First, if you can ask people to be your friend on Facebook you have a profile set up, not a Page.  What’s the difference? Pages are for businesses and Profiles are for people.  Again, Pages are for businesses and Profiles are for people. Why is this a big deal? Well, if you have a social media strategy it would included developing your relationship with your customers at a person to a person.

Once you have built relationships online then you can ask them to be a fan of your business Page.  Why? Well put it this way, you don’t walk into a room full of people and start making announcements about your specials that day, week or month.  You develop conversations, get to know people and are truly interested in what they have to say.

How many times have you enjoyed someone spamming you about buying their products or services?  Like the old saying “you catch more flies with sugar than vinegar.” Facebook is personal and even if someone have 2,000 friends they don’t like being sold to.    Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.   You shake their hands, check out their information, their photos, interests and other information.  See if you have common friends and interests.  Learn to become friends.  Granted, you might not end up as friends however you are meeting another human being and they deserve to be treated with respect.

Your business page is for your business and a great place to post your specials as that’s where they should go.  It does take a more than just posting your specials to see an return on your “Fans” interest but that is where your traditional advertising is suppose to go.

Facebook is an advertising company and they your advertising dollars.  If you are using your Profile for marketing your business Facebook will catch up with you and they will shut your Profile down which means you lose all your friends.  As you can imagine this will set you back on your marketing on Facebook.

Profile

• Personal, person to person relationship building
• 5,000 friends limit
• One account person
• Consider your friends as your warm market
• People buy from people, be a real person

Page

• Brand building, find your company voice  and personality
• Unlimited Fans, just remember a lot of Fan’s does not mean you are popular
• Owner of the business needs to be the person establishing the account; no and’s, if’s or but’s about it
  • You add admins to help manage the business page the owner of the business needs to “own” the page
• Warm market or customers; build upon the relationship, earn their attention
• People buy from people, be a real person and not a machine

Just like the great movie, once you have the notes to follow everything falls into place.   I always say social media is like a symphony; when it’s in tune it can be amazing.

Madonna Kash

Restaurant Marketing Partners/ FoodService Geeks

Make Facebook work for you beyond just your Facebook Fan Page with Facebook Places.

Last week Facebook released Facebook Places for businesses and yes, it’s one more thing you need to look into as a business owner to drive more internet traffic to your front door.

This link is a step by step on how to Create and Claim your business.   Click here to learn more.

Make sure you don’t miss the Scribd page within the page.  You can download and or print off this document as it really goes into details on how to use Facebook Places.

More information to follow on how to integrate  your website and menu into Facebook so watch for more postings here shortly!

This is a great tool to help you connect with your customers so don’t over look this one!!

Madonna Kash

Restaurantmarketingpartners.com

madonna@restaurantmarketingpartners.com

Fast forward from 1989 to now, 2010 and from what I see so many businesses see Facebook and social media in general as a field of dreams and if they build it, the customers will come.  Many are seeing the benefits of social media however would many are not getting the results they expected.

For a food service operator there are marketing opportunities in every step of the way of the and many times those are over looked.   Chef Larry Canepa and I talked about “where does marketing begin?” for an operator.   Is it in the parking lot?  In the paper?  On Facebook?  At the front door? At the table?   Is it the food?  The location?  If we think about, yes to all of the above.

Right now we live in a world where social media makes “us”, our businesses transparent. If a customer has a negative experience they can easily find 15 places to tell the world about it; are you listening?  What does a business do about it? Of course many of us might get defensive as hearing bad things about your business isn’t easy to hear.   I know I always welcome feedback no matter how harsh it might be to hear it, I know I only benefit from hearing it.

Facebook is a big piece of the social media pie but how does it serve you? How does it serve your customers? A person can only take so much of  push marketing; you know, when a business is trying to sell you on something.  I don’t like being sold to however I do like buying something I’m sold on and for a restaurant to sell me they better have great food, great service, good people but that’s just the basics.

Just like anything else you do in life and in business, you need a plan.  Plan your work and work your plan.  Do you have a plan?   I am starting a series of  ”Next Step” on building your social media and I will make a commitment of blogging “10 Next Steps” over a 15 day time span.  Sure, 10 in 10 sounds much sexier however I have a lot going on and want to make these really informative so “10 in 15″ is what I have to offer.

Let’s see if these steps can help your business.  Of course if your food sucks, service terrible and your restaurant isn’t all that wow, well you’re going to need a lot more help than just Facebook which, we can help you there too.  For now,  think about what you would like to see happen with your Fan Page; why would you like your customers visit your page?  Why do your customers keep coming back to your restaurant?  What would you like your customers say about your restaurant to others?

It’s my “Field of Dreams” to have great customer experience with my clients and I hope it is with yours as well.  The one key element about the move that is clear is his passion, commitment and belief that if he built it they will come and they did.  The same applies with all of us but it is going to take a lot of passion and commitment for success.  With that I say “bring it on!!

Wow, what a mess.  What went from bad to worse just keeps getting worse.    The situation; a bad dining review.    For the most part, my opinion doesn’t matter on the details however I will comment on the fact this is not how I recommend an operator to handle this type of a situation.  Little too early to tell what the over all outcome will be but I am following it to find out.

WARNING:  This isn’t pretty!

As this is such a big story I am breaking it out in a couple segments.    Grab a drink, a snack and make yourself comfortable; there is a lot to absorb.

Elite ’10

210

187

Joel L.

Phoenix, AZ

8/1/2010

In retrospect, I should have known better than to step foot into Amy’s Baking Company (a.k.a. ABC Bistro).

-8 pm on a Saturday night, three tables are occupied
-a sign on the door indicates they’re looking for an experienced line cook, a dishwasher, waitresses, you name it
-Pita Jungle, just a stone’s throw away, is packed to the gills

These are all bad signs.  They go ignored, however, because I’d eaten one thing all day, and I had drove here to try their pizza.  Never, ever again.

The waitress brings me out a water and a menu to my table for one  on the patio, which I had all to myself.  Browsing the apps, I was pleasantly surprised to see several things priced $3, which seemed like a bargain, given the high price of everything else.  $3 tapanade sounded like a good deal, but I was informed that it didn’t come with anything – it was $3 extra for bread.  Since I was solo, I decided to skip it and instead pay $14 for their 12″ margherita pizza.

About three minutes later, the waitress drops off my pizza.  ”Your pizza”, she says, leaves a plate and off she goes.  I sat for a moment, confused as to how things happened so quickly.  I try to grab a slice of the pizza, but it was so blazing hot that I wasn’t even going to attempt to handle it.  I waited for a few minutes to let it cool off, only to discover that not only had it cooled enough to handle, but was actually well-cooled and most likely reheated.  After a closer inspection of the pie in front of me, it was evident that it had been reheated, as there were smaller tomatoes that had spent their time in the oven, and larger tomatoes that had barely been kissed by the heat of the oven.

I took a bite, and was immediately underwhelmed.  The crust had very little character, was slightly sweet but had that store-bought quality to it.  The pesto tasted okay, but the tomatoes were completely tasteless and overall, it just fell flat.  It’s margherita – the ingredients need to shine to make such a simple pizza.  These ingredients were sub-par.  After two small pieces, I decided I was wasting my calories and just gave up on it.

So I sat outside, not eating, and sat.  And sat.  Where the hell was the waitress?  I glanced inside a few times, hoping to catch her eye, but she must have been occupied elsewhere.

The owner comes out.  ”How’d you like your pizza?”  Instead of immediately responding, I asked how it had come out so quickly.  In short, he told me another table had ordered it, decided they didn’t want it, and it sat in the kitchen for two minutes, who in turn decided to send it out to me since I didn’t order anything else.

Me: “Well, it didn’t really taste fresh”.
Him: “No, no, our pizzas are the best.  Ask our customers.  You’re the first person since we’ve opened to ever not like our pizzas”.

He got very defensive about the pizza, but I hadn’t really launched a harsh criticism on the pizza, just said I didn’t really enjoy it.  So I sat some more, with an empty drink, and realized they wanted me gone.  The owner wouldn’t make eye contact with me.  The server never came back out asking if I wanted something else.  And they still hadn’t refilled my drink.

So I sat on a patio, alone, and decided to have a smoke.  The waitress comes out…

Her: “Sir, there’s a no smoking sign over there, I was told to tell you to not to smoke here.”
Me: “Is this the last f*** you in this experience?”
Her: “Yes, I think so”.

She walks away.  I walk inside, pay the bill, and leave.  No apologies, no discounts on the bill, nothing.  $18 for weak iced tea and shitty pizza.

This is arrogance in its worst form.  I can forgive bad food, but I cannot forgive misplaced arrogance and the blatant dismissal of a customer, whether you agree with them or not.

Perhaps the sign on the door should also say, “Wanted: New owner”.

I cannot, for the life of me, recommend this restaurant to anyone.

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amy b.

Scottsdale, AZ

8/2/2010

Dear Joel,L. It is blatantly obvious to me why you were ALONE on a Saturday night!
Read any of the reviews that have been written about us and you will see that EVERYONE loves us!! The only people that don’t  is our “Competition”. We knew you had been sent by another restaurant before you even ordered your $14.00 Pizza.

The Pizza was fresh and amazing. The reason the tomatoes had different texture was because I use three different heirloom tomatoes and some of them are sundried. So of course they are going to have a different texture from the fresh ones!!!
But perhaps you are only accustomed to tasting the ones that come “fresh from the can!”

Moving on to the “Store bought Dough” Comment. PLEASE!! My dough is made fresh every day from 100% organic ingredients. Perhaps your palate is not sophisticated enough to tell the difference.

As for you having the Patio all to yourself unless you have been living on another PLANET it is summertime in ARIZONA MORON!!! Only TRAMPS and LOSERS want to sit outside in 110 temperatures!!!!
We are hiring because we are so busy that we need to hire more people. You just so happened to come right after a huge rush. And the people did not change their mind for the Margarita Pizza they ordered. They were still enjoying their amazing Caesar salad and I thought perhaps you would appreciate not having to wait so long for your pizza.  Which was just coming out of the OVEN.

I am the CHEF and the owner, and I am the one that made your Pizza.

As for the no smoking comment everyone knows that it is against the LAW to smoke within 20 feet of a public place. But perhaps you think you are above the LAW. Have a little respect not everyone wants to subject themselves to being around second hand smoke.

And as for the overpriced menu items if you think that $12.00 is too much for an ENTRÉE sized ORGANIC Salad or $14.00 is too much for an AMAZING Pizza then perhaps you should go to the PITA JUNGLE that is just a stone’s throw away. And if you get lucky maybe you can even dig up someone up to take with you so you can share a $5.00 Falafel.
Do US a favor and keep your ugly face and you ugly opinions to yourself and go back to the restaurant that you really work at!!

I would LOVE for anyone who reads this review to come to ABC and try our Pizza. If you don’t like it then I guarantee you don’t have to pay for it.

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Ok, now that’s just the beginning.  Read more here!  In four days the amount of comments now equals 76 pages of 8 1/2 X 11 paper.    http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bella/2010/08/ouch_todays_hard_lesson_on_yel.php

Madonna Kash

Restaurant Marketing Partners/ FoodService Geeks

Restaurantmarketingpartners.com

madonna@restaurantmarketingpartners.com

@restaurantmkt

voice    602.492.8419

mobile 602.692.1135

Is your social media a waste of time?   It’s like weeding a garden that doesn’t produce, what’s the point?  That is if you are not monitoring it’s growth and fertilizing it during it’s growing cycles.  I like the gardening metaphor as we all understand how a garden grows and what to expect from it however for social media predicting it’s growth potential is not as clear.

So let’s begin.  You find a plot of land that is going to work in the landscape of your business and your life.  Not too exposed to where you get burned out and it’s over kill,  meaning; too many times businesses have the best intentions with starting strong and them getting burned out.   They spend a lot of time which of course we know, time equals money  planting your marketing garden and when the time doesn’t equal the results you lose interest and the accounts are then left unattended. This is common.  It is also common to not see the fruits of your labor produce the results you are expecting and to that point there are many reasons.

Even with those accounts with weekly maintenance, if the results are not what you are expecting, the value of using these tools lessen and it becomes a cause of pain instead of a source for solutions.   If you look, you can see it with your competitors or maybe even with your business.

So let’s say the plot of land for your garden is totally free to use.  Much like many social media platforms.  You will need to have a plan to planet your garden.   Same with social media.  Some plants grow better with others while others don’t of course.  Some need more light, more watering, fertilizing and more attention.  All the same with social media marketing.

The biggest part of any marketing plan is creating a solid plan and sticking to the plan.  Same with gardening.  There are certain times of the year you market.  Same with planting.   There are certain times of the day and week you nurture your marketing, much like watering and weeding.  Tending to your marketing plan much like tending to your garden.

Monitoring what is produced from your garden is your “ROI” return on investment.  You wouldn’t keep investing time into something that wasn’t producing.  Like your menu, if you have items on your menu that are slow movers you removed them from your menu.  Simple.  Same of course with social media.  You have to find what grows your business and what doesn’t.  You also need to protect your garden from damage like insects, rodents and animals.  Guess what?  Same with social media.  You need to protect your brand.

Much like weeds that pop up in your garden these ever changing and ever popular social networking platforms keep popping up.  If you’re not watching for them they can over take your garden.  Again, same social media.  If you are not listening to what others are saying about your brand the negative comments and word of mouth can reek havoc on your brand, compromising your business.

Many times people devalue the value of working with someone to help build their marketing.   When learning how to garden,  I spent many years as a child with my father, an Iowa farm boy however I still had questions.  For those questions I asked my father as the basic priciples applied now as they did when he was farming however I had to buy a books to learn about gardening in the Southwest, a new growing region for me.

Same with social media.  Many of the same basic marketing principals apply however social media is a new growing region for business.  Working with someone to help you understand how to grow your marketing using these tools is time and money well spent.   You produce higher yields for your efforts and maximize your opportunities.

I have invested the time to understand how these tools work best for food service so you don’t have to.  Like a horticulture for plants, I serve as a markiculture for food service.   I’m here to help your business grow.

Happy Growing!

Madonna Kash

Restaurant Marketing Partners/ FoodService Geeks