Building Social Networks through Humor and Authenticity

Pizza Salvatoré was founded in 1964 by our grandfather, Salvatoré, an Italian immigrant who settled in Quebec following World War II. With the help of our grandmother and their seven children, our grandparents built an institution in a small village in the Beauce region of Quebec. The second generation turned the family restaurant into a chain with 13 franchises. In 2018, my three brothers, my sister, and I bought the family business and knew that we wanted to keep it stable and growing. We relied heavily on social media to promote our dynamic family brand and expand into other Canadian provinces. Naturally, we chose to integrate social media into our communication strategies in order to maintain an authentic dialogue with our valued customers.

Growing up in restaurant kitchens, we saw firsthand the importance that our grandparents and parents placed on connecting directly with the community. For our generation, social networking has become simply another way to achieve that same goal as well as the best way for us to preserve that special bond and family atmosphere.

The brand image is ensured by the sustained presence of all family members at key moments of the year on different social media platforms and in constant connection with the restaurant managers within the different communities.

Our social media presence combines Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube and generates over 12 million views per month. We produce all the publications and video montages in-house with the help of external content creators who choose to associate themselves with the brand image. The humor and authenticity of each creator engage different target audiences and help multiply and propel the effect through social networks.

The arrival of TikTok and the change in Facebook’s algorithm favoring video content have helped us reach out locally to communities by highlighting the local products used in our restaurants. Demonstrations of freshly baked pizzas and behind-the-scenes presentations are some of the ways our in-house creative teams create interest and engagement with our customers.

“The humor and authenticity of each creator engage different target audiences and help multiply and propel the effect through social networks.”

Within the company’s communications team, we create each video targeted to a specific niche that the team has identified so that different audiences can relate to our content. Our social media nichesare:

• Entertaining through humor

• Informing

• Reproducing viral content

• Embracing the trends of the moment

We publish videos in these four niches every week to maintain relationships with customers by entertaining and/ or informing them. We create similar but different content for each platform in order to reach our customers. In all cases, we never sell promotions. Our aim is to get closer to our customers rather than to increase the volume of sales, which happens consequently but it is by no means our primary aim. We never publish content that doesn’t fit within our niches. Social media is an important part of our sales strategy and helps us engage with customers and the communities in which our restaurants are located.

The importance of social media and the factors for success:

• An exponential source of sales in an image control context

• Proximity to customers and ease of contact

• Low cost and ease of partnering on different platforms

The advantages of social media:

• It’s a visual platform that is the best sales vehicle. Creativity is limitless and allows us to present dishes in their everyday context as well as in the context of events and celebrations.

• The possibility of “reposting” content created by customers and influencers is a significant factor and a great source of commitment from customers and employees to promote the products on their respective accounts.

• It allows spontaneous publication of content and encourages dialogue in private messaging.

• The different platforms reach different demographics and offer the potential for new customers.