Operators sharing social media strategies at the 2012 National Restaurant Association Restaurant, Hotel-Motel Show in Chicago quickly dispelled the notion that succeeding in these new marketing platforms is easy or free.
However, while social media takes an investment in money to execute sophisticated campaigns and in time to learn and monitor new networks, a few intuitive tactics could improve restaurants’ performance, brand executives said.
Three tips emerged from educational sessions on social media at this year’s show.
Start by recognizing others
For restaurant owners who don’t know where to start in social media, experts on the “Engage & Integrate: Social Media Tactics For Restaurants” panel suggested that they begin by giving attention and recognition to others in order to receive Facebook “likes” and Twitter followers in return.
Matt Bodnar, a partner of Birmingham, Ala.-based Fresh Hospitality, a multiconcept franchisor, said brands that only ever self-promote get ignored, so the ideal starting point is to promote others in the community via social media.
“If you promote other people who are in your niche or in your area on social media without asking for anything in return … you start forming relationships where people eventually start sharing your story,” Bodnar said. “The way that you build those relationships with people is you give to them first.”
He cited as an example a restaurateur forming a Twitter account and searching for people in the same city with similar interests in food and restaurants. Responding to or retweeting those users’ tweets would get the restaurateur on the radar of potential customers, Bodnar said. The same tactic could be used on local organizations, especially local philanthropic groups and charities, he added.
Panelist Chase Gilbert, an owner-operator of Fresh Hospitality’s Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe concept in Nashville, Tenn., credited Bodnar’s approach in part with driving traffic and sales beyond initial expectations at his months-old location.
Some of the people in Nashville with whom he started interacting to promote the local restaurant scene included competitors.
“It just makes people realize that what you’re putting out there for them to see on Twitter [or on other platforms] is real,” Gilbert said.
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Encourage sharing
Experts participating in another NRA Show panel discussion, “Close the Gap: Connecting Social Media with Traditional Marketing Touchpoints,” agreed that customer-restaurant interaction on social networks would result from brands listening to fans, not broadcasting to them endlessly.
But restaurants also must monitor their profiles for guest complaints or questions so that they can respond quickly, said David Stidham, vice president of marketing for Prairie du Sac, Wis.-based Culver’s.
“Every time there is a grievance or a conflict or something that somebody has posted online about a bad experience, we are actually creating a deeper, stronger relationship with them by responding right away,” Stidham said. “They really do appreciate the fact that we reach out to them and aren’t a mindless company that puts a Facebook page up.”
Resolving conflicts publicly on Culver’s Facebook wall encourages just as many guests to respond with their own accounts of positive experiences, he added.
Stidham and co-presenters Dave Florin and Dana Arnold of the chain’s marketing and advertising agency, Hiebing, noted that the more comments, “likes” and shares Culver’s receives on its Facebook page, the better its EdgeRank score, which Facebook uses to measure brands’ influence and determine where they are displayed in customers’ news feeds.
“Digital content is really the only medium out there that the more it’s consumed, the bigger it gets,” Stidham said.
Culver’s most recent promotion was shared widely, not only for its offer of a free North Atlantic Cod Filet Sandwich during Lent, but also because of its entertainment value, Stidham said. The Catch of the Day contest was an online game that let users virtually fish in the sea to hook a free sandwich.
Importantly, the contest was “fan-gated,” he said, meaning that a user had to “like” Culver’s Facebook page in order to play.
“It’s one thing to offer a free item, but it’s another to do it in an engaging, entertaining way,” Stidham said. “I would rather have 300,000 active, engaged fans than 3 million people that are there for a freebie.”
Make it easy, rewarding
However, Culver’s does use vouchers for free value baskets to reward fans for actions like commenting on a photo or sharing one of their own on the brand’s Facebook page.
“If I have 1,000 people a day posting a picture of themselves having a great time at Culver’s, I’ll give 1,000 value baskets away every day,” Stidham said. “We want people to see that behavior, see that it’s rewarded and continue to grow that activity.”
Often, the fewer steps a brand requires from customers in order to redeem an offer, the more engagement they get with social media promotions, as Culver’s saw last year when it introduced its Mini Mixer dessert. Fans needed to only enter the brand’s Big Secret sweepstakes on Facebook to get a voucher for the product, which was released once Culver’s reached its goal of 10,000 entries — in just a few hours.
“It was as easy as possible for guests to engage with the promotion,” said Arnold, Hiebing’s director of public relations and social media. “Are you likely to do these five things just to be entered into something? Probably not.”
Another Facebook promotion, Culver’s Hometown Hall of Fame, focused not on a product but on recognizing “hometown heroes” who embody the small-town values inherent to the chain’s history and “Welcome to Delicious” positioning. Fans could nominate people from their towns to be recognized, and people voted to elect a grand-prize winner, “increasing the virility of the campaign,” Arnold said.
Total entries were down from the Big Secret promotion, but Hometown Hall of Fame still was shared far and wide, she noted.
“People are sharing a story of something they really care about,” she said, “and they are far more likely to share that with their network of friends.”
Contact Mark Brandau at mark.brandau@penton.com.
Follow him on Twitter: @Mark_from_NRN.