When it comes to restaurants looking for a leg up, there’s one major arena where brands can make a lot of impact without having to have the big ad budgets of some of the largest chains.

In the social media world, brands can cover a lot of ground simply by engaging in conversation with customers.  The focus on strictly social interactions may seem counter-intuitive to a lot of marketing departments responsible for impacting the bottom line, but frozen yogurt chain Red Mango would tell you its success in the space doesn’t come from pushing sales messages directly. Instead, like many top brands in social media, Red Mango uses platforms like Facebook and Twitter as tools to have authentic conversations with their followers, which lets their customers know they are more valuable than just a sale.

And it seems to be working. Red Mango was last quarter’s biggest mover on the Restaurant Social Media Index (RSMI) Top 100, published last week on NRN.com. They’re now positioned at #3, just behind giants Starbucks and Wendy’s, even edging out McDonald’s. Red Mango attributes a lot of the recent success to a strategy that let’s customers submit opinions on product development. And they aren’t camera shy either, utilizing Facebook to display tantalizing photos of—what else—frozen yogurt.

With just 170 stores and in-house staff managing their community, Red Mango proves that smart communication can help brands play in the same sandbox as the big guys.

Photo credit: Guian Bolisay