Pollo Tropical and Social Media Marketing
Pollo Tropical is a food chain restaurant store started in Miami, Florida. Pollo Tropical began as a family business in 1988, and it was founded by Jewish brothers Stuart and Larry Harris (not what most people expect). Because of its name, people mistakenly assume they serve Mexican Food. The franchise is built upon the cuisines from the Caribbean. The main dishes include marinated and grilled chicken plus other meals like pork, shrimp, black beans and rice. The business has over 140 locations in the United States of America, and its corporate office is in Miami, Florida. The firm was acquired from Carroll Restaurant Group in 2012, and it is now a subsidiary of Fiesta Restaurant Group.
Social media marketing is essential to the restaurant industry because the industry relies heavily on word-of-mouth advertising. Most social media platforms are places where people share their opinions about likes and dislikes. The most common platform for restaurant advertising in 2018 was social media and is utilized by 63% of restaurateurs (Tetreault & Beltis, 2018). When done correctly, social media marketing can increase sales through building relationships online with present and future customers. With authentic interactions with customers, social media marketing can also create brand advocacy and show company transparency to their customers. In today’s world, customers prefer and expect social interaction from businesses. A company should have a social media marketing strategy to achieve success in social media marketing. Profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are norms for platforms on social media. The use of social media in the restaurant industry is essential, and companies can increase their return on investment (ROI) if they follow a well-constructed social media marketing strategy.
Pollo Tropical on Social Media Platforms
The Pollo Tropical has extensive social media exposure. This assertion is hinged on the fact that the market is not only on Facebook but also Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Additionally, the company has its own platform Pollo Tropical Television (PTTV) that relies upon the YouTube video generator to run customized advertisements on the various products on their platform. On YouTube, the company has over 2500 subscribers and 39 posted videos whereas, on Facebook, the official company page has around 181,746 likes with over 177,000. Additionally, on Twitter, the company has 6,749 followers with over 35,800 tweets. Similarly, the business has a following on Instagram with 7,917 followers.
The company is most dependent on Facebook for their social media marketing. This claim stems from the fact that despite the high number of likes, Facebook offers a means for evaluating the quality of service being rendered by the business. Additionally, the effectiveness of this platform remains evident from the almost 582 recommendations. Moreover, the company boasts over 7,000 real opinions posted on its page. Furthermore, it remains imperative to indicate that the company relies mostly on Facebook as it also offers an automatic messaging service; this ensures that clients receive a real-time response (Müllern, 2011).
The comparison between the social commerce on Facebook and Twitter reveals the massive disparity in the social media platforms. Additionally, whereas Twitter remains stringently controlled and regulated, Facebook offers a slightly interactive experience for the business. The social commerce features in Facebook remains more impressive compared to those of Twitter. The boosting of an account is possible on Facebook at affordable rates (Leung, Bai & Stahura, 2015).
Social Commerce Strategy
Pollo Tropical is utilizing several platforms in their social commerce strategy. They have a company website that has good search engine optimization (SEO) as well as good on-site indicators. The company has a mobile app on iOS and Android. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pollo Tropical TV are the social media platforms that Pollo Tropical prefers to use. The strategies Pollo Tropical utilizes to encourage social commerce sharing to help facilitate sales are share tools, recommendation indicators, reviews and ratings, reward system, and testimonials.
Some of the ways Pollo Tropical encourages and facilitates influence and impressions are by posting coupon codes.
Pollo Tropical engages people to enter contests.
They engage and encourage sales by celebrating national holidays.
Pollo Tropical posts on social media platforms and raises money for charities through sales such as breast cancer.
Pollo Tropical also supports several charities to help schools, local organizations, police, and firefighters.
Monetizing traffic flow from a business website or social media page highlights an effective social e-commerce campaign Around 50% of each day’s sales are directly impacted by social media marketing (Khan, 2014). Pollo Tropical has created a legit and credible following online that not only posts the right content but creates engagement with the right audience. The company’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts are utilized for engagement and influence to create a relationship with its target market. YouTube has many user review videos that are positive as well as negative. The Pollo TV channel shows videos of new products, “limited-time” product promotions, and sales promotions. They provide the videos in English and Spanish languages. While Pollo Tropical utilizes all these platforms, Facebook and Twitter see the most action by the company and customers.
Content and Sentiment Analysis
Online ratings and reviews, as well as content and sentiment analysis, can uncover valuable information about a brand and how well the business is connecting and engaging with the market. Companies can learn how people think or feel about their company and its products. The video is an example of an online rating and review using the YouTube platform.
Pollo Tropical started re-branding in October 2017 and has been working to revamp their social media marketing strategy. A content analysis was conducted using a program called Keyword Density Checker which analyzed the keyword density of Pollo Tropical’s website. Overall, the content analysis is good with 68 keywords and a website load time of .33 seconds. Below is the content analysis of Pollo Tropical.
Facebook Sentiment Analysis
Pollo Tropical is most dependent on Facebook to do social media marketing. The company relies mostly on Facebook as it also offers an automatic messaging service; this ensures that clients receive a real-time response (Mullern, 2014). Sentiment analysis was conducted using a program called Likealyzer. Some areas could use improvement. Below is the sentiment analysis for Pollo Tropical’s Facebook account.
Twitter Sentiment Analysis
Twitter is a very useful tool in giving the Pollo Tropical brand a voice and a personality. Twitter says 1.6 billion unique visitors per month see tweets on third-party properties, which corresponds to 500 million tweets per day and around 200 billion tweets per year (Lake, 2018). A well- managed Twitter account is crucial. Sentiment analysis was conducted using a program called NCSU (North Carolina State University) Tweet Sentiment Visualization App. Below is the sentiment analysis for Pollo Tropical’s Twitter account for the past seven days.
In this sentiment analysis, each tweet is shown as a circle positioned by sentiment, an estimate of the emotion contained in the tweet’s text. Unpleasant tweets are drawn as blue circles on the left, and pleasant tweets as green circles on the right. Sedate tweets are drawn as darker circles on the bottom, and active tweets as brighter circles on the top. In this chart, Pollo Tropical has a favorable sentiment.
In the tag cloud analysis, common words from the emotional regions Upset, Happy, Relaxed, and Unhappy are shown. Words that are more frequent are larger.
In the timeline analysis, tweets are drawn in a bar chart to show the number of tweets posted at different times. Pleasant tweets are shown in green on the top of the chart, and unpleasant tweets are shown in blue on the bottom.
Instagram Sentiment Analysis
Instagram is a global platform that allows brands to humanize their content, recruit new talent, showcase products, and inspire their audience. Instagram users provide a wealth of potential material for Pollo Tropical. Sentiment analysis for Pollo Tropical was conducted, and the company was compared to its top competitor Moe’s Southwest Grill. The program used is called Socialbakers. Below is the sentiment analysis for its Instagram account.
Assessment and Recommendation
The primary goals of a social media campaign should include creating brand awareness, improving the quality of service, and creating walk-in person sales. When the analysis was conducted on Pollo Tropical’s Facebook page, it is evident that there are improvements to be made. The Facebook profile scored 58% on the criteria field “Activity” and 44% on the criteria field “Response.” It evident that Pollo Tropical should increase the number of posts per day to increase user engagement. They should” like” more pages to encourage cross domain interest which would boost overall engagement. Pollo Tropical scored low in response rate and response time. The business should increase response rate as this is indicative of a responsive brand. The company should improve on response time to user posts. Facebook allows for real-time interaction, and users demand fast responses. The Pollo Tropical Facebook platform should be re-strategized to enhance the performance of communication with users. The Twitter account seems to be well maintained and running smoothly. I would suggest keeping on top of response time and user interactions. As for the Instagram account, the analysis compares the activity of Pollo Tropical competitor Moe’s Southwest Grill. It is unfortunate that Pollo Tropical is categorized as a Sleeper. It is evident that this platform needs attention and a social media marketing plan. Incorporating sponsored ads, partnering with influencers for a broader reach, collect user-submitted photos, create interactive branded hashtags, and posting at the right time are few ideas to help build awareness on Instagram. Most importantly, it is essential to use a metric tool to measure the results of each platform as Pollo Tropical implements its new strategy.
The basis of a strong social media campaign should be the creation of a stable consumer base and more sales. Nudging the consumer to complete the purchase cycle remains an important step in monetizing social media marketing (Garner, 2017). Advertisements are programmed to trigger a client’s need or want for a service or good. Upon seeing the ads, clients start to consider buying from the page. Therefore, the primary objective of Pollo Tropical should be monetization of the likes and comments. The success of a social media campaign directly correlates to the number of units purchased; nonetheless, it remains imperative to note that social media platforms provide a community for buyers to engage (Wordstream, 2018). In conclusion, it is suggested that Pollo Tropical revise the social media marketing plan for Facebook and Instagram for optimal brand awareness, quality customer service, improving the quality of service, and creating walk-in person sales.
Reference
Garner, L. (2017, November 23). Three steps in implementing a social commerce strategy - We Are Social USA. Retrieved from https://wearesocial.com/us/blog/2017/11/three-steps-in-implementing-a-social-commerce-strategy
Khan, J. (2014, August 15). 6 Key Components of an Effective Social Commerce Strategy. Retrieved from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/content/6-key-components-effective-social-commerce-strategy
Lake, L. (2018, October 10). Twitter: A Valuable Marketing Tool? Retrieved November 24, 2018,from https://www.thebalancesmb.com/
Leung, X. Y., Bai, B., & Stahura, K. A. (2015). The marketing effectiveness of social media in the hotel industry: A comparison of Facebook and Twitter. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 39(2), 147-169.
Müllern, T. (2011). Facebook as a marketing channel. A study of ecommerce retailers’ Facebook page ambitious (Doctoral dissertation, Master Thesis. InternationellaHandelshögskolan, Jönköping, Sweden).
Tetreault, A., & Beltis, A. (2018, October 10). 60 Restaurant Industry Statistics for Restaurant Owners in 2019. Retrieved November 23, 2018, from https://pos.toasttab.com/
Wordstream. (2018). Social Media Marketing for Businesses | WordStream. Retrieved from https://www.wordstream.com/social-media-marketing
Hello, Khristina, you have provided a lot of information about Pollo Tropical, Great details on your overview it provide visual of information that is understandable. The graphics give people an actual idea of what kind of food the business have and the price. Everyone loves to each chicken especially when it is mixed with Tropical flavors.Also, great input on key words that can help someone find the restaurant. Awesome job on your final paper.










