Monthly Archives: May 2009

Where Are Social Networking Sites Heading? How Can Your Restaurants Take Advantage Of Business Branding Opportunities Facebook Offers.

Posted on May 20, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

When you look at the history of social networking sites, since 2004 there has been a tremendous growth in social networking sites. It boggles my mind to see how many new sites pop up every day revolving around the idea of social media. To name few dominant ones are Myspace, Facebook and Linked in. The interesting thing to note during this same time is that how some of them have declined while the others are rapidly growing to be an integral part of our modern social medium of communication. What I am talking about here is Myspace vs Facebook. Though Myspace was born before Facebook, it has declined it’s popularity and in a way become old school. While Facebook which came later in the scene of social media adopted a twist on Myspace social networking site model by also implementing the business aspect.I believe that has given a huge boost to Facebook popularity.

Linkedin is also another social networking site focused on business professionals.But it only attracts the business people here. Facebook where as takes personal only approach of Myspace and professional only approach of Linkedin and combines the both and make it one in Facebook. That is what it makes Facebook more dynamic than Myspace or Linkedin. Though they have their own strengths in their own right, what I find it problem to us as a restaurant business owners is that it doesn’t serve a purpose of participating and engaging with the customers. It is like having only young customers in Myspace and restaurant business in Linkedin. So when customers and business are in separate social networking site how on earth are we going to communicate with our customers and engage with them, most probably inform and entertain them to win their loyalty and encourage them to visit our restaurants. Facebook takes this opportunity of filling the vacum that was created by this two social networking sites. Now since Facebook allows a business like your restaurant to create Fan page or Groups in Facebook, you can virtually communicate two ways with your customers, also who have become fans of your restaurant. Business and customers have come to a single social networking platform Facebook. Now only then it makes your restaurant and customer relationship a business sense.

Facebook has definitely been a blessing for small businesses like small independent restaurants. It offers an opportunity to small restaurants to even compete with big chain restaurants. No more can a chain restaurants sit on a heap of extra cash they have and laugh at small restaurants which they have been doing in the pretelevision age. The days of fighting the battle of marketing on the televisions are over. In fact if you are smart enough to execute the Facebook marketing with  targeted advertising, despite being a small independent restaurant and with a less marketing budget,Facebook now levels the battle field plain for you to even win the Goliath.

Facebook by any means is not a magic.It is not something you turn it on and it works wonders automatically. Obviously work and patience is required. You have to have a strong presence. Engage with the fans. Entertain them. This is how you build a relationship and create your loyal fans.

But if you don’t have a patience to wait too long and you are willing to pay money for targeted traffic then there is a service offered by Facebook called Facebook Ad. Basically it allows you to advertise your restaurant to a targeted group of people lets say people residing only in your town or city. Facebook with it’s algorithm it will display those ads to only people that you have targetted specifically. That way you have a more chance of your marketing money worth well spent. It is not like shot gun approach on televisions, radio or newspaper. Facebook Ad  hits right on the target and produces astounding results that is unheard of. Sometimes it might lead you to scratch the head and make you think why one would spent so much on other traditional medium of marketing that doesn’t work any more. This is even better than pay per click advertising on Google because Facebook already has a data of a people living in your area that you are targeting. That means the advertising of your restaurant would not be thrown at the face of a random people like the tv does to annoy them. Rather with it’s unique algorithm it would learn about your customers social profile and only would display the ad on his face. This time you are sure that the customer is more likely to respond because it is more relevant.It is not like the ad from a tv or radio where you see or hear an ad about a restaurant that is located on the other side of the town or city and there is no way you would be driving that distance just to have your dinner.

The main advantage of Facebook Ad to your restaurant is targetted advertising.You can virtually laser target the customers with in your town or city with their targeted advertising and attract to your restaurant.This is how Facebook Ad brings a value proposition to all small businesses including your restaurants.

Hope all of the small independent restaurants see the opportunity that Facebook offers and take advantage of it.

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Posted in Face Book Marketing, Social Media Marketing

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Lessons That Restaurants Can Learn From KFC Free Chicken Promotion.

Posted on May 19, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

Free Chicken  Promotion is most probably the great marketing promotion  that restaurants like  KFC can do if executed well. If not done with cautious planning then it can turn out to be a marketing disaster as it did to Kentucky Fried Chicken. This was definitely not the first time that a restaurant has done this kind of Free Food promotion. Denny’s breakfast restaurant had done it’s FREE breakfast promotions that they advertised during the  Superbowl.

When I was checking my twitter updates I saw KFC as a trending topic.Having a keen interest in the topic of restaurants, I rushed to check what was all this buzz about on Twitter. To my amazement, it was KFC’s Free Chicken promotion announced by non other than most influential Oprah.  Well I was excited for the fact that at least there were restaurants doing a bold promotions on new social medias like Twitter. But later that day and following few days after I started to see the  skeleton of that FREE marketing promotion. It started to bother me especially when I saw the above video of KFC’s President apologizing in front of the video.You do great marketing promotion to create buzz from the customers and not to have President of a company apologize for how bad it went. I also saw the twitter updates and most of them started with “sorry” and “apology”. I started to think how hard that job had been for the PR person who was handling the KFC twitter account.

I don’t agree with the millions that Denny’s spent during the Superbowl just to announce Free Breakfast. I think if you are giving Free breakfast one doesn’t have to spend millions. It could have been advertised with out spending that kind of money. They could have contacted with few hand full of food bloggers and given them  the Free Breakfast coupons with limited numbers of downloads. Denny’s would have saved those I don’t know how many millions of dollars. Additionally it would have been more effective than the Superbowl Ad. The most important thing would be to facilitate the restaurants to track the number of downloads. The sophisticated software would even allow to distribute the coupons at certain town or city and also the numbers of coupons that would be able to be downloaded by the customers.

Without the tracking mechanism built which is virtually impossible on tv broadcast, it was chaos in some way. It was overwhelming and some of the customers who had to wait too long or could not even get into the restaurant were now angry at the restaurant. So thought the promotion was to create the buzz, it had negative counter effect. I think this is more harmful than the money they wasted in the drain during the Superbowl. They might be able to earn back the money they lost during the Superbowl. But the trust they lost due to the broken promise that they could not keep up with their customers could possibly be never earned back.

The same thing happened with KFC Free Chicken promotion too-overwhelming and chaos. They went on and announced with the help of one of the most influential figure in media-Oprah. In a way people were listening to Oprah than KFC. I am wondering how Oprah felt with all the situation and if she would be willing to do this kind of risky announcement later in the future. I bet she would be very careful with restaurant promotions she would agree to announce. Oprah, definitely would not want to risk the leverage of her trust with her viewers and admirers.

KFC’s idea is brilliant. But the way it was executed and how the chaos was handled is certainly not encouraging one. In fact it did more harm than the buzz that they initially wanted to create out of this promotion. Internet is powerful medium. It either works for you if executed well or it works against you if not planned well and things don’t go your way. So the key is to be very careful before you do this kind of mass scale Free Food marketing promotion and have a careful plannings and control mechanism built before rolling any promotions.

I know that KFC had a website where they were allowing customers to download the coupons to redeem it for Free Chicken at one of their restaurants. Later I also heard that they had taken down the coupons just to control the chaos. They couldn’t handle the overwhelming rush of hungry customers which were more than the amounts of chicken that they had in their restaurants. Some of them even had to close their restaurants just because they could not keep up with the demands.

I am not sure if their Free Chicken Coupons distribution had a control mechanism built with special coupon tracking software. With the havoc that went on, it seems they didn’t have it or they couldn’t execute it well enough. Other wise people wouldn’t be talking the negative thing about the free chicken promotion.I believe restaurants have to come up with a mechanism where they should have a control over the Free Food down loadable coupons. They should be able to distribute evenly to all parts of the area where their restaurants are located. With the help of sophisticated software they could assign certain numbers of coupons to certain town or city even dissecting it to zip codes. That way you would know for sure that you would send only that amount of traffic to the restaurant where the staffs would be able to handle the crowds and the customers who got the coupons would be happy to be seated on time and enjoy the breakfast rather than complaining for the chaos.

This is a big lesson for any restaurant to rethink before they do Free Food Promotion. It is a good marketing promotion if you can control it by limiting the number of coupons that you can let your customers download based on the capacity of your restaurant in that particular area.

Should you have other ideas how KFC could have done better, please share your thoughts too. It would be beneficial to all restaurants including Kentucky Fried Chicken should they decide for free food promotions in the future.

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Posted in Marketing-General

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4 Tips On Facebook Marketing That Can Be Effective For Your Restaurant Business.

Posted on May 18, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| 4 Comments

Facebook is a platform that you as a restaurant owner should use it as a networking tool to build a tribe of your own that would become your customers and eventually your loyal fan.Some of the restaurants might think that just creating a Fan page on Facebook is enough. Well that is just a start. There are other things that a restaurant has to do in order to be successful in promoting your restaurant on Facebook. Below are the 4 tips on how your restaurant can use Facebook to market your restaurant.

  1. Create a brilliant Fan page
  2. Reach out
  3. Get Active
  4. Join Groups and create events

Create a brilliant Fan page -As a restaurant business you now have an opportunity to create a Fan page and attract unlimited number of fans and create an unique brand. Some of the the singers and actors have  millions of fans on Facebook. So as a restaurant you can do the same if you choose to do so. But the key is to create rich contents that your customers would like to read. Share some relevant information that your customers would eagerly want to hear from you. It may be about healthy food, or how to remain healthy while eating good food. Add some good quality photos of your delicious food. May be make an announcement of a happy hour or a surprise wine session at your restaurant. Another important thing is to create your own branding image. It must be original and reflect what your restaurant represents. If it is casual restaurant then make it visible with the updates, the photos or videos that you share with your customers.

Reach out- Just creating a Fan page on Facebook is not enough. You have to find a creative way to attract the potential dining customers to your Fan page. Like Gary Vaynerchuk says, you have to hustle to bring those hungry customers first to your Fan page and later to your restaurant. So how do we do this? Well the most effective way first is to identify the key influential people that are related to your food industry. It could be food blogger, or healthy eating group on Facebook. You have to be creative enough to make friends by networking with them. I promise your marketing effort will be much easier leveraging their influential powers to may be thousands and millions of people at one click of a mouse. Alternatively you can also start engaging with potential customers within your town or city by engaging with ongoing updates. Though a little slower process it is worth the effort provided you do it consistently every day. Even if you can make friends with few people – a small number  that is countable on fingers, it is worth to create a momentum. The compounding effect of fans that can be generated virally over a period of some time like few months can turn out to be mind boggling.

Get Active- Now that you have reached out influential people within your restaurant and food industry and also potential customers from your town or city that are on Facebook, you need to get active with them. That means first you must share valuable contents or useful information that are relevant to them. You can do it by making a quick updates on Facebook. The frequency is also important. There is no set rules how many updates you can or can not do. The important thing is that the number of the updates has to match with relevancy and usefulness to your customers. At least one update a day is critical. Because if you don’t make any updates then it can be felt by your fans. It would be like your fans calling you on the phone but no one is picking up the phone. That displays that there is no actions going on and will be clearly visible by the fans on the fan page. So even if there were fans initially they will lose interest and start dropping from the fan page. So please don’t let this happen. The key thing to remember is engage with fans by asking questions and getting feed backs. They will comment and provide feedbacks and your job is to listen. Listen first what your fans are saying. Internalise it and respond to any or all of the comments. This way it shows that you do care about your fans. It also tells them that you do exist as a human being.

Join Groups and Create Events – There are so many groups on Facebook. You can search the type of the groups that you are interested and join the group. Not as a restaurant business but as a regular individual who has a interest on that topic. Lets say you want to attract environmental conscious customers then you can join a group which discuss about environmental impact issues that are dear to their heart. Hope before you join this group you have inclination to at least adopt some of the ways where you are contributing to the planet by just doing simple things like using paper products instead of plastics or foams. Now you can proudly  talk about how businesses, just using paper products can help in protecting the environment. You could share some of the case studies with them. You could also share some good articles that talks about the same issues with some results. Now when you prove them that you are knowledgeable person then they will start trusting you and respecting you. While you are sharing your ideas, you have a reason to display some of the results that you have achieved at your restaurant. You can share and they will listen this time because you have already gained the trust from them. You can even create an event with a theme like , “Saving the environment While enjoying the great Food.” where you are only using recyclable products and also raising money for charity programs like Saving the Planet or something similar to that. These are just some ideas that I am just throwing at you. You can be much creative and come up with your own events based on your interest but also relevant to your restaurant.

Hope you get some ideas how you can be creative and use Facebook as a networking tool and start building a qualified network of potential customers that you could turn them as your real customers at your physical restaurant and hopefully  loyal fans for years to come.

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Posted in Face Book Marketing

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The Opportunity Facebook Offers To Restaurants In Marketing Their Brand.

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

Facebook has become one of the most integral part of our social communication medium. Without it it must be hard to live as a social human beings where we like to communicate with each other whether it is with our friends or loved ones. My self would be a great example who use Facebook more than email or even phone call if I want to communicate with my friends whether in States or other countries. Every day I see new lost friends joining Facebook. That indicates to me that there is more and more people joining  Facebook. It has become a digital home to all of us no matter which part of the world we live in. Before we decide to visit to any new restaurant we ask our friends on Facebook. Some times while visiting restaurants we send Facebook updates right from there inviting our friends. When these new breeds of customers are living and breathing Facebook, it would be a mistake any restaurants would overlook the opportunity it offers.

I was doing a research on the internet and I came across a video presentation about social media by Reggie Bradford . I got more interested as he was talking about restaurants and new way of social media marketing. To my surprise he is from Atlanta. He was talking about local brands like Moe’s South West Grill, Willy’s Mexicana Grill. Even better. I knew then that writing a blog post would be even more fun.

“In the downturn, I think the only way to keep a brand in front of customers and the message relevant is to use social media.Marketing dollars work at dramatically higher multiples when consumers help create your message and pass it along.” Reggie Bradford

Reggie Bradford, ceo, Vitrue, Inc., a social-media marketing firm, explains why it has been more important than ever to businesses to adopt social media marketing in this new age of digital world. He shares his experience about how iHop is successful in tying up the marketing effort using Facebook and was able to even attract a marketer like himself.When he was checking out his facebook, he noticed that his friends had RSVPed to attend IHOP’s National Pancake Day which benefits the Children’s Miracle Network. He then left facebook and headed to iHop’s website. He located the nearest iHop restaurant and went there with his family for the breakfast. This is a classic example how a restaurant can tie in a  great marketing with great cause on Facebook. With out the social networks like Facebook and presence of his friends transparent digital footprints he would not be able to know about IHOP’s National Pancake Day which benefits the Children’s Miracle Network. Attending then would be out of question.  See how all these marketing ties into a network effect. So I would highly urge all the restaurants to have a presence at Facebook and engage with customers interacting, answering their questions, and entertaining with promotions and may be freebees like Denny’s and iHop.

The other thing that I liked about iHop’s promotion is that they have tied up with social cause. They were giving Free Pancakes but also raising the money for Children’s Miracle Network. So it attracted even people like Reggie Bradford to attend the iHop promotion. The marketing is brilliant if you observe this carefully. IHop has tied up this with social cause positioning their brand who cares about their community and the children. This is one of the most powerful marketing promotion I believe there is  because it is connecting with those parents who also have their own children and have a deep feeling to support this cause. These parents are also one of the most socially aware customers there is in the entire planet. You can not sell them with those old sneaky sales techniques or those flashy fake advertisement on the television. They can smell it from a distance. So please don’t even bother trying it to these tech savvy customers. Instead connect them by engaging  and entertaining these customers via social networking sites like Facebook which is their digital home. You would be far ahead than many other restaurants who are still  hiding their heads in the sand as if nothing has changed since 2004 after the birth of Facebook.

So I would encourage to all restaurants if you haven’t used Facebook for your restaurant then start creating a presence on Facebook. Start engaging with your customers. Entertain them with great marketing promotions, events and surprises every now and then. You will win over your customers and create a loyal fan for years to come. I believe those restaurants who acknowledge that world of restaurant marketing has changed and are willing to change themselves by adopting Facebook will win ultimately.

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Posted in Face Book Marketing

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