Need Butts In Seats?

Keep Your Restaurant Marketing in the Neighborhood

Most of us have heard that  80% of your business lives and or works in within your 3 mile radius of your restaurant. If we you threw out the paid advertising and focused on the Neighborhood, Grass Roots, Guerrilla Marketing,  your effectiveness, ROI, and your restaurant sales will increase.

The core of your overall marketing strategy (plan) must center around your restaurants neighborhood. Tempting as it may be to hand money over to your newspaper, local magazines, radio and even cable ad rep touting the latest deal for promotion to massively spread your name to thousands for just pennies, per day, resist the temptation until you have a solid Guerrilla Marketing Plan.

Restaurant Branding

Who are You? Who is your Customers Do you have a brand? do you know who your customers are? Hell do you know why they come to your restaurant?  A simple old school tactics for doing market research is to find poll your employees and find out where they are coming from. Sound silly, well it ain’t. It is easy all you need is a

1. Corkboard / Maybe an easel
   

   Do You Know Who You Are?

2. A map (of your neighborhood)
3. Pins
4. A wee bit of Training

Now just collect data, sounds easy, well it is, incorporate some pre-shift meetings, conversations with each and every , host staff, have the wait staff communicate the desire at the table, voila, market research.

Collect Restaurant Marketing Data

Make collecting data fun, Use the time to graciously welcome your guests as they arrive and when the are leaving.  Welcome your guests back! (step number 10 in the ten steps of service) have fun, collect names, build relationships, learn names, “The Cheers Factor”.

Now What?… A Hospitality Marketing Plan

Analyse then set up a grass roots campaign (More on this to Follow) do,  find other businesses in the area that you can “Coop”, Joint Venture, Ready, Fire Aim… ok maybe not lets create a restaurant marketing plan.

Community Organizing (Not Really)

When I first began managing, I learned a new term  MBWA (Managing By Walking Around) my mentor, the regional VP,  did this better then anybody I know. The restaurant industry has adopted this term to communicate a style of restaurant management, this can also be a very effective tool in your restaurant marketing campaign.

True MBWA marketing starts with your neighboring businesses, remember joint ventures.  A great way to find those other businesses to joint venture with is to first begin building a relationship with the owners and employees, the ideas will happen naturally.

Ciao

What is in Your Brand?

Being the restaurant employer of choice is something we teach. The purpose is to attract and retain the best employees in the market. The result will be extraordinary service providing the best and brightest and most talented people in your market.   Unfortunately products menu items, restaurant recipes and service tends to become a commodity over time and for good reasons.

Over time the value of a product and or service lessens, when we first create a new menu item or provide an increased level of service we are usually solving a problem. Customers and guests are usually willing to pay a premium for the latest and greatest product or service.

Over time the new product or service then becomes SOP or Standard Operating Procedure.

The new unique restaurant menu dish gets discovered by the restaurant chains and they dumb it down and slap it on the menu of a thousand restaurants, run months of restaurant marketing mass media advertising campaigns and completely obliviate the uniqueness of the product with some mediocre knock off.

The premium menu item becomes mainstream. and the price gets lower as the economies of scale adjust and then we see it in the grocer freezer of our local grocery store labeled gourmet! (bah humbug)

Buyers become Aware over time learn to better evaluate the economics of the new product and chain restaurant marketing then run these menu items as specials Basically as a commodity a restaurant menu item matures the price pressure coupled with a “tough economy” Sorry I hate to say that, makes it even harder to sell the product or service at a profit, assuming you are not a chain restaurant with extremely efficient supply chains.

What is on your Menu? (How would Capital One handle this?)

Restaurants can only discount products or services so far. Capital One in 1995 was not in a position to compete on rates with the big credit card companies. Rather then competing on rate to increase market share Capital One took a different approach to creating a new  marketing plan. They chose to compete on value.

Remember perception is reality. They implemented a “radical” “branding” “strategy” to differentiate themselves from the other credit card issuers to stimulate an increase in demand. All of this without discounting or sacrificing margins.

A Winning Brand Starts with The Customer

What made Capital One’s strategy work is the fact that they started with customer input to derive the strategy. Through serious market research they were able to target the most important features of a credit card the consumers wanted.  They did not stop there they actually created a family of products and features to target different types of card users.

Most important part of the research revealed that the features were not the most important lessons learned from the research. The realization that there customers actually had an emotional aspect of the decision process and not rational.

Their sales success is actually tied to the benefits to the emotional needs of the customer. Make life easier, “no hassles”.

Simplify

Busy has become the new good. When asked everyone is “busy” Simplify your message do not use elongated marketing fluffy language, this does not work in todays market. Capital One’s core message is “No Hassles” They then have fun hammering the message using not so bright  rowdy vikings to make the point. Then the “What’s in your wallet?”

Position Yourself as a Market Leader

• What is your Unique Position (Reference USP article) Are you focused on an area where you can outperform the competition? That means find the holes in between the chains and your geographic targeted market, neighborhood.
• The large corporates feederies are required to follow a very specific SO (Standard Operating Procedures) and cannot usually move outside of the brand very easily, use that rigid structure to your advantage. Perform a USP analysis and identify the market opportunity.
• What do your customers want, follow Capital Ones strategy and communicate, talk, ask, comment card everyone. Train the staff to find the answers you will be surprised how much they want to help. Is it specials, menu items,  price,  speed,  hours,  catering?
• Develop or better yet reposition current brand, products, menu offerings and or training to capitalize on the newly discovered information. How does this satisfy the emotional needs of your customers, What would you charge to “guarantee this product service”

Develop a Message

Build your USP reduce it to a simple tagline message, you know Fedex, “Absolutley positively has to be there overnight”.  The next step is to then identify your competitive advantage for your geographic market. What do you do better then anyone else.

Find and create the bold claim in your positioning message and focus on the one attribute of your product or service that satisfies an emotional need.

To (the geographic market you serve.) (your brand) is the one (that provides a type of service you offer) that (key benefit you deliver better than any other company in your market). Identify your Olive Garden “salad an breadsticks” (the core menu item(s) customers  love you for) and capitalize on it. Recreate your restaurant brand, update restaurant marketing and branding. Re-Invent, try stuff, try new stuff, and newer stuff all the while staying true to the core items on your menu.

Caio

The Power of the Press Release

What Makes You Unique?

More then 27 million People use Yahoo News and google News

Each month more then 27 million people in the US use Google News and Yahoo news to find the latest information about any topics that interest them. Yahoo News and Google News reach online audiences in excess of the off line CNN and BBC. A press release or news release is a condensed article that is written in a “journalistic” style. The sole purpose of a press release is to highlight what is interesting and newsworthy, about a company organization or industry. I highly recommend implementing a press release strategy for your restaurant marketing plan including new product releases, new services within your market.

Building Traffic vs. Back Links

As we will discuss below there is very strict rules to writing a press release. However do not let that scare you there are some great templates at www.docstock.com to help you find a template that works for your niche. Press releases have changed quite a bit from the old school versions. The search engines have created some opportunities to help us maximize our exposure. We will discuss strategy and Search engine promotion later in the article.

Press Release SEO

Send out press releases. Your restaurant marketing press release has to be news-worthy. If done right, you may get a lot of publicity in additional to links from authority web sites that will strengthen your positions in search engines. Media coverage may bring in a surge of traffic to your blog.

• An optimized press release will follow the same or similar rules and obstacles as articles.
• Best Case scenario we will be able to anchor link keywords directly to your pages, however many press release sites will only allow links to created within the bio section of the release.
• Incorporate as much optimized content into the release and bio section as possible.
• Always post releases to your sites “News” Page first.

“In the News” Strategy

Create an in the news section of your site. Link to and write about your competitors product or services, become a news authority.

• Set up a “News Press” page
• Set up a google news alert for your specific niche.
• Find ideas to write about the product or issue.
• Then anchor link and post the release to your site first, post link to the competitors site, then submit to PR sites.

Stand Out:

In the past, savvy PR professionals used press releases to hopefully bring their clients a little media exposure. The process was long and drawn out, with the ultimate goal being to get a journalist or news source to read your release. However, the days of a press release being used solely for a newsworthy announcement are long gone. The Web has changed what a press release can be. While not all press releases are going get your face on the nightly news, they can serve another purpose.

How to Reach New Readers and Improve Your SEO at the Same Time

Thanks to the internet, a  press release used for restaurant branding and marketing can now be seen by the general public without ever even being touched by a journalist. Sites like Google News and Yahoo News are constantly updating their search results with fresh press releases from sites like PRWeb. So what does that mean to you, the new online business owner, blogger just looking for a attention?

You can now reach thousands of potential new readers, overnight. When you distribute your release via a place like PRWeb, and hundreds of other sites to re-publish your release via the PRWeb, RSS feed. Not only does this mean more places for new readers to find your content, but it means more backlinks to your site (yes a press release can include links). And don’t forget, if you do it right your release will also appear in Google News, Yahoo News, Topix, etc… just to name a few.

A Restaurant Marketing Press Release is a different style of writing, in that it must be “news worthy” journalism. The part of the press releases that make them difficult is to be able to write them in third person. Write as a journalist. Well we are not all trained and or schooled as a journalist. So keeping a few things in mind will help us to format and write a better

news release.

The Basic Press Release

Includes Who What Why When and Where

The most interesting Fact(s)

Supporting Data

Business USP

Benefits to the Readers

Why is this interesting

Company name information etc

What a Press Release is Not

This is succinct news on how you can benefit the community and or market

The sole purpose is to provide news and information for your readers, customers

The lead Paragraph is the most important and should state the 5W’s The rest of the release supports these 5 w’s

Write as if you are giving instruction, advice, directions

Optimize SEO

Additional Press Release Guidelines

Initial Case –A journalism term which means every first letter in the headline should be capitalized, we do this with our blog titles and site headlines, this carries over to our press releases. Exclusions to this would be words with less then three letters long.

All Caps – It is a negative to have your press release and or headline to be entirely in capital letters, it is not professional and really detracts for the news.

Summary – the initial paragraph is a summary for the entire news story. Just as I writing an article in the newspaper. We understand that most newspaper articles are written in this format because not everybody reads the entire news story. Your summary needs to be “hard hitting” and grab the reader’s attention. Including one to three sentences long

Date line – Your release should begin with a dateline, this is dependent upon the news release source you are submitting to. And example of this is

City, State, Month, Day, Year, the city and state is optional yet will be affective if you are submitting to sites that offer geo submissions

Spacing – Each paragraph should have natural line wraps, one line in between paragraphs. You do not need to include dashes, asterisks, or other symbols to separate sections

Grammar – Need I say more?

HTML – Most of the press release submission sites will only allow HTML with certain upgrade practices

Link Spamming – Again your press release may be limited to a certain number of links back to your site. For instance PR Web the largest of the press release sites allows only 3 links per 100 words of content.

Ticker Symbols – The use of company ticker symbol, corporate name and mention must have permission to do this. Many of the sites will require expressed written permission.

Lists – These work well for content on your site however do not read well for a press release nor are they acceptable form the journalism world.

Length – First of all if you can not write more then a paragraph the submission sites will considered your release not news worthy. Shoot for 300 to 800 words in a paragraph format.

E-mail – Do not include your e-mail in the press release. Add it in the with your bio and contact information. There are reasons for this and is has to do getting your self spammed

Facts – Tell the truth avoid fluff hype or advertising. If your story sounds to good to be true you are probably hurting your credibility.

Jargon – Limit your use of industry jargon. Again speak plain English a limited use of jargon is appropriate.

Proofread – Of Course

Again Do not hesitate to jump into writing press releases to help build back links however just remember at the end of the day actually doing it and making mistakes, correcting them and moving forward is far more productive thinking about it.

Do I Have to Pay to Submit Press Releases?

Back in the “old days” pre 2007, that is how fast things change on the net, right? One could submit press releases to www.prweb.com for free. However once the press release SEO angle became mainstream the largest submission site had to adjust their strategy to keep press releases and to continue to cater to being the number one press release site on the net.

Yes the Laws of Supply and Demand do apply to press releases. PR Web had to begin charging for press releases to keep the supply under control. It has actually been a good thing. We have experienced increase competition and the ability to test and find sights that will produce more traffic for the dollar invested.

PR-Web still is the leader for press release submission, however what do you do if you are just starting out and are a bit leery of the $40.00 to $360.00 and more price tag for one submission?

You search for “Free” (my favorite price for bootstrapping a business start-up). Now I understand that you get what you pay for however what a great way to begin writing and submitting your press releases to get your feet wet and help develop your writing and maybe typing skills.

Through much scouring I have come across a list of “Free” Press Release Sites that meet the criteria mentioned below.

Free Press Release Site Criteria.

1. Be Indexed by Google, this sounds obvious but how do we know and when we are searching for the best bang for the buck submissions for our time and money this would be some great information to have access to.
2. Have a page rank of 4 or more however one of the exceptions is listed below with a page rank of three-ish.
3. An Alexa ranking of over 300,000 ( within the top 300,000 sites on the web)
4. Must be free of course but also offers upgrades.

Below are some sites that meet the criteria; These are in alphabetical order and not by ranking.

24-7pressrelease.com

Bignewsbiz.com

Clickpress.com

Ecommwire.com

Exl.com

Express-press-release.com

Freepressrelease.co.uk

Newswiretoday.com

Powerhomebiz.com

PR-inside.com (UK)

PRlog.org

PRUrgent.com

Theopenpress.com

Usprwire.com

Remember the focus is to be able to submit to the top 3 press release sites,

PRWeb.com

24-7press release.com

PRNewswire.com

These are some good places to begin to submit your press releases. In addition, be sure your analytics tool is installed to begin tracking effectiveness from the press releases. Without tracking and testing we are just wasting our marketing time. Set up your accounts track your accounts and slowly move into the paid upgrades.

Restaurant Systems

My sons girlfriend works at a fast food Italian restaurant (do I need to say which concept this is) She is a long

Restaurant Training Systems

time employee that means over 6 months in the industry. She has actually worked there for over 18 months. I will call KT, now KT you would think should be considered a valuable employee She is the number 1 employee. Well She is being treated like number 2 (shit). Have you ever had a manager let another employee change the schedule without contacting both employees. Well this dip shit allowed this exact scenario to happen and put KT into a closing shift. Now KT is a Senior in High School Runs Cross Country, Track and works to pay for her own expenses, clothes etc. The result was a closing shift, tons of homework and an upcoming race in 2 days. The guilty employee received no performance counseling and the stupid manager reply, oh uh sorry?

If you work for a spineless manager quit. He/she does not deserve the number 1 employees in the industry, find the employer of choice!!!!

Restaurant Employees

KT is putting in her two weeks notice unfortunately not until after she finds another job.Chain management realty the reality for restaurant chains is they tell the restaurant managers to promote within, they tell the managers to reduce turnover, they tell managers this builds guest loyalty, creates Raving Fans, they tell managers that long term employees are good business, they help build repeat businesses. Makes sense doesn”t it?

Is it true? yes it is.
So then why do the chain restaurant compensation systems penalize the restaurant managers bonus by having vacation pay and employee benefits reducing their take home bonus? Good question Ask your managers how does your benefits affect there bonus. You will now know the companies true philosophy. Do not be afraid to GTFO and better your self you are number 1 only work for people that agree..

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.

Restaurant Branding Using Social Media

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

REVERVICE

Applaud Revolutionary Restaurant Service Ideas

They don’t give a ding-dang if water is by request only, as long as nobody is wasting the valuable time they could be spending on bitching about how little they’re making to anyone who’ll listen.  These are the very same knuckleheads that will be the first to complain about how the guests are getting so cheap about tipping next month.  The boss is betting that the savings will translate into about $21.57 in additional bonus for himself too.

Stupid Management

Who do they think they are – members of congress?

Those that aren’t so short-sighted, the better restaurant owners,  servers and managers, will recognize that they’ve lost opportunities to convince the guest that there indeed is restaurant service at all, and another chance to show an “exceed the guest’s expectations” mentality resides in their place of business. The guest is smarter than you think (I know, hard to believe, isn’t it?).

Oh, by The Way, Nice Numbers Last Month.

1. -Review any policies that have been changed over the past year that resulted in a reduction of service and reverse them.  What have the guests complained about that they miss?  Re-instituting them will make you a HERO!
2. -Go on offense!  Barring any unaffordable added expenses, field suggestions to improve or upgrade the perceived service in your establishment.  Make as big of a deal as you can.  Drawing attention to say, for example, “ Umbrella escorts to your car on rainy days!”, when everyone else is sending the extra cashier/seater/greeter home early will cement your business as one that really cares about their guests, even AFTER you’ve taken their money.
3. -If you’ve ever considered adding Valet Service or a Coat Check, NOW is the time to do it!
4. -On slower days, have the crew polish the silver or glassware, even if it’s not common for your style of restaurant to do so.
5. -Place an increased effort on cleanliness, especially in the restrooms.  This is where you will stand out against the competition.  Their labor savings will show up there first.  Inspect the work that you have done in there, and DEMAND perfection.  Initially, it will take them more labor dollars to get it done right, but believe me – they won’t want to spend any more time in there than they have to, and will find a way to git ‘r done in the same amount of time as before.
6. -Don’t skimp on birthday or anniversary cakes or singing.  This would KILL you special occasion business.
7. -If you have linen napkins, research and implement a more intricate fold.  Impressive!
8. -Water service – if you automatically serve it, continue to do so.  If it is by request only, have your servers do the requesting for the guest by graciously offering it.  “May I bring water for everyone?” increases the perceived amount of service by drawing attention to the effort! Don’t make them ask for it – it’s a HUGE difference.
9. -Do not cut back on the tablewares that you set your tables with.  What would not setting that extra fork, spoon or wine glass really save you?  Bringing it only when it is needed is cheesy, and takes away from the WOW factor of your tabletop.  A wine glass on your table actually increases sales – try it.