same feelings being there or memories of such provoke. A warm feel with a caring owner and time taken to rectify issues goes a long way in this business and word of mouth being equally as powerful is something the business should try to guide. The Davenport location revealed how not to use twitter and brought up a lot of questions of what would be the right way to use it for a pizzeria. In conclusion the presence is pointless if its not being managed and interacted with regularly. In this way the volume is more irrelevant as the reach is through connection with those who will go far enough to review or comment. That goes along way and others see that their friend commented and discover something new with a owner that cares and drives interest to discover what this little diner is all about.