Domino’s social media strategy has been responsible for a number of key decisions in the business when it comes to product development and quality, according to the pizza chain’s chief marketing officer. 

Head of marketing, Allan Collins, says social media is being used as a key decision making tool for Domino’s Pizza, including the re-launch of menu items. 

Domino’s, which says it prides itself of being part of the conversation, “the good, the bad, and the ugly”, regularly sets up question and answer sessions on social media with key executives in the business.

This week, it will relaunch popular menu item, Square Puff Pastry Crust, following a Q&A session with Collins where customers demanded the item been reintroduced. 

“No longer do companies need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on group research sessions, when a large percentage of your customers are on social media and are giving you live feedback every hour or each day,” Allan said.

“Social media has changed the way we interact with customers, it isn’t a hard sell like other platforms, it is a way to get a conversation going with customers that you can’t do with banners or billboards.” 

In April 2014 Domino’s increased its social media presence to include 24/7, round the clock monitoring across all platforms.

“We listen to the feedback our fans and followers provide us at all hours of the day – it’s invaluable and our pizzas couldn’t be half as good as they are today without the millions of people telling us how to make them better and a lot of these come from our Facebook page.

“Any business that isn’t listening through social platforms really is missing a huge opportunity. If over 12 million Australians are on Facebook that is over half our population you are missing out on understanding how networks work and how people socialise!”