Evan Green
STCM 315-002
Catherine Mezera
November 10, 2014
Pizza Hut Social Media Strategy
Social Media Goal:
To Increase overall experience for consumer base on social media by integrating the Pizza Hut
social media websites and increasing interactivity between the restaurant and the social media
follower/customer.
Situation Analysis:
Pizza Hut has experienced a decrease in domestic store sales in 2014 (as shown in the graph
below) compared to our main competitors who have seen a rise in the first-quarter and secondquarter of 2014 despite Pizza Hut’s dominance in the number of stores in the nation.
With the growing number of adults utilizing social media across all platforms, and our
competitors increasing their levels of social media marketing, it is important that Pizza Hut
establishes a more involved and interactive social media presence to assert our superiority in
the pizza delivery market.
Target Audiences:
This new social media campaign will focus on two target audiences within the age demographic
of 18 to 24 years- of-age.
The first target market is the Caucasian suburban female age. According to research done by the
Pew Research Center, females are the largest users of social media with 71 percent of females
active on at least one social network. This female has a household income over $70,000, some
college education or a college degree and is moderately active among more than one social
network. Her biggest social network usage comes from Facebook usage and she uses the
newsfeed feature to be able to keep up to date with her friends and also her favorite brands.
She is also a user of the application Pinterest where she pins her favorite things that she may
have connected to her Facebook and often shares onto her newsfeed.
The second target market is urban African-American and Hispanic males. This target market is
one of the most active on both Instagram and Twitter. This male has a household income
between $50,000 and $70,000, a part-time or full-time job, and some college education or a
college degree. They use social media as sort of a blog and follow accounts based on selfinterests and humor but sometimes follow their favorite brands to stay up to date on the best
promotions.
Direct Competitors and Their Social Media Presence:
Direct Competitors of Pizza Hut are other pizza takeout and delivery restaurant chains.
 Dominos: second largest pizza takeout and delivery in the nation, and is trailing Pizza
Hut in social media following but they are using their presence more efficiently across
all major social networks.
On Twitter: they utilize clever hashtags accompanied with a joke to entertain
users.
 They incorporate several interactions between them and verified users
 They link YouTube videos into their Twitter posts
 They take advantage of event-specific posts like football games and the
World Series.
o On Facebook:
 They links the closest locations with a map,
 They use an ordering now application available straight from their page
 They created a Facebook application for establishing contact with
customer service.
o On Pinterest:
 They have pins aggregated into relevant groupings like “Our Products”
and humors groupings like “Cheesy Chuckles”
o On YouTube:
 They include short video clips found on both Facebook and twitter
 They include TV commercials
 They incorporate messages from the founder, Jim Kelly
o On Instagram:
 They highlight different flavor combinations
 They incorporate their short video commercials
 They use popular hashtags like #pizzapics

Papa John’s: the third largest competitor in the pizza takeout and delivery, and it has
less of a social media presence. They try to brand themselves has a more high-quality
brand of pizza and their social media presence tries to reestablish that.
o On Twitter:
 They use the hashtag #BetterIngredients and #BetterPizza when talking
about their product
 They incorporate sports-related posts
 They interact with their followers frequently
o On Facebook:
 They continue to use their slogan #BetterIngredients #betterPizza in
their product-related posts
 They incorporate pricing and deals into their promotional pictures
 They show customers enjoying their product with pictures
 They link the page with nearby locations straight from their page
o On YouTube:
 They use the same hashtag slogan to synchronize the message of better
quality ingredients
 They incorporate promotion-related posts about their best deals
 They announce new pizza flavors through pictures and video clips
SOCIAL MEDIA FOLLOWING
Domino's
Papa John's
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
2,947
54,956
91,178
256,410
688,983
1,040,339
2,887,769
10,248,282
15,830,180
Pizza Hut
INSTAGRAM
Indirect Competitors:
The indirect Competitors of Pizza Hut in the social media market are health food related posts,
other restaurant accounts, and non-active users.
 Health food related posts can make the user feel guilty about a product that is often
thought of as “unhealthy” which is often the stigma that is attached to delivery and fast
food restaurants.
 Other restaurants and their social media efforts can deter the attention of the social
media user away from Pizza Hut and their message.

Consumers that are not active on social media will not receive the messages entirely.
Proposed Ideas:
1. Increase the number of interactive posts with consumers and followers on Twitter
 By replying to tweets from appreciative fans we can show that we have a happy
consumer base to other and potential consumers.
 Interactions with consumers and followers are limited to celebrities with verified
accounts, and consumers that have shared their thoughts about us and our products in
a positive light.
2. Create holiday and event-related posts
 Creating hashtags such as #NewyearsDish, #PizzaIsMyValentine, and
#PresidentsDayPizza to be able to be relevant to the time we decide to create a social
media posting on any one of our platforms.
 Utilizing non-government holidays like National Pizza Day to reach out to our followers
and consumers.
3. Increase amount of promoted posts
 By paying an advertising fee, Pizza Hut can create promotional messages that can be
displayed throughout all newsfeeds as a promoted post.
4. Integrate social media platforms
 Providing links to different social media platforms on each platform can encourage the
follower or consumer to like or follow each of the posts without searching on another
platform.
5. Create social media rewards card
 A social media rewards card requires you to share your order on Facebook, Twitter, or
Instagram to increase the amount of exposure for Pizza Huts on our follower’s
newsfeed.
 After 10 shares on one of these platforms, your account will be credited for one free
pan pizza with a two topping maximum.
Six Month Social Media Calendar:
DATE:
NOVEMBER 12, 2014
NOVEMBER 17, 2014
DECEMBER 1, 2014
DECEMBER 17, 2014
JANUARY 1, 2015
DESCRIPTION:
National Pizza Day: beginning of new social media
campaign.
Usage of the event-related hashtag and strategic
message message #SaveATurkeyBuyAPizza.
The integration of Pizza Huts social media links
will be available on each of the social media
accounts begins.
Event-related hashtag #SantaLikesPanPizza
incorporated into holiday season social media
posts.
Purchasing of promoted posts for Facebook and
Twitter to increase the number of impressions to
our target audience.
FEBRUARY 14, 2015
MARCH 2, 2015
MARCH 10, 2015
APRIL 1, 2015
Event-related hashtag #PizzaIsMyValentine
incorporated into social media posts to stimulate
customer interaction online.
Social Media Rewards Card goes into effect to
promote online sales and impressions through
sharing.
Beginning of March’s event related hashtag and
strategic s#SaintPaddyLovesPepperoni used in
social media posts
Launching of the Pizza Hut Facebook Ordering
Application to accompany the Social Media
Rewards Card to drive sales online.