•Monday 10 October 2011

Restaurant and Catering

• How many of you like Urban Spoon reviews?

• How many of you like Good Food Guide reviews?

• Research from Harvard University indicates a 1 star increase in Yelp! Rating increases revenue by 5-9%

• Consumers respond strongly to quality detailed information in reviews

• More at http://www.lastappetite.com/do-online-consumer-reviews-affect-restaurant-demand/

• Yelp! Launching here soon.

• Read this: http://www.tomatom.com/2011/06/social-media-tips-for-restaurants/

• Nobu was the hottest restaurant in London

• Why isn't it here?

• 3 years back I posted a video of Nobu making sushi in 3/4 moves a few days after I recorded it on my Flip recorder.

• Now thanks to Steve Jobs I can upload that immediately. And pics.

• Pictures are the best way to communicate: join Instagram on your iPhone and see it yourself.

• Using social media the fastest most direct way to communicate with customers

• But it takes a big investment in time. Daily for 3 to 6 months unless you have magic powers.

• Capital wines: success = 29 tweets a day

• in reality 10 to 20 Tweets a day. Set targets for tweets and finding people to have conversations with.

• You need to have a proper conversation with all your customers. Can I repeat that?

• First look at the current business environment

• Consumer optimism lowest since GFC

• Two speed restaurant economy

• What makes a restaurant hot?

• Brand building but being on trend

• Trend = value, lighter meals, casual dining

• Mamasita, anything Andrew McConnell, Chin Chin

• Very good restaurants doing it tough. Up to 50% down

• Marketing is important and social media is the new part of your marketing mix as well as print media etc.

• Problem: where to find money for social media investment?

• Digital efficiency.

• Accounts that take feeds from the bank/cards. saasu.com, xero.com. Scan receipts shoeboxed.com.au

• Online bookings Dimmis etc.

• Confirmations by text message

• Value website that works with social media rather than flash animation and fads.

Yourwebsite.com• Open source content management Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal

• 15% world's websites use Wordpress

• Avoid proprietary systems that lock you in

• Keep your website simple

• Have a Google map rather than a designer map. On the front page.

• Phone number, address. ONLINE BOOKING. On the front page

• No pdfs. Public menu and drinks list on a page.

• People profiles. You are who what makes a restaurant.

• Picture galleries - from flickr.com or Instagram.

• RSS feed. Allows content to be distributed everywhere to Twitter and Facebook.

• Email sign-up. On the front page.

• Social media icons. Facebook like. Send to Twitter. Email to friend.

Make your site bloggy

• Blogs rank very high in Google search because they encourage links and are keyword rich.

• Recipes rank really highly for Google traffic. Use them on your site (and general promotion on other people’s websites)

• A blog style page can be used as your newsletter if you have RSS (Really Simple Sydication) feed.

• mailchimp.com will make a simple newsletter from an RSS feed.

• Mailchimp then posts newsletter url to Facebook and Twitter.

Simple search engine optimisation• Name your posts/pages

www.yoursite.com/recipe-for-success so Google can find it.

• NOT: www.yoursite.com/recipe_for_success

• NOT: www.yoursite.com/article.asp?blogID148

• Name pictures your-picture.jpg

• NOT: 9435678.jpg or your_picture.jpg

• Use keywords known as meta data

Your social real estate

• Even if you do nothing else get your name of Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linkedin page, foursquare.

• And Google Places.

• Also review sites especially Urban Spoon in Melbourne.

• Claiming listing in Urban Spoon gives free ads for one month. Allows reply as restaurant to reviews.

• Yelp! Similar.

• Yelp reviews complex formula based on rating of reviewer.

• Check out the business pages on Urban Spoon, Yelp and Foursquare.

• If you haven’t heard of Foursquare or hyperlocal marketing read this story I wrote: http://knowledge.asb.unsw.edu.au/article.cfm?articleid=1448

Facebook• After 25 likes you can get url www.Facebook.com/your.name

• You need to migrate from a personal profile for your business to a page, otherwise facebook could take you down.

• use an iFrame app to publish your webpages within your Facebook page (allows online bookings etc)

• Ask questions. Talk to people and answer them.

• Competitions asking people to like your page break Facebook's terms of service.

• Add Mailchimp sign-up app

• Upload photo galleries

• Publish Blog posts using Involver app

• Publish twitter to Facebook

• Publish using Instagram

• Publish menus to Facebook page

Twitter• Upload background pic.

• Write a proper profile with location on.

• People will only follow if you converse.

• Be funny and interesting. Like at a drinks party.

• Mix with a few retweets.

• Don't just broadcast.

• Wordpress plugin to auto post blog items.

• Find people to follow here http://www.jenius.com.au/top100australianfoodtwitterers/

• Publish twitter stream on website. And Facebook. And Linkedin.

Flickr

• Publish galleries of food and drink pics

• Republish gallery on website with RSS

• Make friends

• Comment on pics of your food

Deal sites and vouchers

• Cheap deals kill brands

• Customers are after cheap not good

• Unlikely to result in repeat customers

• You'll probably lose money

How to do it• If nothing else monitor using Google

alerts.

• Read your reviews and use the feedback.

• A new role is emerging the community manager either inhouse or part time

• Job = admin of Facebook, Twitter, newsletter...

• Do it yourself if you can make time

Foursquare

• Grab your business listing

• Geolocation based

• People collect badges

• Make special offers

Finally•Listen to social media and act

•Grab your real estate on the top sites

•It takes commitment and effort to EARN your place in the social media space.

•Here are some of the people I have helped http://tomatomedia.com.au/for-whom/

•edcharles@tomatom.com 0425 736 993