Category Archives: Social Media Marketing

Marketing implemented with the use social media primarily internet and mobile phones.

Web 2.0 For Restaurants-What Is A Web 2.0? How Can Technology Be The Most Effective And Affordable Marketing Tool For Small Restaurants.

Posted on January 29, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

Every day we hear the buzz about Web 2.0 and how it can be helpful in marketing your restaurant virtually for free or very low price. So what is Web 2.0? There are many definitions for Web 2.0 but I will try to explain Web 2.0 with some examples to the best of my ability.

Wikipedia describes The term “Web 2.0” as the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web.

Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-culture communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites like myspace.com, facebook.com, video sharing sites like youtube.com, wikis, and blogs. The interesting thing to note here is that Web 2.0 has changed the way we communicate, interact, work or do anything in this new information age.

I would compare the old version of Web to a walkie talkie. The communication was limited to only only 2 people and the communication channel was one way. There was no way the multiple people could talk at the same time. Web 2.0 changed the equation by allowing multiple channel of communication with unlimited number of people.
Old Web could also be compared to a boring lecture where the communication was one way towards the students without having an option for  the students to voice their opinions about the topics or the lecture. With the introduction of Web 2.0 the lecture becomes two ways interactive learning experience where lecturer could provide valuable lessons to the students and students can discuss their opinion about the topics, collaborate their collective research and come to the right answer or conclusion rather than just the lecturer deciding the answer.

Web 2.0 is a blessing to all the small businesses including restaurants if one can recognize its potential and use it to their advantage. As I have written in my previous post that Web 2.0 is  not a thing. It is a mindset. One has to change their belief or thought process if you want to achieve success that you have dreamed. Lets face it you started the restaurant business to have more freedom, more time with your family. To find out the real answers, I want to ask you couple of serious questions.

Do you get on time at night to give a goodnight kiss to your kids?
Do you have free time to attend your kid’s school programs?
Do you get to spend enough time with your spouse at home?
Do you get time off for vacations any time you want?

If you have answered yes to all the above question then good for you. However you can still keep your ears and eyes open to the possibilities of new emerging Web 2.0 technology. If you answered No to all or some of the questions then you need to ask seriously why you aren’t achieving the success you dreamt of when you started in the first place. This is a big question. Lot of small business owners struggle to succeed or don’t succeed is because of their being ness. They work and work but focus working on wrong things. Until an unless you change the belief or the thought process you will be doing the same thing that you have been doing for many years. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different result. If you keep on doing the same way you have been doing, you are not going to get there. First you have to change the mindset. Then that will guide you to focus on the right thing. Then only you will get the expected right results. Be – Do and Have. We have heard this but we haven’t learnt the lesson.

To put the lesson Be-Do and Have into perspective I would like to illustrate with two fine examples. We have heard the story about Tom Sawyer where he persuaded his friends to paint the fence. Tom Sawer’s being ness was different. His mindset was different. If his belief was that working hard by himself was the way to go then he would have been sitting the whole day painting the fence. Instead he surrounded himself with the friends who helped him and made his work easier.

Another recent example is the success story of our own president Barack Obama. When he didn’t have any money or resources at all, who he had to be in order to win the presidential election. He stood up and rose high with great leadership to say that they required change in Washington to make America a more economically stable country and well respected around the world. He ran with the unique selling proposition campaign “Change We Can Believe In”  and ultimately he won. But he had to change his belief that despite the odds he could do it.”Yes We Can”. He had to come up with new mindset leaving back the old outdated dogma of political leadership. He had to adopt the new emerging Web 2.0 technology to communicate with his supporters. Watch the interesting thing that happened as compared to Tom Sawyers story. It is just old time and fresh modern day story but the fundamentals remain the same. The only difference is that president got a chance to use Web 2.0 technology to influence more people than Tom Sawyers. He not only was able to influence the supporters to be an army of volunteers but also provide small amounts of donation which compounded to millions of dollars in campaign contribution which was record breaking in the history of American Politics.

Such is the power of Web 2.0 if you can recognize it and take advantage of it. But as I said earlier first thing first. Before you do anything with Web 2.0 you have to change your being ness. You have to change your mindset. Once have mental make up, then you need to act. This action will then result into having success in your restaurant business. It all starts with the change in your mindset. Web 2.0 is not a thing. But it is a mindset.

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The Power Of Social Media In Marketing Is Proven By Barack Obama’s Presidency? Why Your Restaurant Marketing Needs Social Media Tools Available Online For Free?

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


With the 44th President Inauguration ceremony approaching so close not even few hours away, so many people are still in disbelief that this could happen in their life time. At CNN there was an argument made that had there not the internet and social media tools then probably it  would  have been impossible for Barack Obama to become the president of the United States and that dream of Martin Luther King would not have come to fruition.

I do believe that internet and innovative use of the social media tools have definitely helped him  leverage the idea diffusion and spread out his vision, capturing hearts and mind of the people all over the States and around the world. Never in the history that a political candidate was able to connect to the people on one and one personal level and have interaction two ways in this magnitude.

In the industrial age of television mass media, politicians were used to sending message only one way through television, newspaper or radio. There was no personal connection at all. It was one way communication. It was almost like a lecturer giving boring one-way lecture to smart students with no way of students’ interactions. Internet and social media tools have changed that equation and have allowed smart politician slash emarketer like  Barack Obama to bypass those traditional media and connect directly to the people sharing his vision for better America and calling upon volunteer to help him on the cause greater than themselves. Sure enough people were touched by his authenticity and lots of people provided their time to be grass root army of volunteers. Not only did they provide their valuable time to organize the campaigns but more importantly donated a small amount. The compound effect of the donation collected was so astounding, it was record breaking campaign donation collected in the history ever.

One of the fascinating things to watch as the campaign unfolded was two contrast campaign strategies. As opposed to McCain’s campaign Barack Obama started with clear vision embracing the new internet technology and social media tools. If I have to say in more of a restaurant business marketing language, Barack Obama’s campaign had a great Unique Selling Proposition (USP). The USP “Change We Can Believe In” was so simple yet effective and powerful. He had a clear idea of the change that was coming to the internet technology and new social media tools that were emerging. More importantly he understood the power of the social media tools and used them to his advantage against his much powerful, experienced and well known opponents.

Three of the social media tools that he used effectively that I can think of on top of my head right now are

  1. Face book
  2. Twitter
  3. You tube.

If you look at face book you will find how many face book users have created their own Barack Obama Fan club so to say, in their own town, city or region. This helped them to communicate, collaborate in a group. Everything they did had a compound effect because now it was a collective effort in much faster speed as they were able to communicate on a personal level two ways which they could do online or offline.

One of the thing that I remember vividly is when Barack Obama announced his vice president via mobile phones by text messages and twitter feed. That was a new thing to see from a politician. It sent me a message as a technology user. It not only did send a message about his vice president selection Joe Biden but send indirect message to young generation that he was in touch with them too. He was calling upon the new generation frustrated with the politics that goes on in Washington, to get involved in the process to make a difference in their own community and bring a change to America. No wonder there has been the highest young people participation in the voting process ever in the history.

Another social media that he used it to its full potential is You tube. He was broadcasting his message through You tube. He used the traditional media like TV too that allowed him to spread his vision. But he didn’t stop there. He made sure that he used every readily available tools to communicate not just only to Americans here in United States but virtually to the entire world via internet video connection. His grandmother in Kenya was able to watch via You tube even if Fox channel or CNN was not available there or the students at his school in Indonesia could watch on You tube on real time in the classroom.

Watch the video above presented by Your Business Channel which analyzes contrasting online marketing strategies by Barack Obama and John McCain. Learn what the emarketing experts are saying about the importance of the social media and its influence over the voters and more importantly the compound effect that it can have on the final results.  The revolution of social media has changed the landscape of politics for ever. Politicians from now on will have to make a change to their marketing strategies as internet changes and new social media emerges.

Witnessing how Barack Obama succeeded gradually step by step from no body few years ago to climb the highest post of the world as a president of United States with the effective use of all the social media tools, there is no doubt in my mind that how powerful a social media can be for any business including small restaurant if you embrace the power of social media and use it to your advantage.

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3 Social Media Tools That You Can Use To Market Your Restaurant For FREE

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

The three social media tools that you can use right away and market your restaurant  effectively virtually for free are:

1.Youtube
2.Facebook
3.Twitter

Youtube is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to small restaurants today. It is a social media video sharing site where you can host your restaurant videos for free and  more importantly promote it effectively with organic traffic that you could generate with the targeted keywords. It is like getting your restaurant advertisement on a big television except with out having to pay the huge advertising fee.Can you imagine if you had to advertise in traditional media like TV, how much it would cost you? It would simply be out of reach to small restaurants. But with the rise of video sharing site like You tube any one can market their restaurant on online for free.

Face book is another social media tool that is not used effectively by lots of restaurant. You can get lots of traffic virtually for free if you can creatively use this powerful tool. There are several groups in Face book.Some of these group might be right from  your town or city. Join those groups. Make some connections with them. Introduce yourself to the group and post some special offer like free appetizer or free drinks to only the Face book group members.

Create your fan page and let them know that you have a fan page. Attract them by giving some free foods in the begining.Once they try your free appetizer or free drinks and that they like your food or your hospitality they might become a fan. They would in turn influence other people in the group to become a fan of your restaurant. There is no limit for the numbers of fans you can create. You could continue to create thousands of them. Check out the two most popular fan pages created by Domino’s Pizza and Pizza Hut. You will get an idea how powerful marketing it can be for your restaurant. Best of all it is Free except your little bit
of time.

Twitter is becoming so popular now that it seems every one is in twitter. It is another powerful communication tool which allows you to communicate two ways with your customers back and forth at once in a real time basis in no more than 140 characters. That means your communication has to be short and more importantly be useful to them. For example you can send some special deals right before the lunch or dinner time. It could be as simple as 10% discounts to as attractive as buy one and get another for half price. The short messages can be sent in the form of mobile coupons on a real time to every customers that are following your restaurant on Twitter. They will get the special offer on their mobile devices like iPhone, Gphone or any other internet enabled mobile devices or even in a regular mobile phones in the form of text messages. Who ever want to take advantage of the coupons will redeem it at your restaurant
by showing the messages on their phones. It would be that simple. No more paper coupons to deal with.
No more emails to dig into their inboxes. If you use Twitter very creatively you can pull customers to
your restaurants with ease and style.

Go ahead and try all these tools that I mentioned and you no more have to depend on those sales rep who are just there to sell the ad space for their magazine or newspaper. I would like you to have a control over your restaurant marketing. Go ahead and try some of these tools. You don’t have to do all at once. You can try one by one. Master one of them and move on to the next. You will be amazed how powerful marketing tools they are.For few seconds you might be scratching your head in disbelief that all of them are FREE.

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Social Media Marketing-What Is A Restaurant Social Media Marketing? Learn How Obama Used It To Win And So Can Your Restaurant

Posted on December 29, 2008 by Nash Sherchan| Leave a comment

What is Restaurant Social Media Marketing ?

Restaurant Social Media Marketing is a process of marketing your restaurant by using innovative use of social media primarily internet and mobile phones.

Picture of Barack Obama

Barack Obama-Person of the Year 2008

President Elect Barack Obama has been chosen as the person of year 2008 by Time Magazine. No doubt, his election campaign was one of the most successful and innovative in the history of American Politics. Never will the marketing strategy be the same again. That means politicians will have to take a different approach to reach their supporters, communicate directly with them on one on one level and share their vision and win their hearts and mind and ultimately make them the grass root loyal supporter.

Five most effective tools President Elect Barack Obama used to win the election.

  1. Blog/Website
  2. Email
  3. Facebook
  4. Online video
  5. Text Message

How he used all those social media  tools to win the most powerful post of the world ?

When he started his journey, a steep one to White house, neither did he have enough money nor supporters. How ever he understood the power of social media marketing and to use the tools readily available to his advantage if he did really want to win the election.

First thing he did was created a website with blog. Obama knew the secrets of using email marketing. So he built a massive permission based email list via his website. He was able to capture almost 4 million email addresses of supporters. He was now able to bypass the traditional industrial age media and communicate with them on a personal level and share them his vision. Ultimately he won their hearts and mind and turned them his grass roots army of volunteer supporter who not only made small donations but gave their time to spread his vision and win over more supporters. This kept continuing and had that snow ball roll effect. Ultimately it led him to victory over his much stronger, experienced opponent. Such is the power of social media marketing.

If you check out his website at www.barackobama.com you can get a feel how he has tapped into this incredible medium-internet. But the irony is very few use them. He also has used online video to broadcast his message not only to people in America but to every one around the world. Even a guy from Kenya and Indonesia can view his message.You can see face book link page and several other social networking sites.This enabled him to create fans around Barack Obama with his unique selling proposition slogan “Change We Can Believe In””

Before announcing the nomination of vice president, he didn’t choose to broadcast via traditional media but did it via text message. That also means that he had that 4 million mobile phone numbers that he had collected during the email sign ups. He now had another powerful medium to connect with his all supporters at a push of one button on his cell phone. Do you see the power of the social media.

How can your restaurant use social media and win over tons of new customers ,make them loyal and create fan around your restaurant brand ?

Now you might be thinking if you can really use the same Obama’s strategies to your restaurant business. The simple answer is “Yes You Can”. Internet has leveled the plain field. Any one can use these tools available online. The key is that you have to be able to identify the tools that will be helpful to your restaurant  website and use them.They are all over internet. It doesn’t discriminate against  rich or poor  unlike traditional media like TV where you have to have loads of money to get in. I believe most of the small restaurant business doesn’t have that kind of money to waste over mass broadcast marketing which is not effective any more. Even if you had the money why would you want to throw on the marketing that doesn’t really work for your restaurant. We call it a buffet syndrome. If you really want to have just a soup why do you want to go to a buffet and pay over $10 or more. It is better off to go to Quiznos and pay may be $2.29 or less and be done with it.

How can we do this will be the second question. The answer to that would be first by simply starting Free Blog/website. There are several free blog software program. But I recommend word press blog platform (www.wordpress.com) because it is free and second if you decide to go for paid self hosted wordpress, then there are so many features that can added as required by demand with the change of time and trends. You can go online right now and at no cost to you and within few minutes you can build your own blog/website.

The second thing that needs to your blog/website is email program that can capture the potential customers of your restaurants. It could be new customers who would like to try your FREE appetizer when they sign up your email list or your loyal customers who would like to periodically hear from you. One of the reasonably priced email program that I would recommend is self service icontact email program. You can check them out at www.icontact.com

The third thing you have to do is, to create a face book page and link that to your blog. You can create fans around your unique restaurant concept. You can recruit fans on face book who have similar food taste that your restaurant provides. You can go to facebook.com and check out groups that are online; you will find so many restaurants who are creating fans around their brands. Recently when I checked out I saw Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurant with lots of burrito fans. You too can create your own fans whether it is independent or franchise brand.

The fourth thing you can do is create a video and broadcast your restaurant message to your potential customers and loyal customers. You can create a short video with your chef cooking the signature item and make those online viewers salivate and come running to your restaurant to try the food that you were bragging about. Though it sounds very technological to have video of your own restaurant online, it is not. I am sure we all have taken some video of some sort during vacation, why can’t you take video of your own restaurant. Then you can create your own you tube video account at youtube.com and upload your video online and make it available to the rest of the world. By the way don’t get surprised if some customer from Berlin, Germany and  comes to your restaurant and orders your signature item without even looking at your menu.

Even if you don’t have video of your own restaurant, you can search some funny you tube videos related to restaurants and upload those funny restaurant videos and you can have your loyal customers enjoy some jokes around the office to get them out of the cubical boredom. You will make their day little less stressed if they are going through a bad day.

Lastly you can use your customers’ cell phone numbers I hope if you have collected while collecting the email addresses to your advantage even if it is a rainy day and bad for your restaurant business traffic. One of the simplest thing you can do is create mobile coupon in the form of text message with 10 % discount or Bring your friend and get free hot soup for both, assuming it is cold when it rained that day.The idea is limitless, you can create your own creative mobile coupons and have all those floods of office workers or university students at your restaurant. Make sure that you give “I don’t know what happened” look to your competitor when he tries to sneak into your restaurant to figure out what you had really done.

I am sure you agree with the Time Magazine who chose the President Elect Barack Obama  as the “person of year 2008″and hopefully you will do the same with me too when we vote him the “marketer of the century” 2008 .

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