Broadcast across multiple social media platforms thanks to Instagram.
Today I’m on a panel at Food Service Austalia with Matteo Pignatelli and Robelen Baja talking about social media and marketing for restaurants and caterers. My specific topic is how to deal with negative comments but also how to use social media.
I know this is a little off topic from restaurant reviews and recipes but I thought my thoughts jotted down over a couple of coffees (Sumatran Wahana Estate Magic at Proud Mary) would be of interest to a lot of my industry readers. Plus they apply to most industries.
1. Social media is the quickest most direct way to pull people into your restaurant.
2. Social media magnifies word of mouth exponentially through sharing tools such as the simple Facebook like button or the retweet.
3. If nothing else, claim your social media real estate (names) and start listening to what people are saying.
4. Set the rules and ensure your staff know them. This means no trolling (negative comments about competitors), being clear on photography (allow it), ensuring staff don’t leave anonymous comments on websites and how to handle negatives.
5. Most negative comments can be ignored. Whatever you do, do not become shitty and become involved in an argument online. Not only does it look bad but it will drain you emotionally.
6. Ideally take a deep breath and wait a few days before deciding to respond to negative comments. Talk it through with a friend.
7. Don’t threaten anything or even think about contacting lawyers. It will go viral.
8. Be nice.
9. The most important barometer to the public’s perceptions of your restaurant is Urban Spoon thanks to it’s simple voting and bringing together of critic reviews, blog reviews and user reviews. If you score under 60 per cent you are in trouble.
10. Deal sites can drive people to your restaurant but the cost are high – they take about 50% of an already discounted price. They may also have a negative effect of public perceptions depending on the site.
11. However, there are boutique deals and they may serve as a good introduction to your restaurant and introduce you to a new audience. Agenda is one of these.
12. Instead of confining your newsletter to a limited audience let everybody see it by making your website your newsletter.
13. If you have a RSS feed and you treat your website as a newsletter, it can be emailed automatically to your mailing list with services such as Mailchimp.
14. Then it can also be automatically sent to your Facebook fan page and personal page as well as automatically be tweeted.
15. Regularly updated content on your website is favoured by Google and drives traffic. Think photos, recipes, new dishes, suppliers of ingredients and beverages. Provenance is becoming very important to consumers.
16. Keep your website simple. Have a phone number, address and Google map up front and menus with prices in html (not a pdf). Have pics and bios of key people but not on the front page. Again, avoid Flash.
17. Don’t only broadcast your news on Twitter. Twitter is about engaging people in conversations. Seek and new people and have engaging conversations with them.
18. Think mobile. Traffic from smart phones to websites has grown tenfold in the past year. Ensure your website can be used on an ipad or smart phone. That means no flash animation.
19. If you don’t like the quality of photos of your restaurant and food on blogs take your own pictures and make them freely available on flickr.com. Email blogs that have written about you and politely say that if they would like some further pictures they are available on Flickr.
20. Setting up a special offer on Foursquare costs nothing and is very easy. Experiment with it.
21. Instagram is probably the most power social media tool to use. Pictures can directly be posted to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Foursquare with geolocation information. They can be liked and comments can be left. It’s a powerful photo-based stripped down social network that connects into all the others.
22. Just to reiterate, don’t underestimate the power of photographs in social media. They are quick and easy to understand and speak a thousand words.
23. Linked-in is a great way to connect to people on a professional level and has far fewer privacy issues than Facebook. It’s a great way to connect with colleagues and find staff as well as connecting publicly with your best customers and suppliers.
24. Look out for global and local social media events and join in. For example, world chardonnay day or gin day. These events have a #hashtag on twitter and often a Facebook page.
25. Engage with social media properties and ringleaders on Facebook, twitter and blogs. Check out John Curtin’s Top Melbourne Restaurants on Facebook, for instance. It’s a great way to promote a venue and has over 63,000 members.
26. Ensure you understand Facebook’s terms of service on promotions. If you run a competition to get people to like your page the wrong way they will shut you down.
27. The same with blogs. Some blogs get more than or as much traffic as mainstream websites.
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