Idea Spark: Social Marketing for Restaurants

This Idea Spark blog post is the result of the discussion during our Friday morning Creativity Coffee. If you’d like to join us (in person or via web/phone conference), please sign up here. There’s no charge or obligation. We just love ideas and open discussion!

We’ve talked a lot about the strategy and implementation of social media and social marketing. Different types of businesses can have different goals, approaches and strategies for social marketing, and this series of discussions center round how different vertical markets and businesses can use social marketing to their best advantage.

The first discussion in this series focuses on Social Marketing for Restaurants. From local favorites to national chains, restaurants are harnessing the power of social media to get the word out about their unique value. From Yelp to Facebook, Twitter to Foursquare, Flickr and beyond, how can restaurants best utilize the vast opportunities of social sharing to prosper? How does social marketing fit into the restaurant’s mix?

Here are the ideas sparked by our discussion.

1. Restaurants are already focused on their local communities. Social is a natural exension.
• Local establishments thrive on engaging their local community, and social media is an extension of that established outreach. If a business has a culture of being a contributing member of its local community, then their move into social is a natural extension of their current activities.
• The community activities of a restaurant can be easily shared—and fostered—via social channels. A restaurant’s associations, charitable works, events and more should be shared socially. People connect with businesses on many levels, and knowing that a local business is giving back to the community that supports it…that helps people connect to the business on a much deeper level and fosters greater customer loyalty. Social is also a great way for a local business to announce and promote their local causes.
2. How can social media help a restaurant thrive and grow?
• Reaching new markets. Social media can help a restaurant reach a different target market. For instance, a fine dining restaurant that has traditionally drawn an older clientele can start using social media to reach a younger generation of diners.
• Drawing consumer mind share. Regular and engaging content via social channels enables an establishment to continue to remind its customers of what it has to offer. Regular brand impressions (including enticing new menus, specials, seasonal food, etc.) will keep a restaurant’s customers interested and prompt them to dine with the establishment more often.
• Social discovery. One core value of social channels is brand growth through “organic” sharing. Restaurants shouldn’t limit their social chatter to information about themselves. They should curate and share information, recipes, food knowledge, local events and more and share information they find through their social channels (e.g. retweet).
• Direct customer feedback & engagement. Interacting with customers directly enables a restaurant to elicit direct feedback from visitors and draw “fans” in closer to the brand. If there’s a negative feedback situation, restaurants can attempt to turn a negative experience into a positive customer service experience, and, perhaps, change an unhappy customer into a rabid advocate. Most consumers will respond to an attempt by the restaurant to make amends for a bad experience. The key is for the restaurant to not only respond to directed comments (e.g. phone call, email, Twitter DM) but also publicly shared comments on social channels.
3. On which social channels should restaurants concentrate their efforts?
• Facebook. Having a fan page is a great way for restaurants to start actively engaging their current customers. Facebook enables rich content sharing by both the restaurant and its fans and viral sharing simply by showing up in their fans’ news streams.
• Twitter. Twitter enables restaurants to search for and engage individuals by location, by profile information and by their social conversations. Finding and following new people who are talking about restaurants, food, wine and dining in a local area enables the restaurant to “lightly” touch new contacts and make them aware of the restaurant. If the contact follows back…that’s the first step towards a happy customer!
• Yelp, Trip Advisor and other travel/review sites. Yelp provides restaurants with a way to both connect with diners and to provide diners with incentives to visit their establishment. Trip Advisor Some restaurant owners are concerned that competitors might try to “play” the system and post negative comments about their establishments. Others are concerned that some of these sites try to extract advertising dollars in exchange for removing negative comments. However, many sites enable restaurants to curate relationship with diners.
• FourSquare, Gowalla and other location-based services. Location-based services enable restaurants to incent people to visit (e.g. reserved table or parking space for the Mayor, Ben & Jerry’s 3 scoops for $3 for checking in) but also allow the restaurant to interact with the customer when they are on the premises.
4. How should a restaurant integrate social into their marketing mix?
• Create a strategy. Integrate social into your overall marketing strategy. Define your goals and measurement for social media just as you would for your other channels. Since social media is an ever changing “moving target,” make sure you leave room to review, refine and experiment your approach and tactics as you learn.
• Cross-pollinate. Make sure to provide links to your social accounts through your email marketing newsletters, on menus, on signage, on the restaurant’s website, on advertising, etc. Make sure that you can enable customers to immediately connect with you through social channels while their on your property (posted connections via text, email, Twitter and Facebook links, etc.). Cross-pollinate your channels by announcing your email marketing newsletters, events, new menus, etc. on your social channels.
• Make it fun. Social channels enable you to engage with customers on a more informal basis. Use humor, share fun photos (and let your customers share their own), create fun contests and more creative methods to allow people to engage with you on a personal level.
• Plan for it and staff it. If you decide to engage in social marketing, make sure that you plan for the resources necessary to manage the effort. Social consumers don’t like being abandoned, and doing so will turn these current and potential customers off. Your social presence and image should mirror the experience of your restaurant.

As you can see, lots of great ideas and thoughts come out during our Creativity Coffee sessions. Our current series of discussions center around different vertical markets and how each can adopt and benefit from social marketing. Won’t you join us in the discussion? It’s free, and you can dial in if you can’t join us here in Bedford, NH!

Photo Credit: Mattox