Fast food chain captures market via social media

CEBU, Philippines - All-Pinoy fastfood chain Binalot Fiesta Foods is utilizing social media as its competitive edge amid the stiff competition in the fastfood industry in the country.

 "We have pioneered a lot of interesting efforts in the Fast Food Industry such as green delivery services. This time, we are among the first to use social media as a marketing communications strategy," said Rommel Juan, President and chief executive officer (CEO) of Binalot Fiesta Foods.

 Having an online population of some 30 million people with an average age of 22.7 years, the Philippines is believed to be highly receptive to new media based on the Digital Life study conducted by insight and consultancy firm TNS.

 With this in mind, an all-Pinoy fastfood chain continues to take advantage of this emerging channel of communication to reach its current customers and gain more; blazing the trail as a pioneer in Social Media among Pinoy fast foods.

 The company has been utilizing Facebook and Twitter since early 2009. "We are aware that social media is a tool to communicate with a larger number of people in a more intimate way. Plus, it's also more cost effective over other existing channels especially for a small enterprise with a limited advertising budget like Binalot," Juan said.

 According to Ros Juan, Binalot’s Digital Marketing Consultant, that the company's accounts have been active since early 2009 but their relevance and effectiveness were proven during the onslaught of typhoon Ondoy.

 “I'm amused by the fact that we discover a lot of essential strategies for business during or after typhoons. Milenyo prompted us to look for a sustainable source of banana leaves, leading to our CSR program Dangal at Hanap Buhay Para sa Nayon (DAHON). Ondoy made us utilize our social media accounts to coordinate relief operations. Of course, as most people have observed the importance of social media as a tool for mobilization was given a boost during Ondoy," she stressed.

 The company constantly updates its Twitter and Facebook statuses and creates regular online promos for its Facebook fans. "Aside from using the status feeds for our promos or new products, we also use this as a venue to spark conversations among our followers by posting current events and other interesting stories that Filipinos can relate to," she added.

 According to Ros Juan, integrating social media communications to a company’s traditional marketing efforts is essential in running aneffective communications campaign. “Companies, especially those who market directly to consumers, cannot ignore social media. If you want to reach youth and young adults, you have to go online where they congregate virtually."

 But while Binalot leverages social media, it has no immediate plans of selling online. Rommel Juan explains, "Full-on e-commerce is still too expensive for us at the moment.

Right now we're at the 'guerilla marketing' stage with social media as an important new tool in our arsenal. We want to focus on digital media campaigns to reach our current market and expand that reach."