\fHarold's Approach In today's society, sandwiches play a major role in the food service industry. They are simple and easy to eat-especially for people who are on the go. In the current economic climate, people are eating more comfort foods from restaurants that are budget friendly. Sandwiches, burgers, and breakfast foods all fit into the comfort foods and budget friendly categories, which is why The Sandwich Solution offers a version of all these items. Sandwich sales have increased drastically in the past few years. In fact, by offering a fresh quality product at a good price, Subway recently surpassed McDonald's as the world's largest restaurant chain in terms of units (Jargon, 2011). As you can imagine, Harold's Sandwich Solution has quite a bit of competition. In order to keep up with the fast-paced industry, Harold Hoagie spends a significant amount of time studying his competitors and the changes in the fast-casual restaurant environment. A current trend that has become a hot topic is social media. It presents a way for people to communicate and connect while at the same time providing businesses with a new tool for marketing. Harold, who has a thorough understanding of the Building Blocks of Competitive Advantage, has begun to realize that social media networking sites afford him an opportunity to become the preferred sandwich shop among consumers. Social networking sites, if used properly, will allow him to communicate and connect with his customers to promote his business. Harold has conducted research on three popular social media networking sites, Facebook D, TwitterD, and Foursquare D, and interviewed various social media marketing experts to learn more about the advantages and consequences of using these sites as marketing mediums. He has provided his new findings about social media as well as a brief description of the Building Blocks of Competitive Advantage and marketing styles below. Social Media Background Since the beginning of the 21" century, social media has been popular for consumers and professionals alike. Social media is defined as a group of Internet based applications that build on the foundations of web 2.0 and allow the creation and exchange of user generated content (Kaplan & VarAlejo, 2010). In other words, social media can be any website that allows you to post your own opinions. However, based on different major functions, social media can be sorted into several different types; the most recognized are social networking sites. Social networking sites such as Facebook D, Twitter, and Foursquare D, were originally designed to provide a service for people to build a public or semi-public profile in a bounded system and allow people to share their profiles with other users within the same system {Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Social media has been the number one activity online since 2010. In fact, Facebook has more members than the population of the 3rd largest country in the world - the United States. After becoming aware of its popularity, many hospitality companies started using social media as an additional business tool. According to a survey, 60%% of travelers are on Facebook, one in five travelers have been asked an\f\fSince Foursquare is GPS based, businesses are able to impact customers' decisions quickly through "check-in" offerings and provide in-the-moment customer engagement. Only "Foursquare friends" can see where they check in unless the user links their Foursquare to their Facebook page. Foursquare "specials" are generated by companies and are used to draw in potential customers who are already in their area. Foursquare users also receive recognition for being a frequent visitor by issuing them with the title of "Mayor" by having more "check ins" than any other person. Overall, consistency of branding on every social media site is imperative to communicate the same message and image of your product and service to your customers; "profile photos", fonts, and wording must be similar from site-to-site. "You get out of it what you put in to it." This means that results will not be realized through social media if you don't put in the time and effort to reach out and interact with the customers. Give them a reason to talk about you! Utilizing the Building Blocks of Competitive Advantage Prior to starting his own business, Harold was a college graduate from a leading hospitality program. He recalled learning about competitive advantage is his marketing classes. Hill and Jones (2008) stated in Strategic Management Theory, "competitive advantage leads to superior profitability." At the most basic level, how profitable a company becomes depends on three factors: "(1) the value customers place on the company's products, (2] the price that a company charges for its products, and (3) the cast of creating those products" (Hill & Jones, 2008, p. 20). According to Michael Porter, a competitive advantage can be created with the general building blocks. The building blocks include quality, efficiency, customer responsiveness, and innovation and are explained in more detail below. Quality Quality of a service or product is simply its ability to do what it was intended to do, however, to create competitive advantage through quality, one must first recognize the facets of its make-up. The facets that define quality are reliability, assurance, tangibility, empathy, and responsiveness (Lewis, Shoemaker, & Vesowich, 2007). Quality through reliability can also be described as delivering on a promise. An example of this could be a restaurant's promise to get the customer in and out for lunch in 45 minutes or less so they are not away from work for too long. This also includes assurance of a product or service, which reduces the buyer's concern about the unknown. So, if a first time customer at a bakery is concerned about whether the bread will be fresh and hot, the bakery could create a satisfaction guarantee that stands behind "fresh and hot bread every time or it's free". Tangibility can express quality of a product or service through anything that is sensed. How neat and organized is the seating area? What about cleanliness of the restrooms or clarity of the drive-thrumenu? All of these things in the hospitality industry can be seen, touched, and smelled and can leave a lasting impression of the quality of a product or service. An expression of quality through empathy shows a service provider's ability to relate to what a customer is thinking and experiencing, thus providing a more personalized experience that translates to quality of the product or service delivered. Last, responsiveness to the needs of a customer means to make the product or service respond or work for them. For example, the practice at some fast food restaurants of leaving the condiments behind the counter is not very responsive or customer friendly. This leaves the customer looking around the restaurant for the desired condiment until finally (she has to request it at the counter. When combined, the level of reliability, assurance, tangibility, empathy, and responsiveness of a product or service determines its overall quality - did the product or service do what it was intended to do? Efficiency Companies that gain a competitive advantage through efficiency do so by finding ways to shrink costs while maximizing production. Lower fares and no charge for baggage at Southwest Airlines is a result of efficient operations. Southwest fares can only be found on their website. This means profit margins for tickets sold are higher because they do not have to release a portion of each sale to a third party like Expedia.com or Travelocity.com. Customer Responsiveness Customer responsiveness is a detailed approach to customer care; it is service delivery to a customer as a unique individual rather than a generalized group. In hospitality, the private club industry excels at creating competitive advantage through this building block. Oftentimes in country clubs, the service staff knows individuals' preferences and they are able to anticipate the needs and wants of the club members. Competitive advantage through customer responsiveness can be realized when, for example, Mr. Rutherford enters the member dining area at the club and seeing that the staff has already poured his favorite glass of Sauvignon Blanc. Innovation The first restaurant to create and use "call-ahead seating" where their guests could call ahead to have their name put on the wait list is an example of innovation. They created a new way to do business that not only complemented the needs of the customer, but also gave customers a reason to choose that restaurant over others because the actual wait time they would experience in the restaurant would be less. Innovation is expressed when a company or individual changes the traditional way of business and creating a new better way to interact with the customer. To build a competitive advantage, it is important to first understand your competitors' products and/or services. Most companies focus on more than one building block simultaneously to gain the edge over other organizations. The Sandwich Solution is already working on its positioning strategy and is interested in incorporating social networking sites to enhance that strategy. The company is even considering hiring an employee to directly develop opportunities with social media. It is the students" prerogative to investigate the best potential use of social media for The Sandwich Shop and develop a marketing strategy using the building blocks of competitive advantage.\f