Ideas for the digital world

Chinese, instant articles, Marketing, reputation management, Restaurants, social media

Bad Asian restaurant names

Uncle Ho. Happy Endings. And the latest Misohawni, a new restaurant in Johannesburg with a gimmicky name and a mishmash of Asian cuisines including Ramen. The social media and, in particular Twitter, backlash against the trivialisation and sexualisation of Asian culture in restaurants is inevitable. As is Misohawni taking down its Facebook page within 24 hours of opening. Check out my Medium post on the sexualisation of Asian women in restaurants.

customers, Ideas for the digital world, Marketing, Websites

Uber Eats takeaway food deliveries

On the web the winner takes all and I believe that in the takeaway food delivery business there will be one service that survives, Uber Eats. It launched today at 11am today in a limited area of Melbourne inner city suburbs. But who knows, as both Deliveroo or Foodora are worthy challengers. But Australian market is too small to support three upmarket food takeaway businesses. The fact is the biggest wins. Look at Facebook versus Twitter. AirBNB versus the other […]

customers, Ideas for the digital world, Marketing, Websites

Why nobody is ordering your takeaways

Takeaway food is big business. Last year the two leading Australian food delivery services Menulog and Eat Now merged. Then they were snapped-up for a mere $855 million by the UK’s Just Eat. In contrast the leading restaurant booking engine Dimmi sold for about $25 million. That’s how big takeaways are versus eating at home where a whole new raft of companies are emerging. Technology is disrupting fast food deliveries. Right now I want to answer the question I’m asked […]

Email, Ideas for the digital world, Marketing, social media

How to leverage digital at wine events

I distribute a lot of content across the web. Some of it here but increasing on Linked-in, Facebook Groups, my personal Facebook feed and company page etc etc. (It’s another story to write about why blog content now needs to be distributed). I’m aiming to summarise the best of it here for my newsletter subscribers. If you want to read the rest of the story below it is either on Linked-in or Social Media & Wine on Facebook. At the […]

Blogs, Facebook, Ideas for the digital world, Marketing, social media, Twitter, Websites

How to find your website audience

One of the advantages of helping a few dozen companies on their digital marketing and websites is that we see a lot of numbers. We see the main website traffic sources, the dynamics of who are key influencers and the reality behind the effectiveness of just about everything from emails to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And let’s not forget Pinterest, Linked-in and Snapchat. Or physical events. I recently posted that as businesses we need to use our websites effectively as […]

Blogs, Facebook, Ideas for the digital world, Marketing, Mobile, reputation management, social media

What is the role of the website in a social media world?

I’m a member of a stimulating Facebook Group called Social Media and Wine. Recently Andrew Hanigan from Derwent Estate Wines asked a question which is relevant to anyone who has an online presence: So has the role of a Winery website changed with the onset of FB, Twitter, Instagram etc? What should it still contain, what is no longer relevant? Is a well maintained/up to date DIY site enough these days or do I still need an expensive platform? Some […]

Ideas for the digital world, online reviews, reputation management, rules of engagement

Meet Zomato

You hate and love them. But review sites are a fact of life and are here to stay. In Melbourne, the biggest of them all is Urbanspoon, which is about to be relaunched in a few weeks as Zomato with local community managers and content creators on the ground. And the team looks to be improving some of Urbanspoon’s shortcomings by ranking trusted reviewers and changing the point scoring system. A history of review sites Yelp! was the first review […]

customers, Ideas for the digital world, online reviews, reputation management, rules of engagement

How Big Huey beat the trolls

I was tempted to call this post “Meet the troll wrangler”. I’m not talking about Iain Hewitson or myself but an astute watcher of social media. More about this Caped Crusader of the digital world later. Online restaurant reviews are a serious business. Bad ones cause restaurant owners anxiety and they can spend a lot of time – and money – dealing with them properly. Nobody wants a bad review to go viral by handling it badly. And some owners […]

Ideas for the digital world, SEO, social media, Video

The big opportunity for video shorts

With Youtube the second biggest search engine in Australia, it is also a huge opportunity outside of Google search to use it to get your brand noticed. Like pictures, short videos are easy to watch and absorb. The only problem is we are all in a mindset born out of corporate videos of years gone by. And like me, you probably just yawn just thinking about corporate videos. Unless extremely entertaining or compelling, few people are going to watch a […]