I’ve censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet–a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit: http://americancensorship.org/posts/38066/uncensor

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It’s a new year and for many of us, the new year brings with it resolutions to change.  Whether you’ve made any resolutions or not, improving the effectiveness of your marketing efforts for your restaurant is probably a top priority.  Here are a few tricks of the trade that will definitely help you to improve your marketing effectiveness:

Be social when using social media.  If you’re using social media as a part of your marketing plan, it’s critical to remember the social component.  Think about when you’re at that networking event and you get cornered by that person who drones on and on about one subject – them.  There’s no back and forth, no discussion, no discovery, just a long dissertation about them.  What’s your gut reaction?  RUN!!!  Being social generally works better when all parties involved have the opportunity to share.  If your content is only the sharing of your specials, it won’t be long before the masses tune you out.  Try sharing content at times that evokes a response – content that engages your audience.  And when your audience attempts to engage with you, respond.

Be proactive with feedback – good or bad.  The real reason that some restaurants avoid using social media to its full capacity is because they’re afraid of the almighty bad review.  Unfortunately, there will always be unhappy guests and they will find a place and a platform to share their unhappiness.  Denial gets you nowhere, but addressing feedback good or bad, gives you additional opportunities.  Whether that is a loyal customer or redemption from a bad experience, being proactive about your digital reputation will greatly improve your social media marketing effectiveness.  Which leads me to my last tip:

Monitor your online presence.  You can’t be proactive about your digital reputation if you don’t know what people are saying about you.  The internet affords all kinds of places for people to share their thoughts about whatever subject they’d like to discuss, including your restaurant.  There are lots of tools out there to help you monitor your digital reputation from free to expensive.  A good place to start is to set up some free Google alerts for your restaurant.  Set one up that is specifically the name of your restaurant.  Other alerts could be your name, your chef’s name and other nicknames that may be out there for your restaurant.  You’ll find that it’s a lot easier to stay on top of feedback if you know about it when it happens.  Warning: shameless plug alert…and of course there are professional companies that provide these types of services if you don’t want to do it yourself, or don’t have the time or staff.

These are just three restaurant marketing with social media “tricks of the trade” that we employ on a daily basis to help our clients achieve their marketing objectives and we hope they’ll help you too.

Look for my upcoming post about some of the other reputation monitoring tools that are great for restaurants. Class dismissed!

It’s hard to believe that even today, despite the widespread adoption of social media and the evolution of best practices for social media marketing, some businesses still believe that “if you build it, they will come.” It’s simply not true when it comes to social media marketing!

In a recent blog post entitled Keep Your Social Media Marketing Efforts SOCIAL!, we talked about keeping the “social” in social media marketing. By the very definition, “social” involves people and personal interaction. If there are no people, there will be no interaction! So one of the very first steps in launching any kind of social media marketing campaign is to define how the community will be built by integrating it with all other marketing, branding, customer service and operational efforts.

Here is a line from Visual Alliance Media‘s typical proposal for social media for restaurants:

Work with the client to identify all customer touch points and ways to leverage them in all social efforts.

For restaurants and other retail establishments, one tactic we use is to create a table tent or other signage that can be displayed in plain view of customers so that they can be engaged “offline” and informed of the online community. On a recent trip to IHOP (a guilty pleasure), I noticed a very clever table tent for this purpose and snapped a pic (see below).

While I’ll reserve judgment about the way the call-to-action is being implemented regarding the iPad 2 giveaway based on Facebook’s Promotion Guidelines, I will say that IHOP Florida definitely gets points on several fronts:

1. Creating a catchy, attention-grabbing schtick: “before iPod®, before iPhone®, before iPad®, there was IHOP”. Well done!
2. Producing a table tent that is present on every table in the restaurant
3. Including a QR code on the table tent (you may be saying “QR codes are so 2010″). Maybe so … but it’s all about ease when it comes to spontaneity. If people can connect with IHOP with four clicks while they’re waiting for their Cinn-A-Stack, (unlock phone, load QR Code app, scan QR code, “Like” page), that’s still arguably easier than having to search for the page in the Facebook mobile app.
4. Providing something of tangible value in return for joining the community (see note on reserving judgment on IHOP’s method of implementation of this particular promotion on Facebook; minus 2 points, by the way!).

Have you seen any recent examples of companies that have effectively integrated “social” into everything they do? If so, please share! We’d love to see them!

*Image of the table tent was taken at an IHOP location in Tampa, FL.

With so many moving parts and pieces comprising your restaurant marketing or hotel marketing plan, it’s human nature to rush through some of the seemingly less critical tasks to accomplish as much as possible before calling it a day. One of those “seemingly less critical” tasks I’m referring to is moderating comments on your blog.

We’ve all been there. You’re alerted to a new comment on a recent post. Upon quick glance, it seems innocent enough. You approve it. And with that, the flood gates are opened and you are faced with a deluge of new comments, aka spam! The good news is, you can learn to spot the signs of blog comment spam to ensure that you don’t inadvertently start a chain reaction that becomes a gift that keeps on giving!

Look for these common traps and click the SPAM button any time you see any of them:

1. Generic Comments: these are perhaps the easiest to overlook! Here’s an example: “Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I’ve really enjoyed surfing around your posts. In any case, I will be subscribing to your RSS feed and I hope you will write again soon.” If you see a comment like that, look for some of the other traps to help determine if it is legitimate before hitting APPROVE!

2. Grammatically Incorrect or Nonsensical Comments: these are pretty easy to spot (as are the next two). Here’s an example: “Some conditions its a ache from the to assessment what online internet site proprietors authored but this online internet site is honestly consumer genial.” It goes without saying that this one needs to be marked SPAM.

3. Unrelated Website URLS: some commenters are greedy backlink builders – not necessarily spreading spam, but interested in leaving a comment with a link pointing back to their website on any blog that will accept them. You may not necessarily want to hit SPAM on these, but definitely don’t approve them. Assuming your blog is a component of your restaurant marketing or your hotel marketing, it would be very unlikely that someone commenting from http:// bestcriminalrecordscheck dot com is legitimate. Definitely DON’T APPROVE.

4. Unrelated Email Addresses: This one is really obvious … commenters from suspicious email addresses, often times from other countries around the world, such as nesler@rady29.wow.pl are ones you’ll definitely want to flag as SPAM!

Any other indicators you’d add to the list? If so, leave them in a comment to this post. We promise to APPROVE it, assuming it doesn’t lead us into any of the four traps detailed above!

Why does Visual Alliance Media help clients to create, adopt and train their employees on effective social media guidelines? There are several reasons, one of which can best be illustrated with an example:

Employee has bad day at work and wants to vent. Employee vents on Facebook.

It happens more than you think! One such example took place recently when Manatee County Sheriff’s deputy, Gerald Kall, did not appear to think before he decided to take out his emotions on Facebook.

According to a story by Alison Morrow of ABC Action News entitled After Facebook Rant, Manatee County Suspends Deputy for Three Days, Deputy Kall was reported “calling his colleague expletive names, thereby violating the office’s social media policy. He was suspended for three days.”

We’ve seen a similar situation with the folks over at Chipotle, and there are undoubtedly many other cases like this out there where an employee’s job was put in jeopardy because of something they said or did on social media. To avoid situations like this, it’s critical for companies to not only develop a social media policy, but to also have a conversation about it. If employees understand their responsibilities as they relate to social media, (and any possible repercussions of acting irresponsibly), situations like the two described above are less likely to occur.

Does your company have a social media policy? If so, is it a regular part of your new employee orientation process as well as an ongoing dialogue with employees?

These days, a great deal of emphasis is placed on “student success” at colleges and universities across the US.  Like anything else, student success is multi-faceted, touching on many different aspects of the student experience – from academics to support to social and beyond.  Student success programs that take a holistic view are likely to fare much better than ones that focus more narrowly – say on “just academics,” for example.

From a support perspective, this involves connecting students with resources to address their needs in a way that is positive, seamless and timely.

“When can I register for summer classes?”  ”What time does the financial aid office open for walk-ins?”  ”Where can I purchase a campus parking pass?”  ”What time do buses depart for the football game?”  ”Are any of the computer labs on campus open 24 hours?”

Leveraging Facebook as a social customer service platform (a “digital help desk” of sorts), removes barriers, fosters positive interaction and promotes student success.  Because college students visit Facebook 6 times per day on average and spend roughly 100 minutes per day on the social network according to OnlinePhD, it’s a no-brainer!

Check out our most recent slideshare that covers this topic in more detail, including a case study profiling the InformaBull page on Facebook at the University of South Florida.

Unless you completely avoid the news (any news) at all costs, you’ve probably heard about the young man in St. Augustine, Florida who was let go from the Casa Monica Hotel for wearing an American flag pin that he had been wearing on his lapel for two years.

There have been plenty of opinions shared about whether the hotel was wrong for letting the employee go, so we won’t head down that path.  Instead, we thought it would be a good idea to focus on how this unfortunate chain of events is being approached, especially in the realm of social media.  And more importantly, the takeaways for you, other hotels, or for that matter, other businesses in general.

A couple of things you should know before you read on:

1. Casa Monica is owned and managed by Kessler (hereinafter referred to as “the company”)
2. Although Casa Monica bears the Marriott moniker, it is a license agreement only (translation = if you’re passionate about the subject, don’t take your frustrations out on Marriott International)
3. The Company and Casa Monica had a fairly healthy social presence prior to the firing incident

Right Ideas

• An email was sent to the news reporting agencies regarding the incident
• A separate FAQ page was created and placed on the Kessler website
• A Facebook Discussion was added to the Casa Monica Facebook page specific to the subject

Right Ideas Gone Wrong

With ever-increasing competition for the discretionary dollar, restaurant owners and managers are looking for new and creative ways to attract new customers, build loyalty with their current customers by enhancing the dining experience and ultimately to increase revenues. Integrating social media into the overall marketing and social customer service strategy for the restaurant can go a long way towards achieving those goals. Check out our latest slideshare: Social Media for Restaurants: Butts in Seats.