Advertising a restaurant with no ad budget? It’s possible, and some restaurants are doing it quite successfully. Free advertising is just one of the benefits of intentional use of social media. The whole topic is something I’ve looked at from several angles, and yea for every operator who has mined the online options and forged ahead with an up-to-the-second social marketing plan.
Many find that their target audience is most into Facebook, so that seems to be the space that operators leap into first—collecting “likes” like their life depends on it. Personally, I’ve visited many a site that has an interesting element, game or piece of information and the only way to get to it is to “like” the operator first. Annoying, yes, but effective? Yes.
Every time I “like” a page, all my Facebook friends are alerted in their news streams. The average person has 140 Facebook friends, so imagine the number of brand impressions every time a restaurant – or anyone – gets “liked.”
I spoke with Amanda Hite, founder and CEO of Talent Revolution Inc., a social brand consulting firm, and she warns companies not to make every Facebook post about a deal to get purchases out of their fans. That’s not cool. Social media is about socializing and making your fans your peers. So ask them questions. In fact, she recommends a 4-1-1 rule. Four posts should be replies to what fans are posting on your site. One should be asking a question or starting a conversation, and one a promotional post. (For more on these aspects, go on over to the right side under “my articles” and click on “Tweet Sheet.”)
One thing is for sure. If you want to reach Millennials (those aged 11-34), you need to be online. Some 52.8% of surveyed Millennials say they like checking out brands on social-media sites like Facebook and Twitter, according to an article in Nation’s Restaurant News. Additionally, when a brand uses social media, 33.4% say they like that brand more.
Facebook is a rallying point for some astute restaurant marketers:
- Applebee’s has developed a Facebook fan base of more than 1.8 million. How did the chain do it? Ingenuity. For example, in May 2011 it ran a month-long “Girl’s Night Out” (GNO) invitation promotion via Facebook. Site visitors could send a GNO invitation with time, date, Applebee’s location, and a personalized message. The Facebook application allowed fans to keep track of the events they hosted, attended, or both.
- Outback Steakhouse has more than 1.6 million “likes” on Facebook. In December, it used the social media site to “recruit” two social media journalists. Site visitors were encouraged to fill out an online form to qualify for the grand prize of a free trip to the January 2012 college football Outback Bowl between the Michigan State Spartans and the Georgia Bulldogs in Tampa.
There are so many chains doing amazing things, and small mom-and-pop operations can do the same thing. Social media is the marketing medium of the future, and the sooner that restaurants can get a plan together, the quicker they can start directing their marketing dollars elsewhere, and many are translating those dollars into charity donations – making themselves good corporate citizens and giving themselves more to talk about. It’s all good.
Tell me what you think.
Jody
