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!