You spend time on promoting your restaurant via social media right? Then why are you among the restaurants/bars/cafes that do not give free wifi to your guests?

In case you are missing my point: Your bar or restaurant needs to offer free wifi, period. 6 Reasons Why:

Recently I started working with a new client who has not yet decided to use an online reservation system. As I prepared my reasoning for why his restaurant should, I decided to write it here for you.

1) Online Reservations accept your customer’s requests when THEY want to reserve a spot at your restaurant. 24/7 anytime they want. Social media never sleeps and a diner who is surfing early in the morning can click and make a reservation when they see your F page, web page, twitter feed etc… Plus: If their call goes to voicemail at your restaurant it can direct them online for ‘Immediate Confirmation’

2) Information Collection, many restaurateurs can talk until they are blue in the face about getting emails from customers, but employees are resistant. Online reservations basically require that the guests provide an email. With opt in check boxes your email list can bloom. That is money in your pocket.

3) Reminder Tweets & Facebook posts at the ideal times can be distributed to provide direct links to the online reservation page from each social media titan. Remember these are people who like your restaurant enough to follow you on twitter and/or become a friend on Facebook. They are ripe and proven customers who you can reach out to unobtrusively with these posts providing a simple way to make their plans. No hassle = better results.

~ Basically a very good online reservation system is going to cost you approximately $150 a month. That is $37.50 per week, for a tool that makes it easier for your customers to visit you. How many reservations would you have to get per week to justify this expense and add it to your online marketing efforts?

Let me know what you are using, why you are not, or what I can help you figure out about the various services. I am always here to talk, or on twitter @Spirocks.

You can reserve at my restaurant here: Evenfall Online Reservations

Crafting your social media campaigns to stand out, like this orange I saw on the beach, is critical to success.

What not to do:

1)   Repeat the same message three times a day, all week long.

2)   Use text only messages all the time.

3)   Only distribute information about what you are selling.

4)   Become a robot without traces of personality.

What you should be doing:

1)   Have fun and express your enthusiasm for what you have going on.

2)   Share the current moment with pictures and video, and remember to respond in the moment too.

3)   Cultivate your following with shared information about the market you are in.  It doesn’t only have to be about you.

4)   Share your success and your failures; it makes you come across as humble and human.

Remember that the people your messages reach are interested mostly for entertainment and to learn something, this is not a TV commercial interrupting their entertainment. You are not programming them, you are sharing with them interesting tidbits of information, and giving them reasons it may be of use to them to visit you.

It is ok to remind people what you are doing, and repeat topics for new followers and friends, but it is important that those messages are not the main course just the specks in the vanilla ice cream.

These are the types of things that I do with my company GuestFeed when we market restaurants, and work on their web presence. If you have any questions please ask, I love to interact. You can find me on Twitter @Spirocks

When you look at your marketing options, Groupon should be the first off the list. I am not making this up off the top of my head, it is my job to stay abreast of the trends in our industry and I have linked you to some of the most poignant and well written articles I could find to back my claims up, so on with it:

Why Groupon will Fail.

Groupon represents a trend sweeping the country, the group buying craze.  Fueled by the recession, retailers, service providers, and most actively restaurants are allowing Groupon to sell certificates for a certain amount of buying power (say $50) most often for half price ($25). The consumer gets a whopping 50% discount, and as you might expect the certificates are selling like crazy.

Groupon then turns around and pockets at least half (sometimes all) of the sale price ($12.50), and forwards on the remaining $12.50 to the small business owner who is responsible for supplying the consumer with the $50 worth of product. The fact that merchants would be willing to make such a deal is indicative of the state of the economy. It just isn’t a good deal for them, and already some are publicly complaining that their ‘promotion’ has led to huge losses, and they must tough it out while the thousands of certificates that Groupon sells come in.

Outside of profit and loss, what are some of the symptoms of this Groupon fatigue? Among the worst:

1)   Customers who are ‘deal hawks’ that only visit for the deal, not to ‘discover’ new places, and become regular customers.

2)   At restaurants groupon holders who only tip on the discounted total not the normal amount, leading to staff fatigue and resentment.

3)   Overwhelmed merchants whose reputation is damaged with their full price paying customers because they are unable to provide the same level of service when all the Groupon wielding customers flood them after an offer.

These reasons compound the fact that it is a bad deal for business owners to sell their goods at 75% off. I mean is it that hard to figure out? I don’t care how flashy their marketing is; it’s bad business, period. Businesses have been struggling to make a profit for the past few years, and running 75% off specials is only going to make it harder.

So expect to see Groupon start making the deal better for merchants as more and more get burned, or just reject the Groupon come on in the first place. Groupon will have to lower its take in order to continue to sell. When you ask a Groupon merchant if they think it was valuable to them, you are likely to get the answer ‘Yes we feel that we got exposed to a whole new group of customers that we hope will become regulars’ the truth is that privately many of them would tell you that they are very glad the onslaught is over and they can get back to selling at a profit.

Groupon will fail because it is a short term fad marketing ploy, that will not inspire repeat enrollment among merchants, other than those who game offers to trick consumers into a deal that really isn’t. So Groupon will expand rapidly and then begin its inevitable transformation into a modern day direct mail marketer with a ‘pay ahead for a discount’ value to consumers. That transformation will not justify the lofty valuation placed on it by investors and will likely lead to its acquisition by a larger firm, and the end of Groupon as we know it today.

At GuestFeed I advise my clients to not get lured into a deal with Groupon, or any of the other copycat group buying firms cropping up everywhere. It seems all you need is a big email list and some true believer sales people to hit the streets these days. I urge my clients to do the math and to really break down the numbers to discover the real cost of such an offer. It is hard work running a restaurant and even harder when you are doing it to lose money.

For consumers a great deal, for merchants a big mistake. What do you think? Have you had any experience with Groupon you would like to share?

I am here to talk it over anytime, just hit me up. Twitter: @spirocks

Not up to speed with social media marketing for your restaurant? You need to get going and here is the formula for a beginner or a slacker.

Start Social Media Marketing Today: Five Things To Do
1) Get a HootSuite account and link all your accounts to it so you can manage them from a singular interface. Focus on Facebook and Twitter.

2) Get a smartphone with a good camera (flash not a must), and during business hours take photos of your food/drink/bar/dining room. Get the hootsuite app for your phone (iphone/android) and upload these photos to your linked accounts.

3) Respond to each and every customer that comments on your posts, thank them for their support, agree with their compliments, keep the dialogue going.

4) Get a constant contact account, make sure every customer gets the chance to sign up for your email list during their visit. Use it to share what is going on at your restaurant no more than once a week. I prefer bi-weekly emails for my restaurants, and I have a 3350+ person email list.

5) Make sharing content via these avenues a part of your day, there is never a shortage of things to share at a restaurant, tonight’s specials, a new wine, menu changes, new hires, and on and on. Keep your phone on you and share on the fly.

These five things you can do in one day to dramatically change your social marketing efforts, you have to keep it up, consistently becoming a part of people’s lives and online experience. You can and will experience increased sales from doing just these things, to take it to another level check out what we do at GuestFeed.

Social media marketing for restaurants is what I write about, and often times I get inspiration from GuestFeed clients that I work with on a daily basis. Often if the owners/managers are attempting to use social media to market their restaurants they are doing so ‘As the Restaurant’. In other words, it is as if they are expecting their guests (or potential guests) to interact with the restaurant itself online. It is understandable that this is a common strategy, but it is counter productive.

There is a reason that guests feel good when a bartender remembers their name, or like to say they ‘know the owner’, or are thrilled if the chef visits their table. Restaurants offer three things: 1) delicious food+drink, 2) the service of not having to shop/cook/serve/or clean, and 3) human interaction. Don’t forget the third one, especially when your guests are online and they are getting: No Food and No Service, why take away the human interaction too? That is what they are looking for, and you already know that your guests like to know you.

So some quick advice, DO these things:

1) Be you by using your name, face, and of course that means speaking as yourself.

2) Highlight people that work for you just as much as the products you sell.

3) Encourage your employees to post/share/tweet the things that they are doing at your restaurant.

Your restaurant is your stage, and you and your staff are the stars of that stage, stop and sign a few autographs don’t just hand out the menu. They can get a faceless, all business, interaction anywhere.

What do you think? I love working with restaurant managers and owners to create positive change in their marketing efforts, so if you are interested in what I would do for your place do not hesitate to contact me.