Top 3 Social Media Tools to Market Your Restaurant (Part 2/2)

Welcome back! In the first part of this series we looked at how Facebook was used to market a restaurant, int this article we’ll look at how Twitter and Mobile Marketing can be used to promote your restaurant to customers so that they always think about you.

Social Media Tool Number 2: Twitter

I’m going to say it again. It’s all about the two way interaction.
Twitter was designed so that people could interact with others but they had to do it under 140 characters. The first pitfall is that most restaurants don’t have a Twitter ID. Please go to Twitter and get one. By not having one, you’re missing out on some free promotions. I’ve been on Twitter where people asked around “Does anyone know if (name of a restaurant) has a Twitter handle?”

The second pitfall that many restaurants have is that they just send out a bunch of tweets of what’s happening in their restaurant, or what kind of deals they have, or “please retweet this message to get a discount. ” This doesn’t leave a lot of room for interaction. Customers want to feel valued, not ignored.

When you have a Twitter account, follow local people and start tweeting with them. Interact with them and respond to their comments. When someone tweets you back, start to have an online conversation with them. Retweet messages of others that may be relevant to your local community. Trust me, those that love you will tweet about you often. Check out @sweetmandarin to see how they’ve successfully interacted with customers. Continue reading Top 3 Social Media Tools to Market Your Restaurant (Part 2/2)

Top 3 Social Media Tools to Market Your Restaurant (Part 1/2)

I’ve seen it happen before. It’s the mistake that many restaurant and cafe owners make. The failure to acknowledge the importance of marketing.

Marketing is what determines the survival of a good restaurant. Even when you have a three star Michelin Chef, raving reviews for your food from around the world, and some of the best service in the city, your restaurant can still close. This was the case for the now defunct, but famous restaurants, Lumiere’s and db Bistro Moderne in Vancouver, Canada which was run by world famous chef Daniel Boulud.

What was interesting was that once people knew it was closing down, people I knew were talking about it on Twitter, Facebook, and spreading the word about it virally, including local TV personalities. Strangely, they received a lot of publicity and marketing, but at too late of a stage and for the wrong reasons.

So how do you prevent yourself from getting in the same situation? What can you do to market your restaurant so that customers think of you when they want a place to eat? Here are three social media tools to help market your restaurant so that customers always think about you.

Social Media Tool Number 3: Facebook Fan Page

I’m not going to go into the details of how to create a fan page. But I will tell you the one key ingredient to Facebook marketing. Interaction with your online customers.

It’s actually possible that a customer will “Like” your restaurant and never see messages you post again on their Facebook news feed, and that’s because of EdgeRank.  Edgerank is a formula that Facebook uses to calculate how important you are to be on a Facebook user’s newsfeed when the user logs in. If EdgeRank thinks that your restaurant isn’t important to their user, then it’s not going to show up high on their news feed. Continue reading Top 3 Social Media Tools to Market Your Restaurant (Part 1/2)

The Check-in Phenomenon

From Foursquare and Gowalla to Facebook and Google Places, “checking-in” is becoming second nature to millions of people nationwide. Checking-in, as it relates to consumers and technology, refers to using location based services integrated with smart phones, allowing users to “announce” where they are at based on a particular venue. Users can download from a multitude of apps to check-in using a specific platform to earn points. From the millions of Foursquare users to the hundreds of millions of Facebook users, this offers businesses a vast user base to tap into. One goal these check-in services hope to achieve is to fill the intersection between technology and brick-and-mortar businesses. Check-in services encourage consumers to visit physical storefronts to look, peruse, and buy.

Do you check-in?

People check-in for various reasons, but a ReadWriteWeb article highlights some of the top reasons including: the ability to discover where your friends are at, earning badges and virtual goods, gaining points, and even accumulating rewards for frequent visits at a particular establishment. With the onset of real-world rewards for becoming mayor, patronizing a business, and winning challenges, people are taking check-ins more seriously. Rewards can range from buy-one-get-one-free offers to $15 off a $50 purchase. Continue reading The Check-in Phenomenon