The following are 10 realities about restaurant social media in no particular order. They are a collection of thoughts, strategies, and frustrations I have encountered over the past 2 years.
1. This is a conversation! One must understand the relationships of classical push and pull marketing. There is no substitution for word of mouth which is hands down the best type of getting the message out. If the content is poor, no one will listen. Tell a story! Create a Buzz!
2. Offer specials and coupons—get special and coupon seeking patrons. If this is the clientele type you want to attract, by all means do this. Once you start offering specials and coupons your clients will expect them. By offering $3 well drinks on Fridays, you are pushing clients to the venue. For craft and artisan restaurants this doesn’t attract good clientele. For college bars this is what you want. Pulling, is word of mouth and sparking curiosity of the clientele.
3. Take lots of pictures and post them. They don’t have to be high resolution either. I invested in a pair of photo umbrellas with lights and they really do the trick. You don’t need Photoshop—though it helps—it’s all about figuring out the different file formats and media platforms and getting them to sync…i.e. Flickr → Twitter → Blog → FB and back again. You can edit and manage the pictures in a program like Picasa by Google.
4. Write a posting schedule with frequency and content. This should be a script that is constantly evolving. Content should remain current. Though, there is no substitute for spontaneous creative content. This can easily be set up in an excel spreadsheet. It looks strange when a potential client goes on the FB page and the last post was 6 weeks ago. It makes it look like you are going out of business. If you devise a strategy and it doesn't seem to be working, change the strategy. If the conversation doesn't seem to be working, change the conversation.
5. Don’t spend money on special software or other management/training stuff. The technology moves too fast. By the time you may learn something, it may already be outdated. This goes for books and guides too. The best way to learn is trial and error. You will become extremely frustrated at times. Read blogs/google searches/recent articles to learn. Do your own research. See what other businesses are doing in the market and who/what/when/where/why is generating web traffic. Use this as a model. Distinguish yourself.
6. Have multiple peops have access to admin features and logins to accounts. The conversation should be attended to in real time. I use Seesmic Desktop to manage multiple accounts.
7. Social Media should not be the primary advertising/marketing medium. It is a support vehicle. It’s great to have a lot of fans on Facebook—but—if you have 1500 fans/likes on the restaurant page and your restaurant is in New York, and the FB insight page says that 900 of those fans have California addresses, what are the chances that those fans will regularly patronize your restaurant and spend money?
8. Even if you have a budget to have a firm manage and devise a social media strategy, you will still need to participate and have access to it. The strategy needs to be a team effort.
9. The main platform to use is Facebook. You’ll notice that at the bottom of TV commercials they no longer say the company’s website but FB address. The format of electronic media is evolving faster and faster. Who knows, FB may be obsolete in three years. Don’t invest too much money in a standalone website! You can essentially design and start a blog for free and host it for a minimal monthly cost.
10. Damned if you do damned of you don’t! If you are starting a new business, you need a stronger presence in social media. If you have a client base, don’t invest too much time in it. If your market segment is older, older people statistically don’t use FB as much as the younger market segment. The social media bubble will eventually burst!
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