The Secret Ingredient in Your Restaurant's Social Efforts

Getting others to sing your praises is the epitome of memorable marketing. How do you get customers speaking about your restaurant with passion, and how do you celebrate and spread those words? Within your social media strategy you'll want to incorporate testimonials in consistent and creative ways. The third person/customers voice reigns supreme. Eyes are attracted to quotes, put them in!

Stop selling and start sharing. If you want people to talk about you, give them something that creates more meaning in their lives and they will in turn spread the word and come back to visit. Give away a favorite recipe, dinner for two with two movie tickets, etc.

Ask the questions. "What did you enjoy about dining with us tonight?" If you loved what they say, ask them if you can spread the quote and buy the table a round. I promise you they will tell their friends you did that!

Give people the story to share. We all want another good story to share! What makes your spot different and spectacular? Is it organic, fusion, mexican, comfort, use that and add a new element of appeal at the tables. "The chef wants to bring our diners back in time, tonight we're recreating her grandmothers Cordon Blue, and she wants to know your thoughts." Be sure you explain in terms of "you" what you do for them, not just mentioning how awesome your food is. See features vs benefits. 

Video offers hyper Value. We've all searched Google with a hankering for pizza, thai, or a new sandwich joint... "A website with video is 53 times more likely to show up on Google's first page than one without video." -Forrester Research. Video is a powerful driver of testimonials, becoming one of the most trusted ways to bring emotion to opinions. You can go pro-production or use your smart phone to film folks in the restaurant asking what they think of your new appetizer or evening special. You can use video to highlight a new item on the menu, to give a recipe of one of your drinks, or how the restaurant came to be, and why Friday nights are bomb. 


Go get 'em!


What are you doing to bring testimonials to potential clientele?

Managing Client Expectations is Wings

Hello Gorgeous Darlings! Understanding your craft is key, but knowing how to manage expectation is wings.


Successful Professional Relationships
Be clear. This is what I can do for you and this is how I do it. The idea is to be as clear as possible and ask questions when murky. Use your intuition to fill in the blanks, if you feel like something needs to get hashed out  — do so. 


Know your Limitations
You have to know who you're not, to really know who you are. Explain what you do not do. A hefty component to success is your ability to educate clients on what specifically you can do for them. Even mentioning what is not included in the package price is a great way to build understanding.


Be Bright, YOU are the Light they're Hiring
Let your inner smile fill the room. Be brave and know that this person — just like you, wants to figure out the best way to do this. And is most likely relieved to have found you — if it's not a good fit,  let it go. 


Clean as you go
As much as you can include the client on how the process goes the more they get it if there's any changes with time or money. This is not meant to take years of explaining. If you let them know why you're making certain decisions, where your time was spent last week on the project they'll get it before you need to tell them the price needs adjusting. 


Keep the End in your Sight
Set an end date baby, with a VERY specific outline of what it includes. One DVD, one edit, one screening. And, if there is work completed after this date the price will be... I've heard so many horror stories of surprise misunderstandings to get to finish line.


Lovely Lovely Money
I like to give a ruff estimate at the very first face to face conversation, not on email or over the phone, but before any real negotiations take place. Trust me here. You may be in two different ball parks, and you want your vital resources to be spent courting those who are most likely to buy. False expectations have ruined many a great project. If there's wiggle room and you both sense that you want to work together there's usually a meeting point. And get some money up front. 


Sign a contract fool
If it's not in writing, it didn't happen, darling. Verbal agreements can add tension to business relationships, getting it on paper adds comfort, clarity, and commitment.  


Imagine it and ask for it
How do you want the deal to develop, the terms of communication — phone first, email only, if I don't hear from you how would you like me to respond? And when you communicate with your work, flow be sure to ask for what you may need back. Nothing urks me more than someone asking me a question with no intuitive thinking of what I'm going to counter. Answer questions before they're asked! And ask for what you need/want before you take off running.

Personal Branding

Why you need it.
Understanding the power the Internet has to build or destroy a reputation is imperative. With the rapid growth of twitter, and the appeal of online profile management systems like LinkedIn it's time to harness the fact that you are presenting yourself in a certain light. Defining who you are will help others understand you, speak about you correctly, and help you manage yourself.  Many interviews are conducted online without you even there. How will you brand yourself? 

What's the Plan? 

You'll want to create a framework for who you want to be in the online marketplace. Grab a pen and paper and answer these questions. What's your personal vision and mission? Who's your audience and what information will you bring them? How do you want to be spoken of? What type of content will you be creating that emanates what your target audience wants to read? How much time do you have to dedicate to speaking with your community? 

Where is your audience online?  What publications do they read, what blogs, who are your allies, who are you potential allies?


Show up as yourself. Be honest, be real. You can choose to be formal, casual, or wiry and funny. But be sure you are consistent and you have decided who you are and who are not in the online space. You can be big and inclusive but make sure you've thought this through.

Remember nothing leaves the net, even if you delete a tweet, it's never actually whipped totally clean and can be found again. 

Budget your time or money within the plan. How long will it take you to write and disseminate a blog? According to your goals how many new friends on twitter will you make weekly? Be specific. 

Make sure you document all the items that need to be done, when and by who. And watch your efforts with tracking and metrics, you need to know what's worked and what hasn't. 

Clean the House. Offense. 

Make sure when people find you, you are ready for them. It's like having a group of friends over for dinner and the place is a mess, and dinner isn't finished. Get your website ready for traffic, throw in some classy calls to action and some sort of conversion mechanism, whether or not it's signing up for your Email blast, RSS, a link to your Blog, FaceBook, or Twitter. Be sure you've made it very easy to reach your first time visitors again. And give them an incentive to convert, an invitation to follow you is often times not enough anymore. 

Make sure all of your info on every platform you're participating is completely filled in! And that after one read your audience has a very clear understanding of who you are, what your voice offers this huge conversation and what you do for the world. 


Reach Out. Defense.  
Creating alliances is the best way to accelerate the growth of your personal brand. You'll want to find and befriend industry leaders, your offline friends, any complimentary products or services, and people you want to know. Twitter is especially powerful for this, you get to jump around the social sphere with no boundaries except who you want to connect with. It's truly revolutionary. 


Add content early and often. The best way to have control over your name in search is to dominate the content that comes out. To play this game and come out unscathed you'll have to release control (a big problem for some of my clients). People will talk, you have to have thick skin, show up boldly, and keep going. So, for the networking profiles you'll invest in and your blog/YouTube you'll want to update everything consistently and you'll have control over what others see first. If you've been interviewed or published and want to keep that at the top there are many tactics for organic SEO to apply.  


Go make friends, this was actually the most difficult for me! As I was unclear how to just jump into conversation with folks I don't know or can't see. But I easily got over that and now I talk to them about things I care about and things I assume they care about. You have to jump! As soon as you make friends in the real world be sure to go on and find them right away, strike when hot! Online is simply a mirror of offline interaction.

How to approach a Bad Review?  

In the case of poor comments, customer dissatisfaction, or complaints what to do.

Listening

Perform weekly listening or even daily if you're in a high security field or have the resources. Listening and response is one of the most important ways to participate with your online world. If you don't know what people are saying how will you respond to them? 


A contingency plan can be as simple as putting someones name next to the task line of listening and response, or as complicated as going through your lawyer before any response is made. Above all else know what you'll do before you launch. 


You always want to put listening on your weekly social media content strategy. And do it. You'll want to comb the web for any talk of your name/brand, your competition and what are past clients/customers talking about not related to you. This is will help you foresee trends, manage expectations, and deliver big. Appreciate the fact that you don't have to pay thousands of dollars for market research. 

Response

Respond soon with a solution, and thank the person for taking the time to divulge what's going on. They did spend their time talking about your brand, right? Give them the appropriate response, or gift certificate. Try to be removed from any emotional response. And default back to outreach, ask a few of your favorite clients to throw up a positive yelp or Hot Pot so the great stuff goes to the top. And move forward. Don't dwell!

Be Kind

Remember the rules of the game, every one's voice counts and should be heard. There is a person behind every picture or twitter handle, be kind and know your reputation online is just as important as your real world one.

What else have you found to be powerful tools to manage and master the art of personal branding? Thanks for reading! If you dig my perspective share this and sign up for more!