Customer Engagement for Restaurants: 4 Quick Tips
One of the toughest industries in the US? Yep. Lot’s of competition? Yep. Will you be successful without a customer engagement strategy using social media? Maybe. Can social media help you? Absolutely.
Today a restaurant without a social media presence is missing a huge opportunity to engage with its customers. But that doesn’t mean that you should just plop up a Facebook page and hope for the best. It is not ‘build it and they will come’ with regards to social media and customer engagement. You must have a strategy for engaging with your customers. Here are 4 tips to engage with your customers:
- At a minimum, sign up for and monitor your Yelp and Foursquare accounts. Location based services or social check-in platforms are becoming even more popular with diners. Not so much for discounts and coupons but to be seen as socially active and hip by your friends. Every time a diner checks into one of these services, the check-in is posted to their social profiles notifying their friends of their location. In addition, socially active diners will write their own reviews and comments, which further encourage their friends and followers to check that place out.
- Establish a Twitter account and tweet out your daily specials. You can also give your followers Twitter Only deals. This is a fun way to engage and track the effectiveness of your participation on Twitter. It’s also very effective with your regulars.
- Set up a Facebook Page and do weekly reviews of your favorite food items. If possible, take current photos of those dishes and upload them with your comments. A great way to entice your diners on Facebook is to highlight special ingredients, unique flavors and special preparations. Highlight the friendly atmosphere, or ambiance, or excellent staff. If you have a bar, make sure to feature a cocktail and promote your bartenders. Whatever you do, don’t ignore your page. Post daily, every couple of days or weekly as a last option.
- Short YouTube clips of how your chef prepares an item can also be a huge draw for your restaurant. People love cooking shows and how to segments. Take one of your special items and film a short how to about it. Don’t worry; you don’t have to be Spielberg. A flip cam or your IPhone will work just fine. Most important thing is to feature the food, steady the camera and speak slowly and clearly.
These four ways to use social media will engage your customers, connect them to your restaurant and keep you at the front of the list next time they are deciding where to eat.
Oh, and make sure your website, your menu’s, table signs etc. have your social media contact information on them so customers start connecting right away.
Image: Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Tips and Tools You Can Use: Plancast
Tips and Tools You Can Use: Plancast
Do you ever wonder what events and conferences are worth attending? One way to evaluate what event you may want to attend is to look at your collective friends and followers to see what they have going on. A cool search tool called Plancast allows you to connect your existing social media profiles and search upcoming events based upon keyword searches that you define.
Check them out at www.plancast.com
Are You Crunching The Right Numbers? Measuring Growth Opportunities
Are You Crunching The Right Numbers? Measuring Growth Opportunities
Today, it seems like a lot of small businesses are fixated on their social media pages and image. While that is very important, it’s not necessarily the number of fans/follower/circles/zebras or whatever else you are measuring that matters most. When it comes to crunching numbers, make sure you include the following:
- Since the launch of new media, what is the increase in COMMUNICATION with your existing customers? If you aren’t measuring the increase in current customer contact, you are missing a key metric.
- How many of your existing customers have followed/friended you on your social networks? Are you targeting your current customers in social media? The old adage is still true — takes more to get a new customer than keep an old one — so make sure you integrate your new media marketing with your existing customer base.
- With the advent of social media integration, what has been the increase in UP SELLING or CROSS SELLING to your existing customers? Is your content and communication clearly leading your current customers to added services and products? Are you tracking that?
Why Your Business Needs Location Based Services
Why Your Business Needs Location Based Services
Location based services like Yelp, Google Places, Facebook Places, Foursquare and the like are gaining popularity with consumers. With such services, consumers post reviews, check-ins and tag friends which helps to establish social credibility for the poster and business. What this means to service based businesses is that you have an opportunity to reap the rewards of FREE advertising and up to the minute reviews of your product or service.
Consumers are more likely to visit a restaurant or bar that a friend or family member has recommended or raved about. In addition, with the ability of people to search reviews on smart phones, these location based services provide instant feedback and approval when a consumer is looking for a peer review of a business or service. Not to mention that Yelp, Foursquare and Facebook allow businesses to post coupons, frequent visit discounts and rewards programs right on the site. This entices customers to revisit establishments because of the freebie or discount offered.
There are a few things you need to keep in mind before you go and set up your pages:
- Make sure your business is ready for customer reviews. If you know you have weaknesses in your product or service, fix that before you go asking for reviews!
- Use the sites yourself, before you create one for your business. By getting a first had experience with these services you will be able to see how your customers will use them and it will help you set your goals and strategy.
- Let your customers know you are on the location services. Encourage check ins and promote on signage, website, Facebook page, etc.
- Check out your competition then get creative. Some ways to use the deals and perks is to post your daily specials, create a check in only discount, offer a buy one get one free, or just say thank you for visiting. Be sure to encourage your guests to share the check in with their friends, forward the specials and post photos of their experience. For restaurants, encourage diners to post photos of their meals, favorite menu item, best cocktail, great server.
Remember, each time your customer posts to a location based service, it is often re-posted to their Twitter or Facebook page, which means you get FREE advertising to that customers followers. You really have nothing to lose (unless you have a bad product or bad service…fix that first) and a lot of free exposure to gain.
Types of businesses that should consider using location based services:
Restaurants, bars, clubs, fitness facilities, personal trainers, specialty stores, recreation facilities, special event locations, golf courses, hotels, spa and beauty salons, entertainment locations…basically business that wants to share the experience of their product or service.
These sites are very easy to set up, generally easy to maintain and monitor and most are free. You can do this yourself, but if you would rather have someone do it for you, we can help.
Image: vichie81 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
