We've often heard, read and talked about the 'power of social media'. But one brand in particular knows first-hand just how powerful social media can be.
For a lot of people, Pret-A-Manger is one of those brands that are to be admired. Committed to improving animal welfare, supporting homeless people and food distribution charities while trying to reduce its impact on the environment, Pret has established itself as a leader in terms of social responsibility.
But a vital part of that journey is its social media presence. After listening to its customers' feedback on social media, Pret-A-Manger opened a vegetarian pop-up store in June.
"Social media plays a crucial role at Pret, particularly during our Veggie Pret journey," Pret's social media manager, Anthony Leung, explained.
"The feedback we received from customers via social has been the driving force in opening a vegetarian pop up."
During what was supposed to be just a four-week trial, Anthony and his team witnessed such a huge buzz on social media around the Veggie Pret pop-up store that it effectively had no option but to keep the meat-free store permanently.
Central to that successful social media strategy is to focus on one platform.
Anthony said: "It’s better to make an impact on one platform than to be ineffective on four.
"This is especially true if you have very limited resources - you want to nail down the ones that make sense for your brand and your audience before exploring other platforms. Trying to be on everything at once will stretch out your resources and end up producing with sub-par content."
But what is so appealing about social media to Anthony?
"Social media has the ability to connect with people in surprising and meaningful ways, which is what attracted me to work in it in the first place.
"It’s what sets it apart from most other channels of marketing."
Anthony is talking about what Pret learned from its social media campaign for Veggie Pret, and how to turn feedback and social media engagement into action, at Integrated Live on 17 November. You can find him in the Keynote Theatre at 4pm.
But you'll have to register for your free ticket first:
By Jonathan Davies, editor, Digital Marketing Magazine
PrivSec Conferences will bring together leading speakers and experts from privacy and security to deliver compelling content via solo presentations, panel discussions, debates, roundtables and workshops.
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