Fro-Yo Files: What You Ought to Know About Social Media and Non-Traditional Marketing from Red Mango

(Ambrosio’s note:  Welcome to this week’s edition of Fro-Yo Files, an exclusive bonus series for Platinum subscribers of Franchise Chatter. Today’s post is the final installment of our 3-part series on Dan Kim, founder of Red Mango.)

Fro-Yo Files: Interview with Dan Kim, Founder and Chief Concept Officer of Red Mango

Despite the stock market’s antagonistic relationship with Facebook since the company launched its IPO earlier this year, more and more businesses are recognizing the necessity, if not the value, of exploiting social media for business gains; and in the realm of frozen yogurt franchises, no other company has been as successful at utilizing the new media as a marketing tool than Red Mango.

Top Three on Restaurant Social Media Index

As an illustration of its social media leadership, particularly in the frozen yogurt niche, Red Mango jumped 18 points in the first quarter of 2012 to capture the No. 3 spot on Nation’s Restaurant News’ Restaurant Social Media Index and it held on to the coveted spot in the second quarter of the year.

The Restaurant Social Media Index, or RSMI, is based on a quantitative tracking effort of more than 600 restaurant brands, more than 25 million consumers, and thousands of keywords, menu items, and restaurant terms that have been indexed. Developed by DigitalCoCo and presented by Nation’s Restaurant News, it is considered to be the industry’s most comprehensive analysis of restaurant and consumer social media efforts and is intended to help restaurants become more effective in using social media, digital content, and brand development.

While still behind Starbucks and Wendy’s who hold the top two spots, Red Mango is far above its competitors on the RSMI Index and even beats out long-established restaurant brands such as McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Dunkin’ Donuts.

The chain’s enviable position as a front runner in non-traditional marketing methods and utilization of the Internet to establish its brand can be attributed to its founder and Chief Concept Officer Dan Kim, who, at 36, came of age with the world wide web. When talking about marketing and franchising programs for Red Mango, he uses buzz words like “influencers” and “hyperlocalization.”

“I came out of a college program when the Internet and email was just becoming popular so that was very familiar to me and we decided to use that to build the brand,” he said recently in an interview with Franchise Chatter.