Social Media is about branding, branding is about standing out from others in your niche and showing your readers restaurant is all about and why they should pay attention to you. Social Media allows the growth of your brand virally, there are a number of different methods that you can implement for branding yourself, your blog or your business, and social media is one of them. Active engagement in social media as a tool will allow you to more effectively listen and engage with customers for the purpose of business growth. Social Media is about dialog and creating two way discussions.

Topics to be covered

· Building your brand

· Cultivating a Community / Relationships

· Create Referral Leads

· Social Media Tools

Social media has as many tools as Home Depot. This may initially cause some confusion but with a bit of research and a plan we can identify the right mix of tools to enhance and move your online business forward. Social Media tools do range from general to specific applications in nature. The key is to identify the objective of your brand and the conversations that are taking place within the networks (tools). Jumping on and using every new social media site that is launched would be a mistake, plus you do not have the time trying to run your restaurant business. Our focus needs to be having conversations with people we want to meet. We first need to know our brand restaurant websites are best used to help create and further your operations brand. Social media is about Social Science not technology. Social media goes beyond user generated content into social or crowd generated content through sharing, and discovering new content. This is why it is sometimes called Viral Marketing.

A Bit about Social Sciences

Social media communities take the form of formal to informal networking people establish associations, friendships around content, products and services. How people interact is really a matter of how the network tools work. People adjust based upon the internal culture. Humanizing our brand is a necessity within the social media world we would not communicate to our friends and family like an ad campaign. Social Media is about observing, reading, and participating. This allows us to gather information and market research, and create more customer loyalty, the end result we have to listen.

Why Social Media Marketing and Excellent Opportunity for Restaurant Branding

1. Its Free

Social media marketing doesn’t require any financial investment, something that most business owners are concerned about. Anyone can be effective with social media; it just takes some time and effort. When you consider the impact that social media can have for a business it’s incredible that you can create those kinds of results without spending any money.

2. Unlimited Potential

The impact that social media can have on your business and how you are branded is just about endless. Some very successful blogs have been built primarily on posts that have taken off with social media. It’s not the shortcut that many bloggers think it is, but there is plenty of potential if you’re willing to use it effectively.

3. Large Audience

Each of the major social media sites has an incredibly large audience this allows us to tap into and network. Small sites may not have the same impact individually, but the social media audience as a whole makes up a large and growing population of internet users. Niche sites are even contributing to creating a more diverse audience of social media users

4. Success Can Be Achieved Quickly

Branding yourself through social media will not happen by getting one post to the front page of Digg, but it can happen relatively quickly, especially when compared to other more traditional marketing methods. Even new businesses can achieve a strong level of branding through social media in just a few short months.

5. Other Perks

With social media marketing there are plenty of other good things happening while you’re branding your web site, including lots of new visitors, building links, gaining subscribers, and developing content that will draw search engine traffic for years to come.

Why is Branding Important for the Internet?

Well, in the first paragraph I mentioned that branding is critical for restaurant, hospitality and hotel internet marketing success, so let’s take a look at some of the specifics of the objective.
Beat Competition

I believe any body in your niche is competition, if they’re getting all the attention from readers and you’re getting none, they basically are the market. In order to communicate your brand you need to make some progress in regards to readership and fan base. Simply put, there are too many sites/blogs in most niches these days to get noticed and retain loyal readers without branding your site. Those who are able to stand out from the pack in one way or another will excel, and those that don’t give any thought to branding will be limited to using their blog for link building strategies.
The Personal Nature of Social Media

Because blogging is a tool used throughout the social media world effective branding can help readers to connect to you and understand where you’re coming from and what you’re trying to accomplish. This is the advantage of blogging as a social media tool. When readers are able to develop a strong connection to you and you’re brand you can then begin to transfer your blog from a link building tool to a true social media tool to increase your success.

Action Steps for Using Social Media for Branding

1. Know How You Want to Be Seen by Readers

The critical first step of branding is to know how you want to be branded. What do you want to be known for? Without a clear goal or vision for your business you will just be using social media to pad your stats with very little long-term relevance or targeted traffic. It’s possible that your branding will change with time, but for now you need to decide how you want to be seen. This actually took me several months to really identify and narrow down my blog niche focus.

2. Develop Posts with this in Mind

After identify your niche, you can work backwards and develop posts that will put you closer to making it happen. Write on topics that will build your brand, and use a style and an approach that will work with your goals (this may require some testing) When use social media for the branding, you’ll also need to consider the social media audience when you’re developing content (not every post, but some). Ideally, you’ll come up with some ideas for posts that social media users will like and will further establish your image/brand.

3. Focus on Specific, Well-Targeted Social Media Sites

In order to have the best results with social media you should be focusing on a few specific sites, rather than spending a small amount of time trying to use a hundred different sites.

4. Be an Active User of Social Media

It’s hard to effectively optimize and market your blog through social media if you rarely use it yourself. By staying active you’ll learn all about your target audience and how you can create content that they’ll appreciate. You don’t need to be active at a large number of sites, just those that you are targeting.

5. Network with Others in Your Niche

By being active at your targeted social media sites, you can build strong connections to other social media users and bloggers that may benefit you in terms of getting your content noticed. Getting to know others in your niche (for mutual gain, not just for your own) is one of the best things you can do to help your chances with social media. People tend to vote for others that they like, not just for content that they like.

6. Prioritize Branding Over Traffic

Social media marketing can be difficult because the numbers and the potential for traffic can lead you to make decisions that aren’t in the best interest for your long-term blogging growth. Many times you may have an idea for a post or a method of marketing that can generate some impressive numbers, but it may not be a good fit with your overall branding goals. If you’re concerned with branding your blog through social media, drawing the most visitors shouldn’t always be the priority.

7. Repeat Topics and Cover Them In-Depth

When you’re trying to develop your brand and position yourself as a leader or an expert on a certain subject, you need to be willing to go beyond the scope that any other site owners or bloggers are covering for that particular subject. I’m not suggesting that you duplicate content or post the same thoughts repeatedly using different words, but make sure that you are covering every aspect of the subject as thoroughly as you can.

8. Focus on Building Links

Referrals from other bloggers (again another advantage to blogging) are extremely valuable for branding, and of course this usually comes in the way of a link. When other bloggers link to you, mention one of your posts, or recommend you to their readers, they are endorsing you and the work that you’re doing on your blog. Ultimately, the opinions of readers and other bloggers will determine how well you are branded. Social media has been used for link building for several years, and that’s because it can be very effective.

9. Pay Attention to What Others are Saying About You

Because the opinions of others are so influential to your branding success, knowing what is being said about you can be very important. Set up a vanity folder, the vanity folder isn’t just to make yourself feel good, it’s also to spot situations where others may be writing something that could be potentially damaging to your brand. Staying on top of the issue will keep you in tune with what is going on around you and it will give you a chance to put out fires that may arise from time-to-time.

10. Build Your Profiles

The majority of this post has addressed social media by referring to social news and bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and Delicious. However, social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn can be extremely valuable as well. There are also niche specific sites like Virb where you can connect with others that may have similar interests. These sites won’t send you a huge amount of traffic like Digg would, but they can be useful for gaining some exposure outside of your blog and creating the image that you’re after.

Types of Social Media Tools

· Social Bookmarking
· Crowdsourced Content
· Blogs/Conversations
· Blog Communities
· Micromedia
· Social Networks
· Live Video and Audio
· Customer Service Networks
· Video Aggregation
· Documents

Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata. In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

Crowd sourced Content

Crowd sourcing is for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or group and add information to it from an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of a comments, forums or wiki’s. For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task (also known asc ommunity-based design and refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm or help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data. Wikipedia is a great example of this.

Blogs/Conversations

A blog (a contraction of the term “Web log”) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Blog Community

Online journaling communities, where people from around the world share stories, discuss topics and keep in touch with friends. It’s a free service that you can use for meeting people and creating bonds through writing and sharing.

From art to zombies, if you can think of it, there’s a community about it. If not, you can create your own! Never miss an update typically you have a Friends page which lets you read all your friends’ posts and any RSS feeds all on one page. Many communities also make it easy for you to keep the conversation going through voice posting, instant messaging, text messaging, and notifications. Communities give you the ability to share with the entire community or just a few people or keep it private like a diary. You’re able to set the privacy level on everything you publish, so you decide who sees what.

Micromedia

Micro-blogging is a newer form of multimedia style of blogging that allows users to send brief text updates (say, 140 characters or fewer) or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, digital audio or the web.

The content of a micro-blog differs from a traditional blog in that it is typically more topical, smaller in aggregate file size (e.g. text, audio or video) but is the same in that people utilize it for both business and individual reasons. Many micro-blogs provide this short commentary on a person-to-person level, or share news about a company’s products and services.
Social Networks
Social networks present an enormous opportunity — maybe the biggest in tech since e-mail. The sites have simplified and amplified connections between people online, creating a thriving ecosystem of small programs that let friends interact through games, greetings, video clips and more. Face Book, MySpace Personal networks to Linkdin a professional network.

Customer Service Networks

Yelp is the best example customer service networks are typically communities and networks where local businesses are reviewed and content is controlled by the users the ultimate city guide that taps into the community’s voice and reveals honest and current insights on local businesses and services on everything, this is word of mouth marketing –gone viral. Savvy local marketers now have channels to target local customers Sharing the experiences they’ve had with local businesses and services.

Live Video and Audio

BlogTalkRadio is the social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers. Our network has produced tens of thousands of episodes since it launched in August of 2006.

Documents

There are two general types in this category.

Docstoc is an online community to find and share professional documents. Docstoc also provides the platform for users and businesses to upload and share their documents with all the world, and serves as a vast repository of documents in variety of categories including legal, business, financial, technology, educational, and creative. All documents on Docstoc can be easily searched, previewed and downloaded for free.
Scribd is geared towards self publishing place where you publish, discover and discuss original writings and documents. More than 50 million people each month are finding or sharing fun, functional or fantastical writings and documents on Scribd.com and tens of thousands of other websites that have embedded Scribd’s document reader.

Video Aggregation

There are number of these sites however Youtube is the most popular. YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. Youtube uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by members of the public, although media organizations including CBS and the BBC offer some of their material via the site.

Unregistered users can watch the videos, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos.

Review

Restaurant Marketing is about creating and communicating your brand/reputation

Restaurant Websites need to be more then just a menu and hours of operations on line

All hospitality online strategies need to be proactive and reactive / protective

Build your networks

Related posts:

1. Create Your Brand
2. Press Release Marketing for Restaurants
3. Restaurant Website Marketing
4. Be The Market Leader
5. Three Steps To Writing Web Based Content and Advertising