Marketing Restaurant Online

I had heard the story about Coca-Cola Fan Page but never had a chance to see the video.
With less time and more videos on Youtube only the best one gets my attention. As I was browsing Youtube, I came across this video. I would not have bothered to watch it if it was not the title that got my attention. The title was The “Coca-Cola” Fan Page on FACEBOOK. (A True Story).

Since I am writing blog posts about Facebook I thought there might be something that I can
learn from those two creators of Coca-Cola Facebook Fan Page.After all it is about one
of the BIG brand Coca-Cola that is very successful on Facebook.

The interesting thing about this story is that Coca-Cola Fan Page on Facebook was created not because the company asked them to create one for them.The act of creating Fan Page by two creators - Dusty and Michael J was purely based on their interest and passion over their favorite drink Coke. Facebook was kind of new then at least to the corporate world that was getting popular, penetrating into the main stream.You can watch their full story with visual effect giving us the sense of what it looked like when they just got started. It is funny and inspirational at the same time. As you can see and hear from them that when they tried to find the fan page for Coke they didn’t see any that really looked official. So they decided to create
one themselves. Today Coca-Cola is one brand that has one of the most successful Fan Page on Facebook that is maintained by not some marketing agency but real die hard fans. I want to point out the difference
between a Fan Page run by some marketing agency and real fans. Commercial Marketing Agency might not
have as much passion as the real fans. In your case you are the real fan that represents your restaurant on Facebook. Also they might not have in depth knowledge about the product or
customers to really connect with them. Coke was smart enough to figure out this. So instead of going
with a high end marketing agency to create their Fan Page, they decided to have the two real fans to
take care of their Fan Page.

After watching this inspirational video about Coca-Cola Fan page created by these two simple guys
Dusty and Michael J there are certain valuable lessons that any one can learn. Hopefully these lessons
will help you get started on creating your own Facebook Fan Page for your restaurant if you have not
created one. For those who have already created one, hope it will inspire you to work even harder to attract and engage more fans to your fan page.

Here are the following 5 lessons that I learnt and hope your restaurant can learn too.

1. Start and you will discover the possibilities
2. Passion is the driving force that will keep you going to build a remarkable restaurant and Fan Page
3. Have Patience. Success doesn’t come overnight
4. Power of Facebook
5. The art of telling a story

Start and you will discover the possibilities

First thing is that one has to START. Even if creating Fan Page of your restaurant on Facebook
seems hard or simply if you think social media is too much to keep up with apart from operating
your restaurant, you have to start the journey of marketing your restaurant in social media somewhere.
As you can see on the video both the creator never knew in the beginning, where creating a fan page would
take them to. Now you know where they are. Obviosly it is not going to be easy but also not that hard if
you keep on doing something and learn new facebook marketing ideas every day.

Passion is the driving force that will keep you going to build a remarkable restaurant and Fan Page

Another important aspect of making your restaurant marketing success is to have a passion for your business. If you don’t love
what you do, then probably creating a fan page is not for you. Because your updates and activities
are clearly visible on your Fan Page. It is an extension of who you are and what your restaurant represents.
You have to love food and people in order to succeed.Like Dusty and Michael J the creator of Coke Fan Page
you have to be passionate about your product, what you represent and love..love..love..(did I stress enough) what you do.

Have Patience. Success doesn’t come overnight.

Another important thing you require is patience. Nothing happens over night. You will have to win hearts and minds of your fans one at a time. Even for Dusty and Michael J it didn’t happen right away. They just kept on
doing different things attracting and engaging them to finally reach thousands and may be a million of fans before Coca-Cola called
them to Atlanta.One thing I have noticed on Facebook is that there are so many Fan Pages created by restaurant owners but they sit idle on Facebook. You need to be patient and try several strategies to get to the point where your fans themselves will start promoting your restaurant. So please have patience, you will get there of course with hard work.

Power of Facebook

In just over two years or so they have over 4 millions fans. This is huge. You might argue that their fan page is backed by Coca-Cola.To begin with they were not. Even with out the backing of Coke they were able to attract several thousands of fans with very few resources than Coke. So what it proves is that if you really combine your passion with creativity it doesn’t require huge marketing budgets to make this happen.This is the power of Facebook if you can harness it’s potential.

The art of telling a story

As kids we have grown to learn by listening to stories. I can still remember the stories my high school teachers told us back when I was in school. It is that powerful. When you as a small restaurant have limited resources and money you have to tell your story hopefully a compelling one to the world.Tell your story to the world if your restaurant business is involved in a local community charity that helps poor people get education to alleviate from poverty, or if your restaurant cares about environment and use environmentally friendly materials in the restaurant or any thing that is remarkable about your restaurant that is worth making a remark about. People who really cares about
those issue will be attracted to your restaurant. I can tell you now for sure that you will make one of the best friendship with these group of people and consequently also loyal customers for years to come.

There are several other things that one can learn from this one simple video. I just presented the main ones that I felt are important. If you see some other please feel free to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment. May be some readers might get some new ideas or learn something new and get started on Social Media using Facebook and many others. I would highly appreciate your comments.Thanks.