Marketing Happy Hour - Easy-to-Implement Tips for Each Social Media Platform | Carson Mason of Papa Johns

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

This week, Cassie and Erica sit down to chat with Carson Mason, Social Media Manager at Papa Johns. In this episode, Carson walks through how she and the team at Papa Johns partner with celebrities, influencers and employees alike to create content and inspire brand affinity, shares how they're uniquely showing up on social media platforms with the goal of becoming the most engaged and culturally relevant pizza brand, and gives us her top tips for each social media platform (Instagram, TikTok, X, Threads, Facebook and LinkedIn). Here's a peek at what we cover in this episode: [00:02:44] - Carson shares a bit of her career journey thus far, starting as the Digital Content Coordinator for the Milwaukee Bucks, moving into a Social Media Producer role for the Atlanta Falcons, and transitioning to the QSR (quick service restaurant) space in her current role as Social Media Manager at Papa Johns. She also chats through the skills that carry over from her initial interest in journalism to the marketing career path she's in, and details her day to day responsibilities at Papa Johns working alongside her team to create and manage their content calendar, write and edit post copy, work with influencers and store team members to create engaging content, and help with franchisees' local social media accounts across the country. [00:07:07] - Carson gives us a behind the scenes look at some of the projects she's been able to work on at Papa Johns - most notably, recent campaigns with one of football's favorite families, the Kelces. She also shares how the fandom around Papa Johns' garlic sauce lends itself to viral-worthy content, and explains how their team utilizes social media to interact with their consumer and prioritizes featuring team members in their content - giving agency and opportunity to employees across the country. [00:12:15] - Carson shares her top tip for each of these platforms: Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn; and reveals one brand she thinks is doing the best job on each (besides Papa Johns of course!). Grab a drink and listen in to this week's Marketing Happy Hour conversation! ____ Other episodes you'll enjoy if you enjoyed Carson's episode: Top Social Media Tips by Platform | Bri Reynolds of Lyft Building an Engaging Brand on Social Media | Jack Appleby of Future Social Getting Silly on Social Media | Jack Hailey of Chili's The Art of Showing Up in Unexpected Places | Izzy Yellin of OLIPOP ____ Say hi! DM us on Instagram and let us know which bonus episodes you're excited for - we can't wait to hear from you!  Please also consider rating the show and leaving a review, as that helps us tremendously as we move forward in this Marketing Happy Hour journey and create more content for all of you. ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our FREE MHH Insiders online community to connect with Millennial and Gen Z marketing professionals around the world!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get the latest from MHH, straight to your inbox: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join our email list!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Carson: LinkedIn | X (Twitter) | Instagram Keep up with Papa Johns: X (Twitter) | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | LinkedIn Connect with Co-Host Erica: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Co-Host Cassie: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow MHH on Social: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ New to Marketing Happy Hour (or just want more)? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Download our Marketing Happy Hour Starter Kit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This podcast is an MHH Media production. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Learn more about MHH Media!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Interested in starting your own podcast? Grab our Podcast Launch Strategy Guide here.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

you're listening to the marketing happy hour podcast where we discuss career and industry insights with our peers in marketing we're here to talk about it all like the ups and downs of working in social media how to build authentic relationships in the influencer and pr space managing a nine-to-five and a side hustle at the same time, how to be productive in your life and career without losing your sanity, and more. Ultimately, we're here to build a community with you because we're all trying to navigate the world of marketing together. Are you ready? Grab your favorite drink and join your hosts, Cassie and Erica, for this week's episode. On today's episode, we're joined

by Carson Mason, social media manager at Papa John's. We chat through Carson's day-to-day role and hear about some of her favorite collaborations she's worked on, like one with the Kelsey brothers. Plus, she uncovers the strategies behind Papa John's fun and engaging social presence. And she reveals her top tips for the most popular social media platforms. So you know the drill, grab your favorite beverage and maybe a Papa John's slice in some garlic sauce. And let's jump into this week's episode. Hi, Carson. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you doing? Pretty great today. Uh, we're excited that you're here and to chat with you a little bit about social, but before we get going, I do have a question for you that we ask all of our guests. I know

you're a listener, so you probably know this is coming, but what is in your glass this afternoon? Well, I needed a little, uh, mid pick-me-up. So I'm drinking an iced coffee with some creamer in it from Chobani. So that's my mid-afternoon pick-me-up today. Oh my gosh. So fun. I just have an Orabora. Everybody's probably heard me talk about them and rave about them for so long. And this one's kind of an older one. It's their collab with Graza, the olive oil company. And so it's their like non-alcoholic olive oil martini and I've hung on to a couple of the cans

and been savoring them. So I just wanted to crack one today. So yeah, what about you, Cass? Awesome. Yeah, no, I'm just like you, Carson right now. I needed a little afternoon pick-me-up. So I have some matcha. So just trying to get through the whatever time it is three o'clock slump today. But we are almost to the end of the

day, which is awesome. So thank you for spending the end of your day with us. And we're super excited to chat through all things social with you. But first, if you don't mind, can you give us a little bit of an inside look at your career journey so far? Sure. So I'm the social media manager currently for Papa John's and how I got to this role. I started attending the University of South Carolina. Initially, I went for journalism. I wanted to be a sports reporter originally, and I've always loved writing. I had an it was one summer I had an internship with the Milwaukee Brewers. And I actually sat next to their social media team in the press box, which opened my eyes to social media marketing as a career path. And so from there, I pivoted, did several internships in social media.

And then my first role out of school was working with the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks as the digital content coordinator. So I worked on the social media accounts, working on game days, traveling with the team, creating content and working on the website. And then after that position or a few seasons there, I moved back down south. I'm originally from the south and to work as a social media producer for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons in a similar role, focused on social media and then was promoted to social media manager in that role, working a few more seasons with the team. And then I've always been very passionate about QSR, quick service restaurants and the food scene. I've always been very passionate about QSR, quick service restaurants and the food scene. I've always loved limited time offers and seeing the new innovative products that food brands come out, come out with.

So that's when I ventured out of the professional sports realm and into the QSR world. I'm in my current role today with Papa John's. Oh, Carson, that's awesome. And I have two follow-ups there that I was thinking through as you were speaking. I'm like, we've heard from so many people that they start out in journalism or wanting to do journalism and then transition into marketing. What kind of skills do you think, you know, transition there? Yeah, that's interesting to hear. I think having content creation skills has been a huge blessing in my career, not only to be able to write and be a good copywriter, but also to be able to create content in a pinch or be able to edit a video.

I did a lot of video production work at South Carolina. I was working for our student TV station and the video production department of, um, the athletics department and those skills, knowing how to edit has come. It's really come full circle with being able to edit Tik TOKs editing for reels. Um, there's, there's different tools, but once you know, the basics of video production, um, you can apply it, you know, to different platforms and editing tools. So I think just having those skills kind of makes you a well rounded social media manager. Oh, absolutely. And the other aside that I wanted to point out is we should introduce you. We had a, um, an intern last summer, her name is Lily Whitman, and, uh, she wants to go into sports marketing. So we should definitely introduce you guys so that you can chat through that and shout out to Lily. I'm sure that she's listening. But let's just hear a little bit more

about what your day is like as the Papa John's social media manager. Do you have a team? How are tasks kind of split up between the team members if so? And what does that look like? Yes. So our team is composed of myself, social media manager, and my manager, social media director. And then we also have a team of three customer service agents who take care of complaints or customer messages via social media. So my primary role is managing the content calendar for the National Papa John's Accounts Cross Channels. I work as a liaison with our content agency.

I help create content. Like I mentioned, I trend spot, I write and edit post copy, and I also work with influencers and store team members. So that's my primary day-to-day role. I also help out with some of our franchisees and their local social media accounts. Any issues that they have, I manage an inbox where they can send their request and we can help them get access to certain pages or help them if they have any issues. Oh, wow. So you're doing it all.

You're really in there every day. I love that. Would love to hear a little bit about some of your favorite projects that you've worked on at Papa John's. You know, anything stand out to you that you've had the privilege to be a part of? Yeah, this past year, we've done a lot with influencer marketing, which is an area of my career I want to learn more about and develop in professionally.

We actually worked with the Kelsey brothers, which I know is very topical right now. But learning, you know, how to brief those projects. And I actually got to go with our VP of brand to the Monday night football game to work with the Kelsey's and got to meet Kylie Kelsey. And we did some content sponsoring her field hockey clinic. So that was really rewarding to see our efforts there. And the numbers on social were great as well. I think I'm, I love seeing the fandom around our garlic sauce and how that comes to life on social. And so a few of the posts that stick out to me that did really well organically where I actually created a garlic sauce fountain where I loaded garlic sauce into a chocolate fountain and made a TikTok video with it.

And that one did really well for us. And then we've done fun things with garlic sauce with like the butter board trend that that was a few years ago, replacing the butter with garlic sauce. And so I love seeing that theme come to life and the fandom around garlic sauce grows stronger. Oh, my gosh. Love that garlic sauce, too. It's like the best part stronger. Oh my gosh. Love that garlic sauce too. It's like the best part. Oh my goodness.

Well, okay. So speaking of that, you mentioned a couple of ways you're having fun on social, but I'm curious how you use social specifically to interact with your consumer and with the channels that you're on, do you have different goals for each platform or what's kind of the approach there for social overall? Yeah. So our goal for organic social is to be the most engaged and culturally relevant pizza brand. A large part of my role is interacting with customers, sometimes proactively and sometimes in a responsive manner. But I create a lot of surprise and delight packages and package them up to send to creators and brand fans.

And we always try to go the extra mile to increase that fan affinity and that love for Papa John's pizza and our other menu items. So ultimately, that's the goal is we want Papa John's to be culturally relevant, top of mind. And we want our followers and fans on social media to be engaged and to respond to us and them be involved in content. You know, we were talking off record about Barry and Barry spoke with us about involving all the aunties across their brand and getting them involved creating content as well. So how are you guys doing something similar? How do you include them in that content creation process? Yes. So we've actually worked with our store team members, our pizza makers, and our delivery drivers a lot in the past few years. It actually started with one TikTok user called the Dancing

Delivery Driver. She was featured in our Chakrony Dance Challenge campaign. We reach out to these team members to be almost influencer presences, if you will, for our brand. And of course we pay them. We go through all the legal hurdles and we want to make sure they're getting compensated for their time appropriately. And they're not on the clock when they're supposed to be making pizzas and things like that. But we think it's an authentic way to connect our brand to the consumer. I mean, those people are the people you're seeing make your order at the cashier. They're the first line of users with our brand. So we wanted to involve them. And it really came about when I noticed several of these pizza makers tagging the brand

on TikTok and growing these presences. And we've worked with a few team members even recently in our TV spot. So it's gone all the way from TikTok dance challenges and campaigns all the way to front and center on your TV screen in your living room. So it's been really rewarding to see. And I think they feel appreciated that we're including them. Yeah, absolutely. That can be so powerful too, is just giving like people agency and just like giving them opportunity to really thrive in their role and move into something like a position where they're creating some content for you as well. In addition to what they're doing in their day-to-day.

I love that so much. Well, I wanted to move into quickly. We did this last season with Brie Reynolds of Lyft and thought that we should chat through with you as well. We're going to do a little rapid fire. So I'm going to list six social platforms and ask your top tip for each and then ask you to name at least one brand, maybe just one because this is going to take forever if we go through a ton of brands, but one brand you think is killing it on the platform besides you guys, of course. Awesome. I'm ready for it. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. So let's start with Instagram. What's your top tip and what brand do you think is doing the best job? My top tip is a small tactic that has gone a long way for us at Papa John's

is reposting your fans stories when they're enjoying your products. We do that all the time. And that has gone a long way for us to manage influencer relationships and create brand fans to just rewarding fans for their loyalty. And then the brand, I would say this may be an odd pick, but Celestial Tees Instagram, I discovered actually on my Explore page. It's the T with the bear on the box. And they kind of revamped their strategy recently with the bear as giving its POV. And they do a lot of really cool engagement with the bear as their, as the voice of the account. And I see it on my explore page. So it's clearly working. But I would say Celeste has a really good Instagram. You guys should check it out. That is so cool. I haven't, I haven't checked out

their Instagram. I'm like, I need to go on right now and look at it. What about TikTok? Yeah. So with TikTok, I would say, especially recently, my top tip is experimenting with different platform formats and content types. I recommend using the features that are native to the platform, filters, text overlays, poll stickers, all that. But I always hear, you know, when people talk about TikTok, they always say it's a vertical video platform, which of course it's what it originated as, but most trends that you see today that are breaking through for creators and brands are actually

photo albums or these carousel posts that are actually easier to create. So I think being open and nimble as the platform evolves would be my top tip. And then another food brand, but Drumsticks TikTok is hilarious. They are always quick to trends and do a really good job with the photo carousels that I mentioned. Their social manager is really witty and does a great job on TikTok. So I would say Drumsticks, the ice cream brand. So cool. So cool. Okay. Thoughts on Twitter. I guess it's X now. I always keep calling it Twitter. I need to like transition over, but what are your thoughts on X? Yeah, I would say a top tip or a tactic that's worked for us would be quote tweeting. I've noticed quote tweeting viral tweets as we've seen our reach increase significantly when doing that.

I know a lot of people and other social media managers have said that their reach is down on X or, you know, since the platform has changed and rebranded, they've seen a decrease in reach. But that tactic has helped us kind of make up for some of that as a result. And then top brand, I would say shout out to Auntie Anne's and Barry. I love their Twitter, the Auntie Anne's Twitter. You know, they're always quick to trends and they have a really conversational tone of voice. Yeah. Couldn't agree with you more. And then I'm curious too, because there's, there's a lot of similarity between these two platforms, but what about threads? Is that kind of the same strategy that you're seeing on there is like, I don't know what they call it on there, like

re-threading maybe, or like sharing out threads. I'm not, I don't know what they call it either, but I would say a lot of the top posts I see are actually brands engaging with other active brands or users. So that would be my top tip is, you know, some of our most liked posts on threads are replies to other large accounts. So I think doing that when it's authentic to the brand and fits the strategy makes sense. And then for threads, my favorite brand is actually Marvel. I think they do a really good job with varying their creative. It's not a food brand or snack brand. So this one's a little different, but I love the GIFs and the different animations they

share on threads. I know it's a text only or not text only, but a text first platform. That's the general advice you see. But Marvel's creative is really cool. You guys should check it out. Oh my gosh, absolutely. And then the next one I'm going to chat through with you is Facebook. And not to just make this a whole call out to Barry,

but Barry at Auntie Anne's told us that their almost top platform is Facebook. And it's really unexpected because a lot of people today, a lot of our peers aren't really on that platform anymore. So I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on Facebook. What are your top tips there? Yeah. So Facebook is definitely, we have our largest audience base there. For us, what we've seen work is celebrating milestones. If you think about the content your friends or family share, it's going to be things like graduation and weddings and engagements. And so when we share user generated content like that, featuring our pizza, that has performed really well for us. Even just simple UGC images, those tend to perform well for

us. And then I actually love the Wendy's Facebook. They have a very specific strategy for that platform. And they've done a great job with it. They post it as if it's an older person running the account. So sometimes they'll someone who's not social savvy, if you will. So they share blurry photos and this different point of view that is absolutely hilarious. Oh, wow. That's so fun. I haven't even seen that. So I need to check that out as well after this recording.

But lastly, let's go over LinkedIn. I know there's a lot of fun content that you guys are even putting out there. And LinkedIn is my favorite, personally, social media platform. So curious to hear your thoughts. I agree. I always say I love LinkedIn's algorithm. I feel like anytime I log in on LinkedIn for personal use, I'm seeing what I want to see or people I want to hear from at the top of my page. So I'm with you. I love LinkedIn. But I would recommend developing good relationships with

both the internal and external PR teams or communications team at your company to plan out your LinkedIn content calendar. I do this for Papa John's LinkedIn, and we have a bi-weekly meeting where we're sharing what are some internal team member stories we can share on LinkedIn, and what are some external media events coming up or media opportunities that we know are coming up that we can share links to on LinkedIn. So I think having really good relationships with both sides of the communications teams is essential for LinkedIn because it's about people and, you know, that's the employee recruitment part of it, but it's also about, you know, the corporate look and bringing good news and

sharing good updates about the company as well. And one other tip I would say, and the company, I think that does a good job of this is building out your profile to its fullest. We actually recently went through a rebrand of our LinkedIn life page and different elements of our page itself weren't updated. And HP, the, you know, Hewlett Packard computer company and technology company, they have a really built out profile with team member testimonials and incredible custom modules. So it makes their page really informative and look well done. So. Awesome. Yeah, such good tips. Well, I know you two, you mentioned using LinkedIn personally. Do you have any tips just as a career professional using LinkedIn, anything you're doing just to build your network or even to showcase your

expertise on the platform? Yeah, I think I just try to be authentic and proactively engage with my peers or with my colleagues who I've worked with. I think being active is important. I think if you have something you're excited about, you know, sharing that, of course, I would say, but also, you know, be willing to compliment and congratulate other people on the platform. And LinkedIn groups are a great way to find people with similar interests and career experiences as you. And there's also LinkedIn hosts several events and live streams on the platform. One content format that LinkedIn seems to prioritize from brand and personal experience is LinkedIn articles. It's a built in article editor that keeps people on the page and is

friendly with the algorithm. So if you have thoughts to share or want to get into writing and sharing your thoughts on LinkedIn, that is a great content format that the algorithm seems to prioritize, at least currently. Awesome. Love that. Thank you for those tips. And thank you for all your social media insights on all the platforms. Excited to dive into those and also wrote down all those pages you recommended to check out. So excited to study those brands as well on top of what we're studying with Papa John's. But we'd love to ask you, Carson, one of our favorite questions as well. And that is, what do you know now that you wish you knew earlier on in your career? I would say something I know now that I wish I knew earlier in my career would be just the importance of finding a mentor. I think that's something I did in college and it really helped me get into my career. But I think having a mentor throughout the progression of my career is something that's been really important.

So just having someone to talk to and look up to professionally is definitely a priority and something that has been truly helpful to me. That's so awesome. We actually had a really incredible episode come out recently with Matthew Miller talking all about finding a mentor and you know fostering that relationship so definitely if you're out there and you need a mentor you don't even know where to start go back and listen to that episode I'll put it in the show notes for you but Carson this conversation has seriously been so great I feel like it was very fast paced but I feel like there's a lot packed in here.

So thank you so much for just all of your insights and the things that you're excited about and sharing those. But where can everybody find you follow along with what you're up to and follow along with Papa John's as well? Yes. So we're at Papa John's across social media platforms, Twitter, X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn. And then I'm Carson and Mason on Twitter and at Carson underscore Mason on Instagram. Perfect. We'll link everything in the show notes. And again, thank you so much for

joining us. This has been great. I'm like craving pizza now. So I need to go out and get some. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. If you want more of Marketing Happy Hour, but don't know where to start, we invite you to download our free Marketing Happy Hour Starter Kit at marketinghappyhr.com forward slash starter dash kit. This interactive magazine style PDF walks through who we are, includes helpful resources like a marketing term glossary and the printable daily planner sheet that we actually use ourselves and contains clickable links to our episode recommendations by subject area. Not to mention all the fun extras like a quiz, the link to our Marketing Happy Hour Insiders

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