Marketing Restaurant Online

It is an incident that happened couple of weeks ago which I forgot about it and let it go. I couldn’t help but think about it again and again because what they did was against the purpose why they did it in the first place. They themselves defeated their own main purpose of getting the message wide spread to as many people as possible.

Well you might be thinking what on earth I am talking about. It is about a blog post that I had written couple of weeks back. I had found a video from one of the television network  on the internet. I found it so relevant to what I was writing on the post that I decided to share with my audience what was happening in  the restaurant industry with regards to economy down turn and its affect on even  high end restaurants.

To my surprise after few days they had taken out the main content from the video and only left the advertisement part of their television network. Well that doesn’t do any good to my blog post that was attempting to convey the message in conjunction to the video content. I was not only advertising their brands on my blog. I would definitely do it with along with the content.  But to them it was like “Get but don’t Give”. Well that formula might  have worked during pre industrial Tv age but it doesn’t work in the information age when message is not controlled by the mass media like TVs but by the world.

I think they don’t realise that they don’t any more control the message. With this incident I get the sense that television industry, some of them are still in the pre industrial age thought process where they believe that all the news or message of the world has to pass and consumed through them. Not any more if some of the Tv executives or department head think so. They though they could control me what I can and can not share with my audience. Well if they thought so then they are wrong. Though they took away the video content, it didn’t do any harm to me. All I did was go to You tube and found another similar video content who understood the value of sharing and posted that video. It did more harm to them than me.

Let me explain why? First of all when any one loads up video online with a BIG SHARE button, that means it  is meant to be shared. They want to get exposed to as many eye balls as possible. Isn’t that what television network want to do? To have as many viewers as possible. But when they took out the video content it was self defeating purpose. If you are a football fan then it is like suicidal goal where your own team mate is scoring suicidal goal against your own team. I am sure any successful team whether it is in football team or television team wants to have that.

Lesson to be learnt from traditional Media Like Television.

Restaurants might think what are the lessons here. Well there are couple of  big lessons here.They are outlined as follows:

1. Lessson Number 1 - Don’t think you control the message any more in the information age.
2. Lesson Number 2 -  Give to Get
3. Lesson Number 3 -  Participate in the Conversation and don’t be snob in the virtual world.
4. Lesson Number 4 -  When you are on the internet you go with the mindset of sharing

Like the Tv that thought they controlled the message, don’t assume that you control the message about your restaurant. Good or bad is going to be decided by the customers. If they didn’t like your service or quality of the food, they are going to talk bad about it online leaving bad comments on social sites like Yelp or Face book or Twitter. So as much as you would like those negative comments not to be exposed, it is not in your control any more. Those high school kids has the power to tell 175 million people at a click of a mouse on Face book. So I would recommend you to focus on providing the best food and excellent service and not worrying about controlling the message. World controls the message now.

Don’t be stingy . You have to give before you get. This is a universal principle that applies to any thing in life and business. You have to give some reason for customers to come to your restaurant.

Don’t act like snob in a virtual world. Don’t clench your fist rather open your hand to give cyber handshake to new people you meet online. Participate in the conversation that goes online whether it is on blogs, or Twitter. To explain further this concept of being open in the cyber world, I cannot think of other example than video presented by Gary Vaynerchuk. Watch the video and you will know what I am talking about.

I hope this will enlighten you about the guidelines how you can have your restaurant’s online presence effective by opening your heart and arms for good cyber handshake and increase more fans on Face book and followers on Twitter.