Sorry folks. But there just isn’t any discernible ROI for restaurants in social media. Does that mean that restaurants shouldn’t be using social media, or investing in their digital presence and strategy? Absolutely not, but let’s cut the crap and cease muddying the waters with terms like “return on investment”. Is that why you opened a restaurant? To get a healthy return on your friggin’ capital?

I think not, so let’s stop playing that game with one another and talk about what’s important.

What’s important is that your brand, your business be visible and in front of the most passionate and committed segment of your given cities dining community. You need to be where these people are, where they hang out: to chat, to gossip, to have fun, to gripe, to praise. These are the people who appreciate when restaurants engage with them and do so on the platforms they prefer.

What else do I mean?

• I mean conversing with customers and potential ones. I don’t mean tweeting out nothing but your daily specials once a day and peace-ing out back to the kitchen.
• I mean reading the blogs and tumblrs, testing out new apps and platforms. I don’t mean sticking your fingers in your hears and hoping it all goes away.
• I mean listening to your followers and friends and creating content that is relevant, humorous and helpful to them. I don’t mean soliciting or sucking up to people in hopes of getting a few more “likes”.
• I mean joining the community of other restaurants in your city and neighborhood and building them up as much as you should. That means get out of the kitchen, go meet the other chefs and restauranteurs, collaborate with them, work together to solve mutual problems or to create fun new opportunities. We are watching and we will reward those establishments that are proactive online and off.
• I mean involving yourself in the events, charities, opportunities, street fairs and markets where your customers hang, not just the ones that give you the promise of great press.
• I mean taking terms like strategy and analytics seriously.

Ultimately, I mean generating and executing a strategy that is line with those passionate principles you had when you started the business.

Just do me a favor, stop obfuscating, stop obstructing. There is a very healthy return to be had on Social Media. Stop looking for it in the wrong places and with the wrong terms.

Things can get ugly quickly. This story from Houston seems like a harbinger of things to come:

​Allison Matsu was having drinks at Down House on Sunday night when she posted a Tweet, since deleted, wherein she called a bartender a “twerp” for quoting Bobby Heugel — the owner of Anvil Bar & Refuge — and appended her statement with the hashtag #jackass#jackoff.

Matsu has achieved mild, local notoriety for her late-night Tweets, even recently winning aHouston Press Web Award for that very activity. Down House, for its part, has achieved a reputation in the short time that it’s been open for having capricious service. The two collided in a Twitter-fueled spectacle that resulted in general manager Forrest DeSpain calling the bar, speaking shortly with Matsu, and asking her to be ejected from his establishment.

“She called him a twerp,” DeSpain said by phone yesterday afternoon. DeSpain runs the Twitter account for Down House and was agitated that someone would bully his bartender, as he saw it, and took action despite not being at the restaurant that night. “I immediately called up here and talked to her for a few minutes and asked her if she had any kinder words.” She didn’t, DeSpain said, so he asked her to leave.

Left @DownHouseHTX in tears after GM called up & asked the bartender to hand me the phone. He proceeded to curse a me & ask me to leave. Wow

August 15, 2011 12:14 am via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@AllisonHiromi

Alli

I prefer to stay on the positive side of things when I think about where social media and real-life meet. But as more of our lives are shared in real-time, and are geo-located, incidents like the one mentioned above are much more likely to crop up. Restaurants and other businesses that are subject to social media interactions taking place in real-time need to develop policies and protocols for situations just like this.

The truth, however unfair, is this: when these incidents happen, most outsiders are immediately and inherently going to sympathize with the client. A woman leaving a restaurant in tears after being berated on the phone by a manager? Not good. Who knows if the woman was drunk? Or overly aggressive? Shit, maybe she works for a rival restaurant and is just causing trouble.

We have all been trained that the customer is always right, especially in a place like a restaurant or a bar. Anyone who goes out regularly knows these situations crop up form time to time, though of course most of the time, the situation never gets close to the intensity and seriousness of this incident.

But because consumers and the general public will almost always, at least initially, side with the offended customer, businesses needed to be extra careful how they handle these instances. Customers can be bullies no doubt. And a business owner should always protect their team members and employees from an aggressive and offending customer. This really is new territory.

I have a recurring fear about tweeting something unsatisfactory about a chef or a particular dish and having that chef or general manager see my tweet and confront me. I wonder if I would be able to collect myself and back up my critique, or cave and apologize. I really don’t know.

With Fall fast approaching and with it, my 2-year anniversary of being in business as a digital strategist looming ominously overhead, I’ve been wanting to do a taking stock post. Many of my clients over these few years have been restaurants and restaurateurs, and as a food lover and true denizen of New York City, the playground of social media is one that I’ve been focused on even when I wasn’t working on client projects in food. I suppose as I start to get a little nostalgic over the past couple of years, I’ve been wrestling with a summation of sorts, based on but not limited to the following questions:

• what has exactly gone on?
• Where were my predictions right?
• Where were they wrong?
• What did I completely miss?
• Where have I been surprised?
• What’s working and what isn’t?

What Has Happened to Restaurants and Social Media?

At least now, they all know what social media is, what it can do, what it can’t and whether it is for them or not. Going back a few years ago, my job was one first of education then of selling. I had to inform clients and the broader market about just what social media was. And of course, educating businesses and businesses people, and BUSY ones at that, was not and remains a difficult proposition. Half of that is because “social media;” its tools, outlets, protocols, apps and services are in a constant state of flux.

But I can say quite safely that the broader restaurant community in and around New York City has come quite far. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of restaurants actively using social media for a multitude of reasons and in unique and interesting ways. Also, there are tons using social media in predictable, boring, pedantic, even obnoxious ways. Takes all kinds…

So for every Dell’Anima and Joe Campanale, for every Luke’s Lobster and Supper, there are plenty of restaurants doing nothing more than tweeting out photos of food, refusing to learn the various platforms and tailoring their activities in any specific way.

What Does Success Look Like for Restaurants Embracing Social Media?

A fraught question, because a straight marketer and business person would have to say “an appreciable increase in business correlated to the amount of time and energy we’ve put into it.” And that straight marketer wouldn’t be wrong.

Of course, we all know I am not a “straight” marketer, at least not totally. I am comfortable with questions about ROI.

But social media will always contain an element of “feel,” an aspect that isn’t describable or definable and certainly isn’t trackable. Whether measuring in Klout scores, retweets, mentions on Eater, mainstream press attention, etc.. success in social media is really a feel thing. Eventually we will have great tools that cross-reference actual POS sales against social activity, but until that day and even beyond that, whether or not a restaurant can be said to be successful with social media is going to be subjective.

It’s going to be in the ether, a matter for jokes and references among the fooderati (yes i said that). Success in social media will be defined by consistency, experimentation, tone and fun.

So Where Are We?

Right now I think that the restaurant scene in New York City, with regards to social media, is closing in upon a really great sweet spot. We have lots of voices already involved with the community, with more coming on every day. And as these new restaurants come on, they’ve had the time to understand what social media is and what it isn’t. Social media for restaurants is NOT about saving your business, or generating a quick sales boost. Enough restaurants have tried that route and ended up washed up in the rocky shoals.

Another reason we are close approaching that sweet spot is that restaurants are experimenting with newer tools like Foursquare, Instagram and Tumblr. Experimentation is a hallmark of the digital world, an understanding that trying and failing are good things in the long run.

This morning I checked into Murray’s Bagels on Foursquare, earned a badge and this is the tweet I got back in return:

@Zacharycohen Thanks for the visit, and congrats on the badge! Hope everything's delicious.

August 18, 2011 9:26 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@MurraysBagelsC

Murrays Bagels

That was ten minutes after I checked in and a nice surprise as I devoured a poppy seed bagel with Lox, onion and egg. (It’s called the LEO). This is the kind of thing that clearly communicates that restaurants, or the people they are hiring are really starting to figure out what a good social media profile looks like for a restaurant.

I’ll be doing a few more of these wrap ups in the coming days and weeks so keep an eye out. And please feel free to leave a comment if you want to add to the conversation, or if you feel I’ve missed something

This past week, the Soho Grand Hotel launched a brand spanking new Facebook brand page, complete with customized graphics, a reservation system loaded directly in, an interactive neighborhood guide with links to their awesome blog Grand Life. Take a look:

So what’s the problem you might ask? Well, nothing. They did a great job, and knowing the team behind the Grand Hotel’s digital platform, especially the irreplaceable Steven Rojas, the did all their research and pulled off exactly what they should have. Except for timing. Because they launched this initiative roughly at the same exact moment that Google Plus launched. This means that the power and scale of Grand Life’s Facebook just got severely marginalized. Doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable or that bookings and deals and terrific web traffic won’t go there way but it just means that by waiting so long to launch this, they’ve proven how ephemeral social networking can be. Especially for businesses.

Now I don’t know what went on internally with Soho Grand’s team. It’s possible they ideated and launched this in 5 weeks. And if they did, great for them. But I am guessing that this is something Steven and his team wanted to do for a long time and for which the natural bureaucracy of an offline hospitality business dragged their feet on.

If that is the case, then it cost them. And I am not saying that Google Plus is going to kill Facebook. In fact, it may make Facebook stronger and better at what IT IS. But the mere fact that another major social network launched, one that as of this writing has crossed the 10 million member mark already, in the time that it took to get this Facebook strategy launched, proves the point that marketers and brands cannot wait to act.

When you need something done, do it. Don’t spend months and weeks analyzing and researching and putting it off. Marketers and consultants, designers and developers as well, need to move quickly and efficiently. And most of all, those holding the purse strings need to know that their instransigence, their caution, is costing their companies a great deal of money.

A recent info graphic illustrates a dirty little truth about the restaurant industry in New York City; Only 10 percent of NYC cafes, bars and restaurants are using Facebook. According to the data assembled, there are just over 16k entities listed on Yelp in New York. Out of those, only 10% have Facebook pages. For sure, having a Facebook page does not automatically mean that a restaurant is using that Facebook page. Furthermore, there are certainly some businesses (like food trucks) who don’t even bother with a Facebook page and just use their Twitter account for outreach and promotion.

Via EyesandFeet.com

When I started this business a little over a year ago, my main focus was on the hospitality business because that was the industry that I was most interested in. It was also where most of the contacts in my personal and professional network resided. I figured it would be easy pickings working with restaurants to build out there social media marketing efforts. Not only was I wrong, I was spectacularly wrong. And what I was wrong about was that the hospitality business is a very difficult one to break into. Business owners in the industry just don’t take kindly to outsiders. If you haven’t worked the line, been in service or in operations, than getting people to listen to you is a near impossible task. Even for a talented and charming marketer like myself.

The hospitality industry is very suspicious of outsiders, but it is even more suspicious of sales people marketing something they either don’t understand or don’t believe in. When it comes to my approach to digital marketing, frequently it was a combination of this.

So with the factual evidence we now have at our disposal, it is worth asking the question:

Why Haven’t More Restaurants Embraced Social Media?

Simple…Because they are already a social business. A social business being one that brings people together and provides them with either food, coffee, entertainment, alcohol; even shelter. Hotels, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, music venues, comedy clubs. All examples of social businesses. I am sure there are many more I am just not thinking of.

And because restaurants are already a social business, one whose very survival and success depends on bringing real live human beings into their physical space, anything that even slightly departs from that primary task just isn’t a priority. Digital strategy, web design, email marketing, social media, geo-location. Even for the restauranteurs embracing social media, they are doing it more out of fear of being left out of the cool kids’ loop, than out of a belief that this stuff actually works.

The dominant belief still is that digital marketing does not bring in physical business. And it is a belief that must be drained of its efficacy immediately. Because nothing is more crucial to a restaurants business than what its actual customers are saying about it. Not the influential bloggers, not the press, not the critics. That stuff matters, no doubt. But when that person in our circle who is the go to food guy or girl tells us that we absolutely cannot afford to not eat at a new (or old) restaurant, that recommendation means more than anything. And what is social media if not that exact experience, scaled locally, nationally, globally.

As the hospitality industry continues integrating with social media, I’ve heard a few stories here and there about restaurants, pizza joints and delis accepting orders via Twitter. Seems easy enough, basically the same thing as calling, except one less step, and its all written out there for whoever is taking the order to fill. Of course, it would make paying with one’s credit card a bit more risky. On top of that, everyone would know what a fat ass you are for ordering pizza when you should be eating almond-encrusted tempeh with sautéed Kale.

These minor issues notwithstanding, I think restaurants should try experimenting with ordering online via Twitter. Here are some reasons why:

FOOD = CONTENT

A lot of the restaurants I speak to don’t realize at first, but they are content producers. Their FOOD is their content, and for the best restaurants, this means that on a daily basis they are producing lots of great content. Even more than bloggers like myself!

So if a restaurant decided to start accepting delivery or take-out order via Twitter, the number one thing that will happen is that their precious content will be in front of a lot more people.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Another great reason to accept orders via Twitter is to show off how well a restaurant handles customer service. Since the whole thing is public anyway, other potential customers would see how a restaurant communicates with its clients. Are they personable and friendly? Are they exceedingly formal? Do that have a unique personality about their feed? And how do they deal with problems?

What happens when a restaurant forgets to include a tub of hot sauce and the customers’ falafel is getting cold?

All of the above are opportunities for restaurants to really shine on Twitter. And if they get busy, if ten people are tweeting in orders at a time, then they could always start a separate account just for orders.

MORE BUSINESS

At least initially, the gimmick itself would probably drive more business. In fact, I think a restaurant could generate a ton of new business by offering and promoting their tweet service. To go one step further would a restaurant could tell their customers that 1 lunch a day will be given out for free. But don’t make it a contest. Just give out the lunch, and ask the receiver of that lunch to thank you so that everyone knows it was legit. Do that every day, day in, day out, and people will be clamoring to order from you.

Maybe I even just solved that lunch business problem that so many restaurants have?

Image courtesy of kamshots on Flickr

The Ups and Downs

The twists and turns of independent consulting right now are dramatic and severe. One day we are absolutely essential and urgent RFP’s flow in. The next we are as unnecessary as can be. The hot and cold nature of clients can throw even the most stable consultant into a tizzy. I’ve had clients pepper me with questions until both they and I are blue in the face. And then come back for another round. I’ve had potential clients ask me for proposals only to tell me my services won’t be necessary and sitting back and watching them institute every single one of my ideas.

As more and more companies get familiar with social media and convince themselves they need to engage, the temperature and intensity of client interactions and pitches is heightening. And so much as independent strategists like myself desire this, there are some pitfalls to watch out for.

Most of all is the tendency to react to quickly to client overtures. Personally, I get way too excited by consults that go well. I even get excited by meetings that don’t go so well. This a form of arrogance that needs to be tempered. Because people on the bleeding edge of social media interaction, those that are well-informed of trends and developments in the social space, who know how to use the tools, who have programs worked out ahead of time for their clients, believe themselves to be more than necessary. And you know what, in a way we are. But just because we feel this way, doesn’t meant the rest of the world does, especially those that we are pitching.

Yes its true that many managers and those holding the purse strings are taking social media much more seriously than they were even a few short months ago. I spent most of the fall explaining to potential clients why they need to engage with social media. I no longer need to do that. Great! But with this added businesses comes another level of scrutiny that social media marketers need to adjust to. We are often faced with people who only have a tentative grasp of the issues and the tendency is for people to act like they know more then they do. It then requires time for us to parse through exactly what we are dealing with.

The Twists and Turns

The twists and turns that social media marketing can take are varied. I’ve had consultancies start with a specific set of goals in mind only to find two weeks in I am knee deep in issues that were never on the table. Often this is because clients don’t have the necessary infrastructure to carry out our pre-approved goals. This is one of the most fraught situations to face because everything gets pushed back, and then the client, often looking for reasons to believe you aren’t worth the trouble, time or money, can point to lack of progress. It’s not fair, but life never is! And we are the ones who have to shoulder the burden, because after all, we work for the client. It’s their dime.

The rapid nature of social media marketing, and the entire world online forces strategists to constantly be on their toes. Not only do we need to effectively service our current clients, we have to perform due diligence on future projects, pitch new clients. On top of all that we have to remain completely up to date with developments in the social space.

What new apps or applications or social networks are launching?

How will these effect my current or future clients? What about client’s that have already been serviced? Do we have to go back to those clients and ensure that they are up to date with these new developments.

For instance, right now I am watching the controversy over Facebook, which I wrote about yesterday, and how it may effect marketing on social networks. At the exact moment that many of the businesses I know are getting ready to finally engage Facebook in a serious way, it may be that Facebook is on its way out. Yes that is exactly how serious this controversy is. Facebook may be on its way out. And right now businesses are out there making plans to dominate what could very well be a defunct or at the least a highly compromised service.

In short, social media is a roller coaster ride of emotions and actions. The best we can hope for is to hold on tight, trust in the integrity of the system we have in place, and even try to have a little fun! Throw your hands up in the air! I know that after a tough couple of weeks here I am pledged to try , sit back, trust in the integrity of the system I have built over the past 9 months, and simply enjoy the ride.

Image Courtesy of flatluigi on Flickr

Yeah look. I love Foursquare, I use it every single day. I love “checking-into” locations all over town, seeing who has been there, who the Mayor is, and especially the tips people leave around town. Whenever I hit a new restaurant, the tips are particularly helpful in successfully navigating a new menu. If enough people tell me the Truffle Mac and Cheese is a can’t miss, guess what? I’m getting the Mac and Cheese. I’ve even been known to leave some funny, snarky tips around town to let people know that I’m around having fun, with them and the service itself. Foursquare is getting the most press out of any social-internet company and, they’ve just celebrated both their 1-year anniversary and their 1 million user mark.

Which is why I am befuddled at some of the partnerships and directions the young company seems to be taking. I am not sure if it is due to their tremendous growth, both in users and internally, or the ridiculous expectations that everyone seems to have, but Foursquare doesn’t seem to know what its doing. I wish they would just tell us. Isn’t the hallmark of the social web supposed to be that everything is open and transparent, authentic and honest? Is that only for the users of these services but not for the companies that enable us?

One could look at Twitter’s own recent missteps and see them as either corporate incompetence or growth pangs. As startups progress from edgy outsiders with visionary and benevolent goals to corporate behemoths with investors who require a return, all companies must struggle with this tension. Simply witness Google’s own struggles to maintain their corporate ethos of “Don’t Be Evil,” with issues of security and privacy breaches. Of course, Google has seen the error of its previous actions and decided to end cooperating with the Chinese government over Google’s user information.

Foursquare needs a similar self-correction. And soon. I understand that user-growth is still the primary objective down at Foursquare HQ but I still think they are missing out in filling important holes. So many venues still have yet to hear about Foursquare let alone start implementing specials or utilizing the dashboard. And this is where their revenue, if there ever is to be any, is going to come from.

And yet, Foursquare has seemed more interested in high-profile partnerships with big media and luxury brands like The New York Times, Bravo, VH1, Marc Jacobs and now Jimmy Choo:

Using location-based social media tool Foursquare, Choo has created a real-time “treasure” hunt around London. The concept behind the promotion? Over the next few weeks, one pair of Jimmy Choo trainers will “use” Foursquare to check-in at points around London and send real-time updates so participants can locate them. The trainers can also be followed on Twitter and Facebook. Those who reach the venue in time to catch the Choos will be able to keep them.

What is the point of this garbage? Do they really think this is the way to go mainstream? Or are they simply interested in amassing a roster of $10k a month branding entanglements just because they can? I really don’t understand this, of course, I’m not that smart. But I am interested.

I am interested because I think incentivizing both people and businesses is they to Foursquare’s growth and its success. But that’s not where they are directing their energy. I’ve worked with businesses who have tried multiple times to get their specials on Foursquare. The customer service is basically non-existent. One client got a message saying they were simply overwhelmed and were having technical issues uploading all the new specials and deals. The risk in this is that even if you can get venues interested enough to take the time to offer specials and deals to Foursquare’s own users, by making it extremely hard to do so, they are only alienating their future business partners.

Eventually, Foursquare will want to share in the revenue streams they are directing towards local businesses. Not concentrating on those relationships now is going to cost them, mightily, later.

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Businesses and brands don’t need Social Media PR. Let PR firms handle PR, both traditional and social. Businesses that are struggling to find the time, energy or resources to begin engaging social media need to get caught up quickly.

What businesses need most right now is Social Media Boot Camp. They need a quick and intensive consultation and training in social media. They need someone to come in and sit down with them for a series of conversations so that they can make informed decisions about what their business needs out of social media.

They need someone to listen to the story of their business from start to finish. Where are they now? Where have they been? How did they get there? What do they want? What do they need? Who are they?

Then, they need to begin training. They need to get an overview of social media, from soup to nuts, how it started, how its developed, where it is now, and of course, where its going. They need to talk about all the areas that social media overlaps with: PR and marketing, customer service, IT and technology, branding even human resources.

Then, they need to craft a plan together integrating the results from the series of conversations. That plan needs to be managed by the consultant with the business owner or manager heavily involved on a day-to-day basis. Meeting once a week just isn’t going to cut it. Too much to cover, and if you only have a month, you need to get things done. Businesses need to see results. And they should. If you stretch a social media consulting arrangement over a period of months, the business owners don’t see the results. And they lose the immediacy of having to devote time and resources now. Why would they? When they have 3 months ahead of them.

It just doesn’t work.

So I am changing how I work. I am still very happy to help a firm with their social PR needs, but the real value I can provide is in providing firms a jump start into the world of social media. Spend a month with me and you’ll be ready. You’ll have a new website and a blog. You’ll have Foursquare specials. You’ll understand how Google, Yelp, Chow, Citysearch fit into your business and how you can take control of your online presence.

You’ll have a sophisticated listening and monitoring system in place so that you can track the conversations, both good and bad, your brand is generating.

You’ll have the essentials of a social media marketing campaign, with a blog, a Facebook account, Twitter, YouTube channel.

You’ll have a content marketing strategy in place for the next 3 months.

You’ll have the tools in place to measure your success.

You’ll have the confidence that you have done the right thing for your business by taking control of your destiny and the future success of your business.

You’ll finally prepared to leverage social media.

Image Source: Jayel Aheram on Flickr

They come fast and furious out of the gate. Even as a professional it can be hard to keep track of all the new services targeting small businesses using social media. It’s no surprise that when I go and brief clients and give consultations, they have yet to hear about many of the services, let alone started planning how to use them. To that end, I’ve assembled a quick list of the new services that businesses should be paying attention to.

1. Foursquare: The king of them all, at least for the time being. Foursquare’s power is in its simplicity. It is a geo-location mobile application for iPhone’s and other smartphones (like Google’s Droid and the Palm). The opportunity for businesses on foursquare is tremendous because for the first time you can target customers as close to the Point-of-Sale as possible. Foursqaure enables businesses to offer specials and discounts, which people are made aware when they “check-in” on Foursquare whenever they are nearby. The ROI for businesses is still pretty shallow, I’ve implemented Foursquare services with several clients and its certainly a work in progress. But Foursquare is closing in on a million users and has reached critical mass. The company is staffing up quickly and will be working hard to monetize it, which means helping businesses bring in more customers using their service.
2. Groupon: A group buying service that lets businesses make fantastic offers available to Groupon’s enormous database. They started in Chicago but have branched out to over 20 cities. Groupon is very powerful and there are tons of case studies available proving it with testimonials from business owners. Word to the wise though, Groupon takes 50% of all business they generate so rather than being a profit center, its best seen as an occasional marketing tool to attract new customers which you can hopefully retain. I am urging my clients to at least give Groupon a chance to work their magic. And the they’ve embedded a great gaming quality into their service. In fact, their coupons only go into effect if a certain number of people
3. Social Mention: A really great and free tool that businesses (or anyone else for that matter) can use to track their brand, or their clients’ brands (Hello PR FIRMS!) mentions all over the social web, whether its google, Twitter, blogs. A really wonderful tool that, although far from perfect, still provides great value. Business owners should get comfortable with it now and check in a few times a week. It takes all of 30 seconds to bring up hundreds of your results. Listening is perhaps the most important stage for late adopters. You’ve missed out on the first wave of social media adoption. So what! Frankly, a lot of businesses are better off waiting on the sidelines. Social mention is a great listening tool and will show you what you need to know, and just how many conversations revolve around your business. From there, its a hope, skip and jump to understanding how your brand is perceived and by whom.

These are just a few and I’ll be doing a few more of these posts. Stay tuned because business is changing and the tools of social media are forcing that change. Are you ready to evolve?