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Brook Priest advised on 24 Jan 2012
Expert in Full Service Restaurant Operations, Family Business Dynamics, & Cost Controls
This is a really broad topic, and there is a lot of information to share, enough to fill a short book. The bottom line with social media is you're trying to get customers who love your restaurant tell their network how great you are, so their network becomes your customers. There's probably a million ways to go about doing this.
I'll just touch on a few quick things that you should definitely be doing:
(1) Get a Facebook business account and add a FB icon (Fan us on Facebook!) to your website. Read this article for how to use FB to connect with your FB fans: mashable.com
(2) Sign up for a Yelp business owner's account, and add Yelp special deals to your page (business owners can add special deals for people who "check in" on Yelp). Ask people who check in to please review your restaurant. Right now, your reviews are mostly "meh". Train your staff to make that connection and try to increase positive reviews. Add Yelp badge to website. Make sure your staff is giving great customer service and that your food is great and respond to reviews when appropriate.
(3) If you're not already doing it, start collecting email addresses from customers and start a weekly or twice a month email marketing campaign using constant contact, mail chimp or similar service. (A good way to do this is to put a bowl on the counter with a sign that says "Sign up to win dinner for 2 at I love Thai!.. and learn about specials" or something like that. Make little entry slips where people can write their name, email, and phone number. Give a free dinner every month).
(4) Start a loyalty program (I talked about this in another answer).
(5) Once you have all of these going regularly and are updating regularly, then you can consider adding others like Twitter and maybe Google+.
Good luck!
I'll just touch on a few quick things that you should definitely be doing:
(1) Get a Facebook business account and add a FB icon (Fan us on Facebook!) to your website. Read this article for how to use FB to connect with your FB fans: mashable.com
(2) Sign up for a Yelp business owner's account, and add Yelp special deals to your page (business owners can add special deals for people who "check in" on Yelp). Ask people who check in to please review your restaurant. Right now, your reviews are mostly "meh". Train your staff to make that connection and try to increase positive reviews. Add Yelp badge to website. Make sure your staff is giving great customer service and that your food is great and respond to reviews when appropriate.
(3) If you're not already doing it, start collecting email addresses from customers and start a weekly or twice a month email marketing campaign using constant contact, mail chimp or similar service. (A good way to do this is to put a bowl on the counter with a sign that says "Sign up to win dinner for 2 at I love Thai!.. and learn about specials" or something like that. Make little entry slips where people can write their name, email, and phone number. Give a free dinner every month).
(4) Start a loyalty program (I talked about this in another answer).
(5) Once you have all of these going regularly and are updating regularly, then you can consider adding others like Twitter and maybe Google+.
Good luck!
1
When people get to any restaurant, they start by studying the menu, as for explanation about certain delicacies before placing an order. When you think on an online strategy, think of the Unique Online Proposition.
Your best selling proposition can mostly be helping your customers decide with ease what they want from your outlet. This you can easily do by availing the menu online; where customers can compare different meals before settling to one. Naturally, people feel intimidated to show their ignorance in public.
Facebook can allow you to plugin the menu. Check how Innscore has done it on.fb.me
You can chose to promote one kind of meal each day of the week and probably have special discounts on that day. For instance, you could decide to promote Pad Thai on Wednesdays where for every two orders of Pat Thai one gets an extra free. This would encourage your audience on social media to spread the electronic word of mouth as they attempt to create groups of threes to take advantage of the offer – social media is about being social;
The same messages can be shared on Tweeter. For the best results the message should be retweetable – the viral effect. Tweeter messages need to be brief with a link to your site. Facebook messages need to provoke a like, share, or click. High resolution photos do great of Facebook – check out deals for meals on Groupon.
Make use of YouTube to show how your chefs ‘do it’. People love trying things at home – and therefore love business that care about them by providing solutions.
My recommendations for www.ilovethai2.com;
1. Integrate social media with your site; Facebook, Tweeter, Foursquare, Tripadvisor,
2. Recruit royal fans over time – by constantly sharing relevant information online
3. Make your site more interactive; Create more graphical menu. The current one is more wordy than visual. Image speaks a thousand words.
4. Track your traffic to know what people are searching for in the search engines/what people are saying about foods in the social media channels and which social media site direct most traffic to your website; I short, have an Social Media Optimization strategy.
5. Have a human face at the website homepage/menu page. When you go to the bakery, you expect to be welcomed by a sweet aroma and smiling chef. Exactly.
If you want free tweeter media tracking tools, I have listed a few in my blog; vizzibo.blogspot.com
Your best selling proposition can mostly be helping your customers decide with ease what they want from your outlet. This you can easily do by availing the menu online; where customers can compare different meals before settling to one. Naturally, people feel intimidated to show their ignorance in public.
Facebook can allow you to plugin the menu. Check how Innscore has done it on.fb.me
You can chose to promote one kind of meal each day of the week and probably have special discounts on that day. For instance, you could decide to promote Pad Thai on Wednesdays where for every two orders of Pat Thai one gets an extra free. This would encourage your audience on social media to spread the electronic word of mouth as they attempt to create groups of threes to take advantage of the offer – social media is about being social;
The same messages can be shared on Tweeter. For the best results the message should be retweetable – the viral effect. Tweeter messages need to be brief with a link to your site. Facebook messages need to provoke a like, share, or click. High resolution photos do great of Facebook – check out deals for meals on Groupon.
Make use of YouTube to show how your chefs ‘do it’. People love trying things at home – and therefore love business that care about them by providing solutions.
My recommendations for www.ilovethai2.com;
1. Integrate social media with your site; Facebook, Tweeter, Foursquare, Tripadvisor,
2. Recruit royal fans over time – by constantly sharing relevant information online
3. Make your site more interactive; Create more graphical menu. The current one is more wordy than visual. Image speaks a thousand words.
4. Track your traffic to know what people are searching for in the search engines/what people are saying about foods in the social media channels and which social media site direct most traffic to your website; I short, have an Social Media Optimization strategy.
5. Have a human face at the website homepage/menu page. When you go to the bakery, you expect to be welcomed by a sweet aroma and smiling chef. Exactly.
If you want free tweeter media tracking tools, I have listed a few in my blog; vizzibo.blogspot.com
0
How about an interactive menu that your restaurant could easily publish to allow diners to tweet about their food, or post Facebook links directly to your dishes?
Most recent advice
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Chris Ndungu, digital strategist advised 23 days ago
When people get to any restaurant, they start by studying th...
When people get to any restaurant, they start by studying th...
0
2
Good advice from Brook. Also check out www.fishbowl.com which is near you in Alexandria, VA and specializes in direct marketing for restaurants. You should get some good ideas for email and social marketing.