Everything I Needed to Know About Social Media I Learned From the Pizza Delivery Guy

Earlier this week, I attended the Social Media Master’s Summit in Chicago.  The opening speaker on the second day was a gentleman who owns six Domino’s Pizza stores in the Chicago area.  Not being from Chicago, I had no idea who this guy was or why he was speaking at the summit.


Within minutes of taking the mic, he made it clear why he was speaking.  Not only is Ramon DeLeon an incredibly dynamic and inspiring speaker, he gets social media.  I mean REALLY gets it. The guy even has his own hashtag – go search #RamonWOW and see what I mean.


Quick back story.  Ramon started out as a part time pizza delivery guy and worked his way up into management  When the opportunity arose, he bought a franchise and has proceeded to use social media to become a force to reckon with, both in the pizza industry and on the speaking circuit.


So what lessons did I learn from hearing Ramon tell his story on Wednesday?


* Social Media is great, but you’d better have the goods to back it up.
Ramon makes sure that all of his stores are excelling in customer service.  Even the best, flashiest, most creative social media campaign cannot make up for a business that isn’t doing what it needs to in order to make its customers happy.


*Be Yourself.
No one likes a phony, insincere person in real life, right?  They don’t like one any better on Twitter or Facebook.  You are the only you around – make sure the real YOU shines through in social media as well.


* Be easy to find.
Don’t create your social media profiles and then hide them!  What’s the point? Yet, that’s just what many folks do by hiding their Facebook and Twitter links at the bottom of their website in tiny print.


*Don’t shy away from negative feedback.
Use negative feedback as an opportunity to address any real problems, correct them, and let those who have complained know that you are listening to them.  Ramon gave a great example of a lady who tweeted him that she had missed half of her favorite team’s game waiting for a pizza that then turned out to be not-so-great.  Ramon made it up to her by replacing the pizza with a fresh one, with two tickets to the next game taped on top.  Not only did he win her over as a fan for life, she tweeted about it and all those folks who follow her got to hear what a dynamo Ramon is as well.


*Be social.
It’s called social media for a reason.  You need to interact with the folks who are following you.  If you are just blasting marketing messages at them all the time, you are not a social media presence – you are a spammer. Engage in conversation, get to know your customers and followers.  It will help you serve them better in the end.


Intrigued by the story of Ramon?  Want to learn more about him?
Check out this great video of a day in the life of the #RamonWOW tweet stream.