“Why you should repost your customers’ content” With Woops! co-founder Tal Avivi & Candice Georgiadis
Repost, repost, repost. Reposting our customer’s content is a big thing we do. We’ve found that the more interaction and exposure we give to our customers and influencers, the more they want to share their experience at Woops! with others. It gives them a chance to be creative and become a part of our brand story.
Armed with 20+ years of restaurant experience, Tal Avivi co-founded Woops! with four friends. What started as a holiday pop-up in Bryant Park has turned into a thriving business, with over 40 locations across nearly 20 states. Avivi currently serves as the Chief Marketing Officer for the brand.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I have more than 20 years of experience in the restaurant industry, doing everything from waitressing, floor management, and other customer facing roles. After I graduated with my Master’s in International Affairs from the New School, three of my friends and I decided to open a macaron pop-up in the Holiday Shops at Bryant Park in New York City. We ended up selling over 100,000 macarons in 9 weeks and realized that “Woops!” we had a business! I was one of the first partners to focus all my time into the company as the first CEO of Woops!. Now I serve as the Chief Marketing and Design Officer where I oversee all marketing, design and branding for Woops!.
Can you explain to our readers why you are an authority about Social Media Marketing?
Social media has been instrumental in launching our brand and is a key element in our marketing strategy. Social media happened naturally for us. Our products are incredibly visual. The impact of the visuals of our product and using our locations as the background has created a perfect haven for Instagrammers and bloggers — something about the colorfulness of the macarons coupled with how we design our locations has drawn Instagrammers in. We care about our design — everything from the black and white background, the textures in our stores — and the thought of our design is visually appealing, which pushes Influencers to incorporate the space or product into a photo with them. Then, they become a part of our space and they want to share the space with other people. It’s a very natural process.
We really encourage creativity in our spaces and we welcome people to use our space for whatever they want. We want people to take advantage of the space, whether it is a small or large photoshoot. It’s about cultivating a culture and community of creative people.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?
A few weeks ago, we were contacted by a man who used to live by our Williamsburg location with his wife. They used to love coming in and his wife particularly loved our white chocolate pecan coconut cookies. He mentioned that they recently moved to Portugal and she found out she was pregnant. Now she is craving our cookie and he asked if there was any way we could send a recipe or box of cookies. We ended up tweaking our recipe to fit a home quantity and passed it on to him. He emailed a few weeks after to say his wife was very excited to have the cookies again. It was a very heartwarming story and a tangible showing of our impact.
Overall, the most interesting part about this role is not a specific moment, but rather the accumulation of the people I’m meeting. From the customers to our franchisees, it is a whole world of diversity and it’s been fascinating to get to know everyone. Whenever I think about getting to know that rainbow of human beings, what we are doing and where this business is taking us, I’m in awe.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Around the beginning when we first started franchising, we decided to do a little joke for April Fool’s. We created a macaron pizza, with tomato sauce and cheese and all the works. We took a photo, posted about it and thought it was a funny joke. Turns out, we got a lot of customers asking where they could order a pizza macarons and a few franchisees upset that they didn’t know we sold that. What we learned from that experience, is that everything we post on social media can have an impact and we need to be careful when posting. We also learned that if you post a joke, etc. on social media, you need to make sure the right people are informed ahead of time and in on the joke. It was a funny April Fool’s joke though.
Which social media platform have you found to be most effective to use to increase business revenues? Can you share a story from your experience?
Our most active platform is Instagram. It’s hard to know if it is the most effective in increasing sales, but as far as brand awareness, exposure and identity, Instagram has proven to be a great tool for us. We use it as an introduction to new franchisees and new customers, and as a way to communicate with influencers to get even more exposure and collaboration.
Let’s talk about Instagram specifically, now. Can you share 6 ways to leverage Instagram to dramatically improve your business? Please share a story or example for each.
1. Have appealing content. We are fortunate to have visually appealing products and bakeshops that bring in natural light. Our feed incorporates bakeshops and products and we focus on consistency to ensure each photo is eye catching and our entire feed is visually appealing.
2. Use Stories Content. Stories are getting more popular as a tool on Instagram. It is instrumental in getting to know customers, engaging and developing relationships with them, and getting feedback. Post polls, questions and other fun content on Stories to make the most of this feature.
3. Repost, repost, repost. Reposting our customer’s content is a big thing we do. We’ve found that the more interaction and exposure we give to our customers and influencers, the more they want to share their experience at Woops! with others. It gives them a chance to be creative and become a part of our brand story.
4. Engage. Instagram is a great tool to interact with customers and build a community, and can be used to communicate with influencers and collaborate.
5. Optimize Highlights. We use Highlights to show other aspects of our business, outside of the product. We have Highlights to share location information and press articles to emphasize our franchise opportunity. Customers can use Highlights to quickly check to see where we are located.
6. Consistency is key. We plan our feed two weeks in advance to make sure it is consistent and all photos align with our marketing schedule. Our feed is like our portfolio — is it the first impression to customers and potential franchisees. We make sure all the editing is the same, colors match and we have a variety of content from close-ups, landscapes, and reposts.
Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
If I were to start a movement, I would focus on women empowerment, especially for women in business. I was one of the first of four partners to really focus my time into Woops! and I want to help other women figure out how to have a career and business, while also running a house and family and a life. I want more transparency and solutions to the difficulty of being a women in business.
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Barbara Corcoran from Shark Tank — I would love to have lunch with her. I read an interview with her once, and she was incredibly intelligent, and I was very inspired by her. She continuously builds herself up through lots of difficulties throughout time. She would be a good person to chat with.
“Why you should repost your customers’ content” With Woops! was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.