Social Media for Restaurants

First, let me apologize for not posting sooner. I was very ill and to be quite honest, still am so who knows if this post even makes sense when all is said and done. (heavy meds)

Social Media seems to be the bell of the ball these days and everyone wants to walk on the red carpet. I can do 20 pages on this topic but am choosing to keep this pretty short and sweet as to how I see it "fitting in" for the restaurant industry.

Obviously, the biggest challenge for most CMO's as it relates to social media is the ability to track and measure. With dwindling ad funds at a record pace and the economy still facing substantial drops, many are simply afraid to dive into this medium until they reach a certain comfort level.

I agree with them.

I believe the role of social media is as a real time unfiltered feedback mechanism that does not directly impact the P&L. Thus, I think the role of social media is to DECREASE the cost of information gathering. It makes it more economical to take the guest temperature towards trends etc.. Social media is pull, not push with three prominent tools at its disposal-- customer engagement, conversations and customer communities. Using these tools effectively means participating in the discussions, leading them, and reacting when necessary, and always showing your human side (restaurant personality) in the process.

There are many platforms for social media such as facebook, myspace, twitter, blogging, plurk, delicious, text programs and even email as well to name just a few. This brings me to a very important point......please pay very close attention to the next sentence: The biggest mistake you can make as an operator is to attempt to do too many things too quickly! I know that sounds like an excerpt from "Mr. Obvious" but I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have seen and talked to operators in the last 6 months alone that have done this. I know their spirit and intent was right but I had to plead with them to please slow dooowwwnnnn. The last thing you need to do right now is water yourself down with too many initiatives at the same time....do not be a jack of all trades and master of none. Find one method you feel very strongly about and do it well! Master it, make it a permanent process for you. Once you have it nailed, then you add another. If you dive too quickly in this and are not consistent, that is how you will be portrayed as a restaurant! Please take it slowly as you should with all your marketing inititiatives.

Let me give you an example of how I have used social media in the past while I was the VP of Marketing for Raising Canes Chicken Fingers which is a very cool brand by the way and I am very proud to have been a part of the development of such a great concept.

One of the things we did which everyone does of course is to set google email alerts for our name and other key words that were telling of our brand. Typically, as a small but rapidly growing brand, we would get anywhere from 8-15 mentions per day from random bloggers around the country. We developed a secret blog campaign that allowed us to reach out to those bloggers and thank them for speaking so highly of us on their blog. This also allowed us to track those that weren't speaking of such nice things as well and helped us remedy those situations as well. We would contact these folks through email.....not as a comment on their blog and send them a gift card for any participating Raising Cane's for a free meal on us.

Of course, the mere fact that the home office not only read their blog, but reached out to them was a BIG deal and they were profoundly grateful. The free gift card was just the icing on top. Needless to say, this created a trigger effect that blew us away. Our blogger hit rates went from 8-12 a day into the hundreds. And no, it wasn't due to "word" on the street that we were giving away gift cards for those that mention us on their blogs. We created true brand evangelists and we all know what happens from that. We did not bog ourselves down with a lot of programs. We were not intrusive. We simply participated and enhanced something that was already in place from our brand fans.

Ultimately, it always seems to come down to people sharing with people. There are many ways to take advantage of social media for your restaurant. Please do not just jump into the mix because you feel you have to or you are falling behind. Make sure you understand your goals and expectations first. If you feel you need a little help, don't hesitate to reach out to us.

Thanks!