Every restaurant needs a powerful Twitter and Facebook account
How many of you eat out for lunch at least twice a week? How do you choose the location? Do you base your choice off of the daily special, how much money you have in your pocket, or what?
Wouldn’t it be sooo much easier if you could just log into Twitter 10 minutes before you left the office and receive a quick update as to what the daily special was? How much more likely would you be to visit the restaurant if there was also a special “Twitter coupon” available from your favorite local restaurant?
Here is my vision:
1. Every restaurant that has a “meal card” includes their Twitter and Facebook urls on the card.
2. Every restaurant instructs their patrons to sign up via Twitter and Facebook for daily menu updates and daily coupons.
3. Every restaurant posts their daily special and accompanying coupon at 10:30 am via Twitter and Facebook.
4. Every day the restaurant sees an influction of 20-50 patrons who would not have come otherwise, but were reminded/persuaded/convinced via a simple Facebook update or Tweet.
So, let’s help each other make a better world. If you are a marketer, with a restaurant client, please ask them to institute my vision immediately (sure, you can take credit for the idea). Hopefully, in about 6 months we will all be making better restaurant choices and saving a few dollars every day!
David,
Great article. I’m a district manager for US Foods Atlanta and I did a teleseminar with Brenda Segna with Blast Creative. Are more people moving to facebook ? We want to help restaurants see the power of social media. My page is under being built. http://www.Myspace.com/petekane1
I would like to maybe interview you ?
Pete Kane
petekane@comcast.net
@Pete – Our company has had great success utilizing both Twitter and Facebook to drive foot traffic to a variety of offline businesses (including restaurants). In particular, many young professionals are on Facebook regularly, therefore it is an ideal social network for restaurants looking to increase their lunch crowd.
I would be happy to do an interview with you. Feel free to email me at dmmink@gmail.com to set up the interview.
I just posted today how I want more offline companies to be doing this – so this is an awesome suggestion Dave – I first heard of restaurants using Twitter to promote daily specials in New York City – you find the places you like – follow them and figure out what specials and where you are going to eat – it is beautiful – you save money with specials and you have a choice! There is power here with this…Good article my man!
I agree that all companies, including restaurants, need a twitter and facebook presence. The thing I love about facebook is that you can create a Facebook Page that allows clients and potential clients to interact, find specials, etc.
Twitter is so powerful! It’s a micro-blogging platform, it’s so easy to use, it’s free, and is going to get even bigger in 2009. Huge Companies like Zappos use Twitter as a way to directly interact with their customers, answer questions, and share promotions. It’s an HR resource that is “Live” and “Free”.
To me, MySpace has dropped the ball and Facebook and Twitter are the hottest things in Social Media.
Thanks for the post!
@Nate – I totally agree that MySpace has lost a lot of its luster, while Facebook and Twitter “are the hottest things in Social Media.” However, in most cases I would still advise restaurant clients to include a MySpace page within their social media campaign plans.
Thanks guys,
Brenda Segna with blast creative did share a similar view that restaurants can and should use both MySpace and Facebook however the Twitter is amazing. Dave …I ‘ll get in touch with you in a few week to talk about an interview. How can I link your article to my Twitter and Linkedin ? I noticed the facebook option. Thanks
Pete
@Pete Kane
For Twitter you can just copy and past this entire thing and link into your updates:
RT @Matt_Siltala Every restaurant needs a powerful Twitter and Facebook account: How many of you eat ou.. h ttp://tinyurl.com/962v88
For linked in you can just do a status update, or what you are working on update and just say something like – reading a great article and include the URL.
Hope that helps!
Totally agree with your points about Twitter. I think more and more restaurants will be left in the dust if they don’t start tweeting specials and updates. People are turning to sites like http://www.eatbytweet.com to find nearby restaurant specials and restaurants are losing out on this opportunity to reach out to their local community if they are not using twitter.
Hi Dave,
Great article. I agree with what you saying about about how Every Restaurant Needs a Powerful Twitter and Facebook account. In fact, a lot of what you wrote in the blog, is exactly what we at SinglePlatform believe in and do for our clients. We are a social media and marketing platform specifically for restaurants and bars, and we are already working with thousands of restaurants across the country.
However, I would argue that you left out the potential that exists behind the location based games like Foursquare.
Please feel free to contact me anytime, I would love to discuss more later.