Marketing Restaurant Online

The Power of Twitter In Restaurant Marketing.

Restaurant Branding Online is a whole different game from branding done  through traditional medium like Television or radio. It is very cost effective and yet very powerful if done correctly. However if you neglect this, it can pull your restaurant business down with few push of buttons on iPhones and G Phones-Anroid that are never left alone by generation Y and tech savy consumers.

When I researched the restaurant industry to find out the leaders that were using social media tool like Twitter, the first brand that appears is Popeyes Chicken. Popeyes Chicken has recognized the importance of using social medias like Twitter to attract the new tech savvy generation that is growing in exponential number every day. They have been also exploring new mediums  like My Space, Face book to reach and connect to new generation customers.

There is a  common misconception about this kind of online restaurant branding in the restaurant industry. Business owners of small independent restaurants think that this kind of online restaurant branding is expensive and complicated and that they are only for big chain restaurants with big marketing budget. Nothing is far from truth. In fact,small restaurant has a great advantage even to battle and win the big chain restaurant with big marketing budget provided they want to learn and use it effectively.

I would highly recommend every restaurants  to use Twitter to market their restaurant which would help them  create a great restaurant brand and loyal fans.It can be much powerful than the traditional medias like TV, Radio, Newspapers, Yellow pages all combined.

If you do it yourself then it doesn’t cost you a dime except little bit of your online social time. However if you are very busy, it can be outsourced to another person outside of your company or you could use some one in your own company who is well rounded and knows how to use Twitter and other social media tools on the internet. The most important thing it that you have to have a confidence on that person who you think can represent your restaurant brand accurately and communicate the same message with your customers online. It is like a human customer service available instantly on the internet when ever the customers require service from your restaurant or need to answer any questions regarding your restaurant business.

Twitter is such a great tool for monitoring your restaurant brand.  Using this tool you can defend your reputation and also get so many business by communicating with your potential customers and delivering the right information in a real time basis. Imagine a tourist from other state or a foreign country came to your city let’s say New York. He is hungry. He doesn’t have a clue which restaurant to visit. He likes Italian food. He takes out his iPhone and types a message in Twitter. He asks all his friends if they know any Italian restaurant they recommend in New York in 10th Street. His local friends from New York instantly recommends the favourite restaurant at that particular location on a real time basis. Since he trusts his friend more than a local directory, he visits that particular recommended Italian Restaurant.

Another scenario could be that if the owner of that Italian restaurant had a smart strategies like Popeyes then he would be proactive and respond to the twitter request instantly. He would have used Tweetbeep which would alert him with certain keywords that he would target like “10th street restaurant” just for an example. He would instantly get an alert and could investigate about the query and help him by providing more information and may be with directions. This is proactive marketing that is feasible because of social media tools like Twitter. This would not have been possible may be even few years ago before the birth of Twitter.

If the tech savvy customer had a good experience at the restaurant then he would tweet right away and tell all  friends in his twitter account and possibly to the whole world who ever were trying to decide where to eat at that very moment in New York at the 10 th street. The Italian restaurant might have a chance to sway other peoples decision to dine with them. On the other hand if the customer had a bad experience in that Italian restaurant then he would again tell all his friends via twitter and virtually to whole world. The bad thing about this is the speed of the bad reputation that  would be transferred in split seconds and to thousands and even millions and more. With old traditional word of mouth they would be able to tell may be  10 or 20 people, but with twitter they can tell to the whole world with a click of a mouse or push of a button on their mobile phones. So the thing to keep in mind is that not to mess up with these tech savvy customers.Provide great service and delicious food. He will do the marketing for you. But if by accident the customer got a lousy service and had a bad experience please try to resolve it as soon as possible. You will not have a luxury of waiting time of 14 days to get the complain letter from this customer. Rather he would be sending that same letter in 140 characters or less to all his friends that could be in thousands. That would grow exponentially as his thousands of friends have another thousands of friends.This could mulitpy in to millions and even more.  See how fast this grows. This is the nature of the Twitter. Either it makes it if you do it correctly or it breaks it  if handled incorrectly.

So I would highly urge to fellow restaurant entrepreneurs to look at this simple and yet powerful tool called Twitter very closely and use it to your advantage and not the other way round.