I doughnut mind if I do
Few things draw people together like doughnuts. (Okay, and maybe pizza). In this case, it’s vegan doughnuts. Recognizing this, Holey Moley Coffee + Doughnuts has utilized social media as a key resource for drawing in business. Take a few minutes to browse through my audit of their practices and get inspired by their social media dos and doughnuts.
The audit
When it comes to covering the platforms that matter, Holey Moley is doing it right. Nailing down a target audience for a doughnut shop is tricky — who doesn’t like doughnuts? Located in Milwaukee’s Third Ward, it’s the perfect spot for everybody. Whether you’re snagging a sweet treat for coworkers or venturing into the city for a retail therapy outing with friends, doughnuts are always a good choice — whether you’re vegan or not. To capitalize on this, Holey Moley has covered all the main social media bases — Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Holey Moley deserves a gold star for their ability to post consistent, relevant content without repetition. Of course, the lure is in their crazy, fun flavors, and with the ability to post long captions on Facebook, that’s the place to tempt their audience with a daily menu.
Better yet, they post their menus the evening before so you can add an extra stop to your morning commute. Rather than disrupting their customers’ day, they aim to become a part of their customers’ plans. (Week after week after week after week…)
By maintaining a casual tone, Holey Moley doesn’t beat around the bush. “You love doughnuts. We love doughnuts. You should come in and try our doughnuts.” And they aren’t afraid to throw a little wit into the mix.
And did I mention that everyone loves donuts? Holey Moley has created a cross-platform community by encouraging customers to create content and tag the shop with a chance to be featured on Holey Moley’s Facebook and Instagram. Hello, engagement!
Speaking of engagement, Holey Moley’s all about it. It’s clear that consumer feedback is high on their list of priorities, because they turn to them for flavor ideas. Most importantly, they interact with the users that are willing to offer their opinions.
If the consumer engagement wasn’t enough, Holey Moley clearly strives to broaden their audience base even further by encouraging their customers to invite some friends in on the fun. Without forcing them to sacrifice anything at all, they merely requested participants of their Valentine’s Day giveaway to help them spread the word and refer the post to “who you would share these sweet treats with!” With little to no trade-off, it might be quite possibly the easiest and quickest way to engage consumers — a win-win for Holey Moley and their hungry customers!
Oh, and did I mention their aesthetically-pleasing, mouthwatering photography? Way to go, Holey Moley!
Even with its character limitations, Holey Moley manages to use join in on the Twitter conversation. While consumers who are sole users of this platform may not be aware of specific upcoming menu items, they are the first to know about deals and placements in the media.
Since Twitter is useful for quick-hitting updates, Holey Moley also updates customers when they (gasp!) run out of doughnuts for the day.
That being said, many of these tweets are linked directly to their Facebook without being repurposed specifically for Twitter.
With only a couple tweets per month, consumers may only want to follow Holey Moley as a complementary source of updates. Although Twitter usage could certainly be increased, the doughnut shop is using it for all the right reasons by letting their crowd know about their most news-worthy moments.
If any platform was my favorite to review throughout my audit, it was Instagram, because who doesn’t enjoy a little food porn on their feed? And Holey Moley shares a lot of it. Since the platform allows brands to visually showcase their products, this works to Holey Moley’s advantage, because, honestly, nothing may be more convincing than a photo of a doughnut when you’re thinking about cheating on your diet.
Without appearing repetitious, Holey Moley manages to incorporate variation into their photos and captions. From discount features to consumer-created content to event-planning capabilities to timely topics, they never allow their audience to become complacent.
They’re also not afraid to get creative and show off their pride for the 414— an endearing quality for a local brand!
Even on the not-so-sweet days, Holey Moley lets their customers know in an anything-but-ordinary way, because even when their doughnuts have to take a day off, their tone on social media adopts the same casual, familiar tone that it does across all its social platforms.
Their engagement with customers on Instagram earns an A+ since they consistently feature consumer-created content — a powerful way to forge connections between the brand and the consumers. And what foodie doesn’t love showing off their latest snack on Instagram?
While these specific examples contain faces of Holey Moley fanatics, it’s worth noting that the brand presents a limited number of photos featuring human expression. Understandably, this is a doughnut shop, and consumers most likely want to see photo of the doughnuts, rather than other people. However, as a local craft brand, infusing that additional human element into their content may personify Holey Moley’s social presence and strengthen the connection with their Milwaukee fans.
I also noticed a lack of video content across all of Holey Moley’s digital platforms. Recently, I read a HubSpot blog post that stressed the importance of social video content for B2C businesses. In fact,
“43% of B2C marketers say pre-produced video is the most successful type of content for marketing purposes.”
Admittedly, locating relevant content that can be repurposed into a video format may be difficult for a brand where food is the focus (rather than people), but even featuring a video of the behind-the-scenes process of doughnut-making may serve to further engage their audience. (And it’ll probably make them more likely to drop anything they’re doing to run straight to Holey Moley after seeing that frosting slowly drizzled atop a freshly-baked doughnut.)
Ultimately, there’s no way to prove whether video content will have a direct impact on Holey Moley’s ROI, but with these statistics, it’s worth consideration.
Final takeaway
Thanks to Holey Moley, we’ve gained a better understanding of how to engage a local audience and generate community excitement around a product — even if that product is already pretty exciting. Sure, there are always additional ideas worth incorporating into a social media strategy, but Holey Moley already reminds us of the value in forming a community around something as simple as doughnuts and emphasizing the customers’ integral role to that brand’s success. Pretty sweet indeed.