When it comes to restaurants looking for a leg up, there’s one major arena where brands can make a lot of impact without having to have the big ad budgets of some of the largest chains.

In the social media world, brands can cover a lot of ground simply by engaging in conversation with customers.  The focus on strictly social interactions may seem counter-intuitive to a lot of marketing departments responsible for impacting the bottom line, but frozen yogurt chain Red Mango would tell you its success in the space doesn’t come from pushing sales messages directly. Instead, like many top brands in social media, Red Mango uses platforms like Facebook and Twitter as tools to have authentic conversations with their followers, which lets their customers know they are more valuable than just a sale.

And it seems to be working. Red Mango was last quarter’s biggest mover on the Restaurant Social Media Index (RSMI) Top 100, published last week on NRN.com. They’re now positioned at #3, just behind giants Starbucks and Wendy’s, even edging out McDonald’s. Red Mango attributes a lot of the recent success to a strategy that let’s customers submit opinions on product development. And they aren’t camera shy either, utilizing Facebook to display tantalizing photos of—what else—frozen yogurt.

With just 170 stores and in-house staff managing their community, Red Mango proves that smart communication can help brands play in the same sandbox as the big guys.

Photo credit: Guian Bolisay

The popularity of restaurant-heavy business review sites such as Yelp, TripAdvisor and Citysearch has been a boon for diners but can sometimes be a pain for the restaurateurs. Today’s wired customer can publish a complaint about his dining experience before he even leaves the booth, and review sites, Twitter, blogs and Facebook can provide a platform for attacks on your brand by disgruntled customers, former employees or even current employees.

So what can be done to stem the tide?

It starts with a good community manager for your social presence. We often think of an online community manager as someone who just pushes out brand messages, but the role is much more involved than that.

A community manager starts by listening. There’s no way to address online criticism that you don’t know about, so that’s where monitoring tools such as Radian6, Spiral16, Google Alerts, etc., come in. Real-time Twitter monitoring can be done via keyword searches with any Twitter client.

Once the community manager has identified an online complaint or criticism, the next step is to address it. First, she should promptly contact the customer to begin problem resolution or correct misinformation. It’s important that the community manager have a point person on your company’s customer service team who can escalate and resolve complaints. The community manager also needs to have access to the necessary information to correct untrue statements about the brand’s products and services.

Once a complaint is resolved to a customer’s satisfaction, it may be appropriate to ask if the customer would be willing to update, modify or remove the original posting.

Yelp, TripAdvisor and Citysearch all have ways of allowing business owners to handle negative complaints. You can read their policies on their sites, but all of them will allow a business owner or authorized representative to register and publicly post a response to any review. Also, any review that violates each site’s own guidelines may be reported for possible removal.

It’s important to follow good customer relations practices when responding to any online review. A calm, reasoned response to a customer complaint will go a long way toward winning over anyone who might run across the original bad review, even if it doesn’t change the mind of the customer who wrote it.

One of the best ways to counteract negative reviews is to get your fans to post lots of praise! Let them know via point-of-purchase messaging that you welcome their online reviews and thank them when they post. The good reviews will raise your average ratings on review sites and help to push the negative ones off the first page of search results.

However, do not ask your employees to write reviews about you. This violates the terms of service of all of the big review sites. And never post a comment, response or review under an assumed name. This unethical practice is known as “astroturfing,” and it can lead to PR nightmares if a company representative is caught engaging in it.

Now we come back to listening. Be sure to track the issues brought to your attention by online reviews and comments. Some of them may just be sour grapes, but others may serve to call your attention to food, operations, training or personnel issues that need to be addressed. These days, the world is your secret shopper if you’re willing to pay attention.

Finally, don’t obsess over bad reviews. Like the restaurant shown in the image above, you can take some of them with a grain of salt, especially if the opinion is exaggerated or counter to what the majority of other people say.

Your most vocal customers are typically those that would rank you as a one or a five on a five-point scale. They either really love you or they really don’t at all.

But in our social world, we’re getting twos, threes and fours coming out of our ears. It’s no longer difficult to express every complaint: slow service, cold food, wrong order, etc. Companies aren’t only encouraging it, they are rewarding it. Customers are savvy. They see someone complain and get freebies back. Not all customers are trying to get something in return, but they do know they can be heard.

American Express released their 2012 Global Customer Service Barometer which revealed that:

• 93% of consumers say companies fail to exceed their customer service expectations
• 55% walked away from an intended purchase in the past year because of a poor customer service experience
• 17% of consumers say they’ve used social media at least once in the last year to obtain a customer service response
• 21% of those were willing to pay a premium at companies that provide great service
• Social media users tell three times as many people about positive service than the general population

It’s hard not to put a focus on customer service in social media. However, Forbes recently directed companies to dump their customer-service oriented social media strategy. They discuss the importance of using social media as a tool that ladders up to brand and business objectives.

It all boils down to knowing your customers. Know what they want. Know what they need. Be true to your brand.  Social media can be most powerful when all of those are combined.

Want to increase consideration, recommendations and repeat visits? Plan for a mobile-friendly experience.

The modern cellphone has morphed into an instant messenger, mailbox, camera, flashlight, computer, map, dictionary, newspaper, personal assistant and social media portal all in one.

Because of these features, smartphone adoption is on the rise, and nearly 50% of all mobile phones are now smartphones–with the vast majority being iPhones and Androids.

You see customers using their mobile phones in your restaurant every day.  They stand in line or sit at a table for one seemingly alone, except for their instant connection to friends, co-workers, news stories, photos, etc.–all enabled via their faithful smartphone companion.

So what does this mean for your business? A lot.

In fact, in a recent study, Lab42 found that 95 percent of surveyed smartphone users say their devices have a role in their dining choice prior to eating out, and 23 percent of users say their device comes in handy every single time they eat out.

How are people using their devices before the meal? To find you, to see what hours you’re open, to decide if your menu fits their immediate need, and to connect with friends about their dining plans. According to the survey results:

• 20% use their phones to communicate plans
• 19% use their phones to look for a restaurant
• 18% use their phones to check out the menu
• 18% use their phones to get directions to the restaurant

How do people use their phones while dining out? Taking photos (of your store, your employees and your product) and communicating with friends–likely about their dining experience. Survey results said:

• 19% post a Facebook status update
• 24% take photos
• 18% check-in at the restaurant
• 13% search for places to go after dining out

Most people still use their devices after the tab is settled. The reasons for using the device after dining include using social media and posting a photo, both of which can be key drivers of repeat visits and likelihood to recommend. The survey found:

• 22% post a Facebook status update after eating
• 22% find directions home
• 14% post photos

Today’s customer is mobile, on-the-go and always connected. Make sure your restaurant–and its mobile web presence–are prepared to meet your customer’s needs before, during and after their visit.

Photo credit: Tony Alter

In November 2008, a deal-of-the-day website named Groupon launched. Heard of it? Yes, we all know and have likely used Groupon or the many competitors that have been established since.

QSR Magazine points to a 2011 study by ForeSee that showed 65% of online shoppers subscribe to at least one daily deal email. Two-thirds of these subscribers had purchased a deal in the last three months and 89% of them redeemed it.

So we can see that these deals are popular among consumers but how are they impacting your business?

The daily deal has changed the way consumers buy and a result, the way businesses think about using these incentives. In a time when consumers are more aware of their spending, the daily deal has traditionally provided the opportunity to generate trial. The discounts are significant and, based on the statistics above, many consumers take advantage of those savings.

While these deals may encourage trial initially, it becomes a challenge for businesses to hold on to the deal hunters and turn them into loyal customers. The consumer mindset is to wait for another deal that will inevitably come through with the next email.

What was once a reliable short-term tactic has made merchants stop and think about the long-term impact on their profit.  As a result of hesitation, new options for businesses have sprouted up recently.  Enter the next iteration of the daily deal known as the inverted deal.

According to another recent QSR Magazine article, the “inverted deal” does everything right that the daily-deal model does wrong. The discount is delivered to consumers when they buy something for the first time. Like a credit, it is baked into the payment versus pre-paid up front. Consumers make their purchase decisions before the discount is applied so they are aware of the full price value of the item or service.

In addition, the credit is thought of as bonus savings so consumers are more likely to spend more than the deal amount. After the initial savings, repeat visits encourage progress toward additional credits and savings. This model resembles a loyalty program more than the daily deal ever did.

There are several companies and mobile apps popping up that utilize this model. Time will tell if these become as widespread as Groupon. One thing is for sure, there are now more choices for you to find the best solution for your business.

As Facebook continues its reign as the number one social networking site, even small changes to its platform are met with considerable interest.

So when Facebook announced a new timeline layout – and mandated that all brand pages follow the timeline format by March 31 – it spurred significant debate.

Whether you personally love or hate the new timeline format, many brands are taking advantage of the new platform to tell compelling and creative stories about themselves.

In the QSR category there are many brand narratives unfolding in bold imagery and succinct copy points: heritage, quality, local, global, natural, sustainable, fun, taste and LTOs.

And research indicates that the new timeline format is driving greater brand engagement.  According to the website All Facebook, Facebook post engagement soared 176 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

So how can you maximize the new timeline to drive greater customer engagement from Facebook?

According to author John Souza, the founder and chief strategist of Social Media Magic and author of The Only Business Book You’ll Ever Need, the most successful company timelines are the ones that maximize milestones, larger images, highlighting and pinning, along with the new about section.

Milestones

Businesses need to include milestones that will resonate with their core audiences. This is a really great tool for those companies that have not successfully leveraged key moments in their companies’ histories in the past.

Images

A picture’s worth a thousand words. This reality is one of the reasons behind Pinterest’s success. Marketers should focus on incorporating vibrant images in conveying their brand’s story.

Highlighting And Pinning

Find posts that generated the highest level of engagement among your target audience. Marketers can now make individual stories more prominent in size, or pin them to the top of their company’s timeline.

This is a huge opportunity for marketers to showcase content that really engaged their community. It also provides a way for essential posts to cut through the clutter and drive attention to what’s important to your audience and brand. 

About

Revisit the bio your company has been using. The new “about us” section featured prominently below your timeline cover provides a small space of opportunity to tell the world about your business. Keep this description to a minimum. It should be a brief, but strong, statement that sums up your brand. Don’t forget to leave room to include a web address.

When combined, these features can provide an unparalleled method of creating a comprehensive and cohesive overview of who you are as a brand.

Timeline requires marketers to get more creative in order to best express a compelling brand story and engage audiences. It’s a marketing game changer, and it alters the rules of online promotion.

Not only does it present marketers with a novel way of highlighting their brand’s history and growth, it might be just the marketing fix they’ve been looking for.

The latest darling in the social-media world, Pinterest, has become the fastest growing social site of all time. With 12 million monthly users, it’s making restaurant marketers wonder how to leverage this new platform.

There has been a shift from friend-based networks to those connecting people on their shared interests, and this newfound obsession with Pinterest clearly exemplifies this evolution. One of the major shared interests is food. What’s more social than food?

Although Pinterest is ideal for those brands in the fashion industry that can leverage the visual and e-commerce perspective, “Foodservice brands can be equally effective,” said Dan Kim, founder of Dallas-based Red Mango in a recent Nation’s Restaurant News article.

One restaurant, Tender Greens, has used Pinterest as a way to share their inspiration and communicate their philosophies. Christina Wong, an account supervisor with Murphy O’Brien Public Relations, said “Tender Greens uses their Pinterest page as an overall brand page about the Tender Greens lifestyle, what they’re doing as a company and what inspires the individual chefs.”

Dunkin’ Donuts is another brand that has jumped on the Pinterest bandwagon. After setting up an account in the beginning of February, they had more than 1,300 followers before the month ended as reported by QSR Magazine.

Nation’s Restaurant News asked three foodservice operations that are using Pinterest effectively to share their tips. Here are a few to take note of.

Dan Kim, founder of Red Mango:

Post pictures of your food: “People love seeing pictures of appetizing dishes. You can post pics you’ve taken professionally, or those that are generated by sharing communities like Instagram,” Kim said. “In fact, we ‘pin’ pics from Instagram into Pinterest. Each time someone sees a pic of your food, you remind them of your brand.

“Make sure, however, that you’re not posting ads — the pictures should be natural and real, not promotional,” he said. “Pinterest is not about selling, it’s about emotional engagement with consumers so that your brand becomes a part of their lifestyle.”

Albert Im, marketing manager of Austin-based Mama Fu’s Asian House:

Engage: “Like any social media outlet, Pinterest is a community,” Im said. “As a Pinterest user, it’s a great feeling to contribute content that others pick up and share with friends – so it’s important to reciprocate. I also make a point to involve others in our pins whenever possible, whether by sharing a moment with Mama Fu’s fans or giving a shout-out to the creators of user-generated content. Plus, what better opportunity is there to learn about the passions and interests of our fans than by engaging them on a more personal level?”

Erik Oberholtzer, chef and co-owner of Tender Greens:

Offer useful information or resources: “It’s not all about Tender Greens all the time,” Oberholtzer said. “We do share facts about our company, but we also share expert tips about what fruits and vegetables are in season, recipe ideas, sustainable design ideas, a local farmer’s market map, wedding/catering resources, craft beer reviews and even gardening/farming techniques.”

Happy pinning!

Over the past few weeks, a consumer-generated video involving the Sonic brand has taken root and spread like wildfire on the web.

It started as a playful and spontaneous act of fun when 23-year-old musician and coffee shop employee Giorgio Fareira pulled into a Connecticut Sonic Drive-In with a group of friends and placed their order via a charming and improvised serenade. A friend recorded Giorgio’s performance and posted the video, Giorgio Loves Sonic to YouTube. Within a week, it had eclipsed more than one million views.

From YouTube hits to media coverage, the response to the video has been spectacular. Ellen DeGeneres thought so much of Giorgio’s good-natured talent that she invited him on her show and asked him to spread his musical cheer throughout Los Angeles in a humorous and heartwarming bit.

Looking past the video’s initial appeal, however, those in the restaurant industry should take notice of one aspect in particular: the heartwarming, giggly response from the employee taking the order. It goes without saying that customer service can make or break a guest’s experience. Not only did the girl behind the loudspeaker play an important supporting role in the video’s success, her genuine and real response also reaffirmed the idea that your front-line employees are ultimately the face of your brand. No amount of marketing can overcome that fact.

In the case of Giorgio’s serenade, that quality customer service was front and center and on display to a YouTube audience numbering seven figures.

A sponsored Twitter campaign from McDonald’s took a wrong turn last week when the #McDStories hashtag was seized upon by non-fans of the chain.

According to Business Insider, the promoted tweet: “When u make something w/ pride, people can taste it,” McD potato supplier #McDstories,” was pulled after less than two hours. In the meantime, the hashtag was used for a litany of complaints about McDonald’s food, service quality and business practices.

This is a good reminder for brands that social media should be a window into your brand’s soul, not a contrived marketing tool. Every post needs to be constructed with an awareness of the realities of your brand, which means you have to be true to who you are and prepared to take the good with the negative.

Any time you start a conversation in social media, there’s a chance it will veer into unexpected territory. When that happens, you have an opportunity to gain some learnings about how your brand is perceived. Then you can develop a strategy to address misconceptions and, ideally, work on fixing legitimate problems that have been brought to your attention.

So much has been written about the explosion of media choices, and subsequently, the fragmentation of audiences into bite-sized chunks. In the mid-’90s, around the same time yours truly started his career as a media buyer/planner at Leo Burnett, cable television was at the core of the “choice and audience fragmentation” discussion. The balance of power (a.k.a. “viewers”) was shifting from broadcast to cable.

The cable shift and fragmentation story is old news, but the fragmentation story continues in new and emerging ways today. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare are the new face of fragmentation.

The main difference – and it’s a significant one – is that the content in these fragmented spaces is raw, authentic, real-world stuff. So, not only are audiences fragmented, so are the conversations around the brands we love (and support).

Why is that significant?

It’s not just audiences that are fragmented, now. It’s also the conversations about our brands. And marketers need to evolve approaches to embrace this. Developing media strategy in a vacuum separate from account planning and creative strategy has never been more dangerous.

So here’s a plea from a “media” guy:

• Build teams that develop a communication ecosystem that reflects account planning, creative messaging, controlled and unsupervised content, and the connections between them.
• Build a process that is part science, part art, part schizophrenia.
• Demonstrate unprecedented lateral thinking and collaboration.

Image credit: CC BY-SA HonestReporting.com