Facebook for Restaurants
The leader in social marketing is Facebook, which has revolutionized communication in the 21st century. Old media strategies were basically businesses announcing themselves to the public, selling their products and services. Consumers, though swayed, viewed these ploys as an interruption in their daily life. New media, that is since the internet came on the scene, is all about a dialogue between consumers, concerning a business, product or service. This new, permission based style of marketing lends itself perfectly to restaurant industry, where word-of-mouth advertising often produces better results than a traditional marketing campaign. And no site does this better than Facebook. Your restaurant’s Facebook page is the command center for your social marketing campaign. Through your Facebook page photos and timeline, you can establish and express your restaurant’s identity. It allows you to respond to customers quickly and personally. Along with photos and posts, you can use a variety of apps to further engage customers, like menu apps and event apps.Read more about how to use Facebook at your restaurant.
Twitter for Restaurants
Officially, Twitter is a microblogging site. Since its inception, Twitter has evolved into a social media machine. A tweet is short, less than 140 characters, making it a quick way to connect with an audience. With features like Twitterfeed, it is easy to convert an RSS feed into Twitter updates. Like Facebook, Twitter builds a social media platform through followers. Though it is quick, twitter needs regular attention, at least daily tweets, to stay current with followers. Read more about Twitter and how to use it for your business. Pintrest for Restaurants
Pintrest is essentially an online bulletin board, which allows users to easily “pin” pictures they like to different boards. When you click on a pin, it brings you to a modal, which enlarges the picture and gives you the option to repin it to one of your boards, share it via Facebook, like it or comment on the picture. Clicking on the modal picture will bring you to the original website page of the photo. Pintrest is above all, fun. It isn’t controversial. Unlike Facebook, it doesn’t promote customer comments and you won’t (or rarely) have to worry about complaints. Read more about how to use Pintrest for your restaurant.
Foursquare for Restaurants
Foursquare is a location-based social media site used through mobile devices. Visitors can “check in” and make recommendations of places they visit. Foursquare offers personalized recommendations and deals based on where customers are located, via recommendations of their friends as well as recommendations of people with similar tastes or interests. According to its website, Foursquare has a community of over 20 million people worldwide, with more than 2 billion check-ins. It estimates around one million check-ins a day. As of April 2012, more than 750 businesses participated in its Merchant Platform. Foursquare is another way in which word-of-mouth advertising can increase the reputation of a restaurant. For their part, participating restaurants can offer discounts for patrons who “check in” and set up a loyalty program for customers who check-in on a regular basis.
