Social Media Can Be Used For More Than Marketing
Posted by admin
Social media certainly has its benefits for those who love heading out to their favorite restaurants. From free drinks for Foursquare checkins, to Twitter notifications about happy hours, to Facebook messages about free food, there’s always something happening online.
However, social media offers a lot more than just discounts and deals when it comes to food and beverage. Restaurants and bars are giving social media users a backstage pass to the food and the people who make it. Chefs and restaurateurs are using social media to reveal how their dishes are made, generate familiarity with chefs and provide a means for diners to share feedback.
Revealing How A Dish Is Made
You can blame it on the rise of celebrity chefs or the success of The Food Network and shows like Top Chef, but now more than ever, people want to live vicariously through others who cook. Many restaurants, including Chicago’s Piccolo Sogno and The Bristol, are posting videos to YouTube or Vimeo of new dishes being prepared. “The general idea is to pull the curtain back,” says Phillip Walters of The Bristol. “Allow people at home to feel more involved and engaged with that you are trying to deliver.”
Getting To Know The Chefs
Instead of attracting customers with deals, many restaurants strive to use social media for a tailored, personal experience. “People love to go into a restaurant or bar and know the owner or the chef,” O’Keefe says. Think of it as instantly becoming a regular.
That’s why chefs like Joanne Chang of Boston’s Myers and Chang and Flour Bakery personally tweet photos of the kitchen staff at work. “If you’re in a PR firm, you’re not going to get the same feel,” O’Keefe says. “It’s her and you know that it’s her.”
Grant Achatz, the man behind Chicago’s Alinea — named best restaurant in America in 2006 by Gourmet — also does his own tweeting. “Who would you rather hear from?” he asks. “Me directly or some weird person I paid to represent me?” When Achatz is not in the restaurant, he continues to tweet — from where he’s eating in Chicago to where he’s visiting in Japan. It lets people get to know him better and maintains a base, he says. “I’m not a celebrity, but I have a following.”
Achatz’s approach to helping his audience learn more about him is spot on. “Who we are” is the primary message of any effective marketing campaign, says Syeed Mansur, CEO of Sentrana, a firm that uses mathematical models to determine the most effective marketing strategies for companies.
Do you follow your favorite chefs or restaurants? Share your thoughts in the comments.
The Evolution of the Check-In
Posted by Ryan Johnson
Location-based services have been popping up everywhere over the last few years. And while it all started as a way to find your friends, it has evolved into much, much more than that.
When Twitter first arrived on the scene, the status box was empty, with a grayed out question asking, "What are you doing?". Now, we have services like Gowalla and Foursquare asking, "Where are you?" and "Who are you with?" While GetGlue and ShopKick ask "What are you watching/reading?" or "What are you buying?"
While some might say that the age of overshare is upon us, I feel that this is a perfect way for brands to connect with their consumers. I don't necessarily mean checking in to everything we do, but a more subtle approach where programs and services integrate with one another, and then give feedback to the company. Allowing them to build a better product, or deliver a better service. Or even making new product recommendations based on the way a consumer interacts with their service.
I might be getting ahead of myself, since location-based tech has yet to be adopted by the masses. But if/when it does, look for a more integrated relationship between consumer and brand.
Foursquare Gets Down To Business
Posted by Michael Herman
I've been convinced over the last few months that location based services like Foursquare are going to be huge this year. Foursquare's latest move may be the just the catalyst needed for this technology to catch fire.
Foursquare is now making itself much more business friendly by offering a suite of tools for business owners to use in conjunction with the service.
Now every unclaimed business venue has a link asking, “Are you the manager of this business?” The link takes managers to a page asking them for proof that they are indeed the manager so that Foursquare’s sales team can call them to set them up with tools for claiming their venue and managing offers. There is also a new Businesses page explaining the different tools available to local merchants.
Businesses who claim their venues on Foursquare get a dashboard with realtime stats on number of check-ins, times of day people check in, most recent visitors, and most frequent visitors. They can also manage the offers and badges people get when they check in. These include Mayor specials, specials for people who check in a certain number of times, or wildcard specials which can be customized. A special can be anything from a free drink to 20 percent off a purchase.
This is pretty exciting stuff. I can imagine this being very popular with businesses. The marketing potential of this technology is impossible to calculate at this point because it's just too new. Mobile technology in all its forms is getting more popular by the second largely due to the iPhone. Local businesses need a way to cash-in on this technology and integrate their brands with it. Foursquare is undoubtedly the first of what will be many companies developing ways to do that.
Businesses should take advantage of this and give it a try. There's no downside to registering your venue on Foursquare and creating a couple of promotions.
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