Case Study: How Boloco Uses Social Media for Success

boloco: one word… yum! Not only do they have scrumptious burritos, but they also are a great example on how to utilize socialmedia such as Twitter for success. I had the pleasure of interviewing Sara Steele-Rogers, the social media maven for boloco to get some insight on their strategy, tactics, and steps to success through social media.

ME: Sara, tell us “your story”…what brought you to boloco?

SARA: I’ve been a fan of boloco since The Wrap days. While in graduate school at Emerson College, I interned with Yelp. Yelp is extremely active at community events, and so is boloco. After bumping into the boloco team three or four times at events around the city, we became great friends. Once I graduated in May 2010 (and even before then), I expressed a great deal of interest to John Pepper, boloco‘s CEO, about joining the team. One thing led to another, and here I am today!

ME: Awesome. So let’s talk about Twitter and how boloco utilizes the different handles they have. What was your original social media strategy for utilizing Twitter and how has it changed over time?

SARA: Originally, John as in charge of the @boloco Twitter handle became recognized for his quick, honest approach to responding to every guest. Once I joined the team, I became the main driver of the @boloco handle, with John chiming in occasionally. He now runs his ownTwitter handle, @bolocoCEO, and many of our stores have their own Twitter handles. The involvement of the individual stores varies, but we do our best to have at least one person oversee the specific handles and publicize information relevent to their community. It’s important we don’t overwhelm our Twitter stream with hyper-local content.

ME: What specific tactics does boloco use and how does that separate them from their competition? In addition, what are you monitoring on Twitter? What tools do you use to monitor?
SARA: Ever since the inception of @boloco three years ago, the primary use of Twitter has been to listen to and respond to our guests. It’s not just guests who complain – it’s guests who praise us, have suggestions, valuable feedback, customer complaints, and even FourSquarecheck-ins. Our tone is also different. Boloco is human. We’re 100% honest. We’re not afraid to re-tweet our mistakes or comparisons to our competition. We also like to surprise guests – load a free menu item on their boloco card if they get something not-so-good from a competitor. Load an additional freebie on their boloco card so they can enjoy their free birthday burrito with a friend (for free).

In regards to tools and monitoring, we’re pretty basic at boloco. I use Tweetdeck,Kurrently, Twitter for iPhone. We’re looked into larger-scale monitoring tools likeRadian6 and Scout Labs, but aren’t ready to make the investment just yet. Admittedly, the scape is ever-evolving and it’s tough to keep up!

ME: Why should we follow @boloco?
SARA: We hope people follow us so we can add to their overall boloco experience. We want our guests to be assured that we’re always listening, and feel comfortable voicing their opinions… good or bad. We’ve made great changes to our company because of Twitterfeedback. If you’re bored, we’ll talk to you If you’re looking for some humor or something unexpected, we might provide that, too. And less often, we’ll promote our in-store promotions, free burrito days, Snoloco days, and other offers we hope will encourage you to come visit us.

 

ME: If you were stuck on an island, what three tools could you never give up as a community manager?

SARA: Sense of humor, Tweetdeck, and TwitPic.

ME: Any tips for CEOs on Twitter?

SARA: Be honest and admit your mistakes!

A great interview and a great community manager and social media marketing girl to keep your eyes on. Sara is rocking it for boloco and boloco is definitely a company to use as a role model when it comes to customer service and consumer engagement via social media such as Twitter.

Note: this post was originally written for oneforty, which was acquired by Hubspot.