Posts Tagged ‘facebook’

10 In 15; Facebook Part 1

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Like the Sound Of Music, Julie Andrews starts at the very beginning, so are we however if  you are reading this, most likely you already have a Facebook Page but then again maybe not.  

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

Restaurantmarketingpartners.com
madonna@restaurantmarketingpartners.com
@restaurantmkt
voice    602.492.8419
mobile 602.692.1135

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Build it and they will come??

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

From the movie “Field of Dreams” farmer Ray hears a voice telling him “If you build it, he will come.” Meaning, the ghosts of eight dead White Sox players banned for throwing the 1919 World Series will appear.  In true Hollywood form, tada, they appeared!   Thanks to Hollywood, people are still coming to see the “Field of Dreams” and as I am from Iowa, I too have seen the “Field of Dreams” and let me tell you, you have to really want to see this to get there.

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!!

Restaurantmarketingpartners.com
madonna@restaurantmarketingpartners.com
@restaurantmkt
voice    602.492.8419
mobile 602.692.1135

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7 Reasons restaurants should use Social Media Marketing

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

It is astounding to me when people dismiss social networking.   When I hear someone say they don’t have time for that stuff and they don’t see (understand) the value.  Anymore it’s like poor etiquette, easy to spot in comparison to others around them.

Restaurant marketing is what we do from the back of the house, front of the house and everything else.   Recently, Chef Larry Canepa and I were working on a project together and the topic of where does customer service being for a restaurant?  Where does the selling start? When guest walk in the front door?  Pull up in the parking lot?

I then asked the question, when does Nike start to sell their shoes? In the store?  Online?  If you make the comparison of Nike to a restaurant, the same applies.  Marketing places the brand, branding sells the company, the company produces the product however it is the humans that put it all together to sell the whole package so where does the selling start?  Where is customer service?

In all aspects of marketing is where the selling begins.  Social media gives you an opportunity to put a billboard on every mile marker of what is coined “the information superhighway” restaurants can market their business.  The more exposure the more chances of opportunity to selling your product.

The most common comments I hear back from operators is they just don’t have time to learn or manage social media. They also don’t understand where the ROI (Return on Investment) is for the time invested.   Well,  here are 10 reasons why operators need to take closer look at jumping on board and or re-evaluating their current social media strategies.   I heard social media compared to a Free new puppy; it’s cute and fun at first how when it starts tearing up the carpet and run amok it take time to manage and control which means time and money.

1.   Most of the tools are free to use. We all know nothing is for free.  We give up our privacy in order to engage with others online, that’s the price we pay.  With that said, your customers are paying that price;  are you maximizing your opportunities?   Social media is all about interaction; it’s another bill board for your brand.

2.  Your audience. With over 400 million users on Facebook, 50 million tweets a day and many similar stories all over the place chances are your customers are joining in the conversation.  What are you waiting for?  What is holding you back?  I bet you have many customers using these tools.

3.  Build customer loyalty. There are so many ways to reward and thank you customers for their repeat business yet many aren’t. What are you doing to currently to build customer loyalty?  Did you know you can do this?  Well, you can.

4.  Competitors are using it. If you don’t believe me check for yourself.

5.  Active listening. Many do not see this side of social media.  Let’s say one of your staff insulted a customer or the food had a major mis-take, if you customer is not well taken care of through this they may never return and will of course tell many others of their negative experience.  Now bring social media into the mix, that customer has a megaphone to voice their complaint and they can do that all over the place. Do you know what’s being said about your brand on the internet?

6.  Public Relations. If you have a new menu, I’m sure you’ll want to promote it, question is how are you going to promote it?  You can of course promote it with social media in a big way.  We dare you to find out how much traffic you can drive through a social media driven event, you will be surprised.

7.  Maintaining customer relationships. If you do this part well you do create the customer loyalty we all strive for.  It is easier to keep a customer than get get a new.  You are a customer, what keeps you returning to a business?

For those that have a computer, have a cell number, have an email, use social media all of these tools allow you to communicate with your customers and they are open to communicating with you.   The ball in your court.

Madonna Kash

Restaurant Marketing Partners/ Foodservice Geeks

Restaurantmarketingpartners.com
madonna@restaurantmarketingpartners.com
@restaurantmkt
voice    602.492.8419
mobile 602.692.1135

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media Marketing | Comments Off

Facebook Beats Google

Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Well, Facebook beat Google in the amount of visitors last week for the first time which is huge of course.  Facebook’s homepage was the most visited site in the country.  They also enjoyed a 185% increase this year over last during this time frame; Google’s only nine percent.  Facebook now has over 400 million users.  Pretty impressive.

Twitter saw a 1385% growth from 2008-2009 and now is  seeing over 50 million tweets a day.  According to comScore almost 75,000,000 people visited Twitter in January.  YouTube seen over a 1,100% in growth this past year.

twitter graph 1

Amazing!  The eye’s of the consumer is on the Internet and will continue to increase along with the mobile devices. Restaurant Marketing Partners is in the right place at the right time.

I thought it was also note worthy to mention the Nielsen article about the precent of American’s that watched the Academy Awards while simultaneously using the Internet which was almost half of the audience.  They noted the same behavior with the Super Bowl with the percentages about the same.  One of the differences were more logged onto Facebook during the Academy Awards where as with the Super Bowl, more logged onto Google.

The number of those watching the Super Bowl declined from the year prior where the number of those watching the Academy Awards increased.   Both had an increase of their audience  going online at the same time with the top three sites being Facebook, Google, and Yahoo.

Of course I’m sure this isn’t any surprise however what is surprising is for businesses that don’t see the value of investing in these tools to maximize their online presents.   There are so many opinions to market however when was the last time one of your marketing tools experience double growth let alone the growth we are seeing with these platforms.    It just blows me aways when I see how big this online picture is getting and thrilled to be working in this segment of the foodservice industry.

Madonna Kash

Foodservice Geek
602.490.8419
madonna@restaurantmarketingpartners.com
restaurantmarketingpartners.com
foodservicegeeks.com
@restaurantmkt
Simultaneous Viewing Summary By Event
2009 Super Bowl 2009 Academy Awards 2010 Super Bowl 2010 Academy Awards
% of Population Watching Event 49.10% 25.60% 47.40% 29.10%
TV Viewers Also Going Online 12.80% 8.70% 14.50% 13.30%
Source: The Nielsen Company

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Facebook 1-15-2010

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Last night at a Social Media Club meeting, we dove deep into the details of Facebook sharing experiences and best practices with a room full of social media experts; there was a lot of great information shared. Facebook has a lot of moving parts to it and always changing which means you have always have to be ready to explore new possibilities. To open an account, post pictures, and start posting is diffidently the easy part however there is so much more than.

Privacy, there really is none. If you don’t want information shared about you on Facebook, I recommend having friends and relatives with no computers or digital camera’s that don’t like to go out much to reduce your chances of being on Facebook. Even then, you now have the threat of your classmates posting things about you from years past; isn’t anything off-limits to Facebook? Not anymore.

Users of Facebook, it’s your responsibility to make sure your privacy settings are set to your approval, not Facebook’s yet when they change their policies it makes it hard to stay on top of it. If you haven’t check your settings lately, I recommend that you do. Of course this won’t stop your cousin from posting embarrassing pictures of you but serve as a reminder of what basis information about you’d like to share with the world.

Even after you’ve secured privacy settings it’s still not going to stop your sister from posting information about you on her site use less you tell her. What I love about this is it makes people live and be honest the hard way. Too funny, many people are getting caught in lies because they have forgotten the Facebook factor to which I can say is, good.

When it comes to understanding how to do business on Facebook you need to be reading the Terms and Conditions of Facebook. One thing I see all the time is using your personal profile page as a business page and guess what? Facebook doesn’t like that. They like to selling advertising and if you are using a profile page for a business page you can be shut down and lose the account. I’ve known of a few people this has happened too so keep that in mind if you’re playing by the rules.

Understanding how use Facebo0k for business isn’t as easy as it looks which is why working someone who does will help you have better success on Facebook.   My biggest take aways from last night was the reality of your status updates/postings.   If you are a business with a fan page and you send out a post , the average percentage of your fans that see it is less than 2% out of 1,000.   Two percent; no matter how you write it, the information stays the same.   It pays to learn more or hire someone to help you with marketing your business on Facebook as you are going to hear more and more about marketing success.

Another thing I heard last night that was awesome is “it only takes one click to become a fan of your page and that’s it;  I have a longer relationship with my beer than a businesses fan page” which is so true.    People send me requests all the time to be a fan of their fan page however I have become selective on this as there isn’t much value to me and once you’re a fan the only one that can undo the relationship is the owner/administer of the page which could me you’re tied to them in defiantly.   In order to gauge success on Facebook it takes more than the amount of fans you have.

Well, have to run. Just wanted to do a brief over of last night. More to follow and look forward to showing a few videos about how to work with Facebook soon.

Madonna Kash

Restaurant Marketing Partners/ Foodservice Geeks
www.FoodserviceGeeks.com
madonna@foodservicegeeks.com
@restaurantmkt
voice    602.492.8419
mobile 602.692.1135

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Posted in Social Media Marketing | 264 Comments »

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