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!

Outstanding Athletic Effort Award

Many of the clients I have represented in the past and present are family friendly. There are many fun, inexpensive and easy tactics to create connection with families, and more importantly the ever popular "Kids" of your community.

We all know that more often than not, kids determine the restaurant of choice when going out to eat. Kids are primary drivers when it comes to going out! Remember that.

Although we have developed literally dozens of killer tactics for driving traffic and creating loyalty with kids of all ages, this is one of the easiest and most effective based on the numbers. In fact, this has typically had a 27% - 35% redemption ratio which is crazy good.

We developed an "Outstanding Athletic Award" certificate to circulate to all the coaches of our local youth sports teams. The goal was to reward all kids with a free kids meal (dine in only of course) with no strings attached.....no hostage taking here. Parents will appreciate you more this way. Trust me.

So, the first step was to pay a visit to the "Department of Parks and Recreation" with a couple of strawberry pies and a few gift cards in hand to make an introduction to the leaders there. Of course, as in every case, they welcomed us in with open arms and before you knew it, we had the list of every little league baseball, soccer and football coach in the region. We also were invited to the annual little league baseball jamboree being held in 2 weeks from that date where every little league baseball team would be there that day!

We were permitted to hand out these certificates to each and every coach to give to all their players after the game as a way of saying great job and thanks for showing outstanding effort!

Needless to say, our restaurant was PACKED for well over 2 weeks with families bringing in their kids for their free kids meal we gave away....but of course, the entire family would come in and eat with us. Mom and Dad were very appreciative for the goodwill and the kids were thrilled with receiving an award cerificate! by the way, we created this certificate with a perforated edge so the kids could cut out the free meal voucher and keep the award certificate. Can you guess where that certificate went? Yup. It went on their refrigerator for several weeks doing a great job of branding for us. It is always nice to develop programs that drive traffic to your store, create a connection and brand in the home.

This worked so well, we were able to parlay this tactic everywhere kids gathered. It worked at karate schools, dance classes, and most importantly the school system as well as the P.E teachers and coaches eagerly jumped at the opportunity to offer incentives for "Outstanding Athletic Effort".

Let's face it, not every kid can be the best athlete! But they ALL can show effort and that is what this is all about.

Please check out our site at http://www.freshideasmarketinggroup.com/ for more information on how we can help you and your restaurant in any and all your marketing needs.

Thanks!

Coin Flip Friday!

I once had a restaurant client in a small town that was struggling pretty badly on Friday evenings. This client was a family style restaurant that had done very well for many years until the casuals had started to move in. You know the ones, Chili's, Ruby Tuesday, Applebees etc... the common theme or should I say "blame game" was that fact they all had a bar and were fresher and shinier than my clients somewhat tired old restaurant.

We were holding our own throughout the week as we had been smoking it with very strong LSM programs for years....in fact, we practically owned the town and we were always on stage at the franchise workshop for the President's Club. When we started seeing our friday nights dwindle, we decided to make a move and do it swiftly to protect our share.

We did not want to throw a lot of money at this "one evening" per week and did not have a lot of cash to spend...believe it or not..who does?

It is really quite simple, how do we protect our current share and establish enough buzz to attract more? We are not believers of couponing. In fact, we believe once you start couponing and devaluing your menu, you are preparing for your own death.

We landed on "'Coin Flip Friday"

Here's how it worked: Starting at 4:00 pm on Friday, every table in the restaurant would get a visit from the manager as normal. Only, this time, the GM would ask the group at the table if they wanted to flip a coin for their dessert! the deal was if the customer won the coin flip, they would get a free dessert of their choosing. If the GM won the coin flip, the customer would agree to pay for their dessert. Everyone wins! we don't resort to discounting and the guests have a shot at a free desert. Needless to say, we would at least be able to get our fabulous deserts to more people which is always a good thing.

We were curious to see how they would respond.

We were astonished at the results! The regulars LOVED it and they apparently told everyone in the entire town about this quirky new thing they were doing on Friday nights. Needless to say, the store not only increased their dessert sales on Friday nights, they increased their traffic counts, check averages and overall sales. In fact, after only 6 weeks, there was a waiting line every Friday night from that point on.

You don't have to outspend your competition or discount your food....you simply have to out think em!

Please take a moment and check out our website at http:www.freshideasmarketinggroup.com and let us know if there is anything we may be able to help you and your restaurant become the hang out of choice in your community.