Your Digital Identity Social Media Marketing Trends for Restaurants
Fall 2014
Apple Pay & Mobile Payment • Digital Menu Boards • Groupon Update • Ello Reserve: The ‘Uber’ of Dining Out • Hyperlapse from Instagram • Millennials Love Their Tech TripAdvisor Focuses on Restaurants • Social Media Analytics • And More!
Yelp forced to manage its own reputation www.restaurant-hospitality.com
September 23, 2014
In one case, Yelp’s marketing and advertising practices are being called into question. And in another, the company finds itself a defendant in a lawsuit asking the site to reveal information about an anonymous poster. A brief synopsis of Yelp headlines catching recent attention: After a commenter posed as a former worker at Sparks Steakhouse and claimed management encouraged staff to spit in customers’ food, the Manhattan steak joint is suing Yelp to force the site to unmask the poster. The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, calls for Yelp to reveal the name and contact information of the user who posted the “malicious and defamatory” comment, which read: “I have personally spit my own saliva into dishes … Our manager actually condones it to guests who give us attitudes. Just double check your food next time you eat here.” Accepting anonymous comments isn’t ideal for any website, but the competing review sites must think quantity of reviews is better than the quality of reviews, because none are verifying their users are who they say there are or that they actually ate at the restaurant. A San Francisco-area eatery fed up with Yelp’s marketing practices is alleging the review site positively manipulates the reputation of restaurants that advertise and negatively affects those that don’t. Botto Bistro co-owners Davide Cerretini and Michele Massimo have operated the Italian restaurant in Richmond, CA, for five years. Cerretini says he grew tired of constant advertising inquiries from Yelp and that once he stopped advertising more negative reviews began showing up on Botto’s Yelp page. To fight back, Cerretini is on a mission to be the worst-rated restaurant in the Bay Area, encouraging all of its customers to leave one-star Yelp reviews. Some hilarious posts have ensued. Yelp denies manipulating ratings, but even if it were to do so, there would be nothing illegal about it. The court of public opinion, however, is a different story. If enough consumers catch wind that Yelp is removing or promoting their reviews based on whether the restaurant advertises, they’ll look for alternative, more transparent review sites, which are not scarce these days. The owner of SO Chinese restaurant, also in San Francisco, has had enough of trying to please everyone, both in person and on Yelp. The first sign of trouble came when James Chu closed down his shop early after serving a few especially picky diners, posting a sign that read: "We are closed because of you (customers), So...yes we use MSG, we don't believe in organic food, and we don't give a shit about gluten free." Diners took to Yelp to respond, some leaving five stars and others leaving one, with comments such as “rude" and "ignorant." Later, Chu posted a more democratic sign that read: “We work hard to please everyone, but we know we can’t. So if you’re hard to please, please just turn around and go somewhere else. Thanks.” Losing your cool and spoiling a nice meal for other diners, as well as a shift’s wages for your employees, does no good. But with more and more consumers reviewing their experiences online, stress levels in both the front and back of house aren’t going to decline. Yelp turned 10 years old this year. It was early to the game, but hasn’t evolved much over the years. TripAdvisor has spent as much time on business-to-business customer service as it has on business-tocustomer. Yelp ought to be redesigning and building out its management tools, including alerts and management responses, otherwise it could fall right out of the limelight—this time for good. 2
NRA Tech Survey restaurant.org
October 29, 2014
More than a third of consumers say they are more likely to use technology-related options in restaurants now than two years ago. Many use smartphones to interact with restaurants on a regular basis, such as ordering delivery, redeeming rewards and paying for meals.
Restaurants Poised to Accept Apple Pay Mobile payment system rolls out at McDonald’s, Panera, more www.nrn.com Article by Ron Ruggless October 17, 2014 Panera Bread’s more than 1,800 units “are ready for the launch of Apple Pay,” Blaine Hurst, Panera’s executive vice president of technology and transformation, said in an email. “We’ve been hard at work to enhance the guest experience through our Panera 2.0 initiatives,” Hurst wrote, “and Apple Pay will offer yet another seamless and safe way to pay.” Starbucks said it will support “in the coming months” an in-app version of Apple Pay, which the company said will be primarily for loading and reloading its proprietary Starbucks Card app. “It won’t be available Monday, but we are looking forward to integrating that,” said Maggie Jantzen, a Starbucks spokesperson. Apple Inc.’s proprietary mobile payment system Apple Pay launches October 20, and a number of restaurant brands are poised to be initial adopters.
Jantzen said the brand’s 12,000 U.S. locations do not have the required NFC technology to accommodate Apple Pay. “We currently are unable to accept those payments in our stores,” Jantzen said.
Most McDonald’s, Subway and Panera Bread units will be among the 220,000 retail locations accepting the new smartphone payment, which is preloaded on Apple’s latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices. Several dozen independent restaurants will also accept Apple Pay through the OpenTable reservations service.
Chipotle spokesman Chris Arnold said the 1,700-unit Denver-based fast-casual chain isn’t using Apple Pay yet, and the company has “not made decision as to whether we will or not.”
"We think it is going to be profound,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said at a product event in Cupertino, Calif. “It's going to change the way we pay for things.” Using near-field communication, or NFC, and the iPhone’s TouchID fingerprint sensor, users can pass their iPhone 6 over a point-of-sale device reader to complete a secure transaction. Apple Pay will be accepted at the counter and at the drive thru “in virtually all” of McDonald’s 14,000 U.S. restaurants, according to a statement in September from the quick-service operator. The company advised that “a handful” of locations wouldn’t be able to accept Apple Pay initially, “but over time that will be worked out.” “Apple Pay enhances our global digital strategy and is a win for McDonald’s customers who desire greater speed and ease,” Atif Rafiq, McDonald’s senior vice president and global chief digital officer, said in September. McDonald’s said customers can hold their devices near the contactless NFC reader while keeping a finger on the iPhone 6’s TouchID to pay at counters and drive thrus. Users’ payments will be charged to a credit or debit card on file from their iTunes Store account. “McDonald’s and its independent franchisees invested in NFC technology for restaurant point-of-sale systems as part of the company’s digital strategy and commitment to customers’ emerging needs,” the company said in a statement. “McDonald’s will continue to add mobile payment capability at restaurants worldwide. “We’re excited to see the mobile payments industry reach a potential inflection point,” Rafiq said. “As the technology catches on, McDonald’s will be well positioned to leverage the investments we’ve made around the world.” Apple said Subway, with more than 26,000 units in the United States, will participate in Apple Pay, though the sandwich chain has not discussed the initiative publicly.
Philadelphia-based contract foodservice provider Aramark said Thursday it will pilot Apple Pay at some hockey arenas this season, as well as Softcard, an NFC-based payment system that is a joint venture of AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon. Softcard rebranded from Isis in September. “Apple Pay and Softcard represent the latest advancement in mobile payment technology, and we are excited to integrate them with our payment platforms,” Marc Bruno, chief operating officer for Aramark's sports and entertainment division, said in a statement. Aramark has partnered with the Pittsburgh Penguins to accept Apple Pay for food and beverage purchases made at Consol Energy Center. The company said Consol Energy Center was already equipped with the software and hardware required to accept this type of mobile payment. For independent restaurateurs, San Francisco-based OpenTable, which provides online reservations services, is integrating its “Pay with OpenTable” feature with Apple Pay. The program has launched at some independent restaurants in three cities: New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. “With Apple Pay, OpenTable app users can skip adding a card to their profile and simply settle their check with a single touch … saving diners even more of their precious time,” Matt Roberts, chief executive of OpenTable, said in a statement.
One touch to pay with Touch ID Now paying in stores happens in one natural motion — there’s no need to open an app or even wake your display thanks to the innovative Near Field Communication antenna in iPhone 6. To pay, just hold your iPhone near the contactless reader with your finger on Touch ID. You don’t even have to look at the screen to know your payment information was successfully sent. A subtle vibration and beep let you know.
Digital menu boards help restaurants boost sales www.nrn.com August 20, 2014
Article by Steve Coomes
There’s no denying the benefits of digital menu boards: easy-to-read graphics and attractive animation; the ability to change menus from any location via the cloud; and, in some cases, interactive components.
“We have it set to populate the display with new content automatically every 5 minutes,” said Smart.Dessert sales have doubled and drive-thru order times have decreased, a bonus he credits to the ease of reading the new outdoor display.
Multiple restaurant chains have reported sales increases at locations using digital menu boards inside and at the drive thru, and operators report a good return on investment.
“Customers routinely experience menu board anxiety,” Smart said. With static boards, customers often stand and stare for several moments before making a choice and walking to the counter, he said.
Still, price has been a barrier to many restaurants unable or unwilling to spend low-five-figure sums per unit to step up to digital. But that appears to be changing, even at smaller chains, as hardware and software costs decline, and operators focus more on the promise of the technology rather than its price.
Facing a full upgrade of its static menu boards, 14-unit Slim Chickens, based in Fayetteville, Ark., recently began to convert to digital. At its first restaurant, the sales impact was immediate, said cofounder Greg Smart. Not only has the cloud-based content management system allowed him to change the positions of certain menu items and specials remotely from his corporate office, he said customers continually comment on how much they like the new boards. He even changes prices depending on the daypart.
“But with the digital experience, we can drive their eyes to signature and core items,” he said. “I watch customers closely, and I believe it helps them feel confident with what they order.” Without disclosing the exact price, Smart said outfitting one restaurant with new boards costs about two-and-a-half times more than static boards. Still, he called the investment, “worth it, because at the very least the guest is having a better experience. But we already know it helps our sales.” While undergoing a brand reimage, James Coney Island, a Houstonbased chain of 20 restaurants, decided to move to digital as it changes its name to JCI Grill. Company president Darrin Straughan said the new name better reflected the restaurant’s fast-casual positioning, and that better menu boards fit its more upscale image.
Slim Chickens has digital menu boards near its order counter and at the drive through.
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James Coney Island, newly re-christened JCI Grill, opted for digital boards as part of a brand refresh.
Much as was done two years ago at 192-unit Pei Wei, JCI Grill’s digital menu boards are mounted on a wall near the order counter. Straughan said that allows customers to browse the menu at ease instead of feeling pressured to order under the waiting gaze of a cashier. Each cash register also has a customer-facing screen featuring the entire menu, in case guests forget or want to change their minds. “It’s a 22-inch screen that looks like a giant iPad for the customer,” said Straughan, adding that cue throughput times have decreased with the new boards. “Our cashiers are trained to memorize the menu as it looks from the customer’s viewpoint. It makes it easy for them to understand, and they don’t have to feel uncomfortable staring over the cashier’s head looking at a static board.” Monitoring his sales mix, Straughan works through the cloud to reposition or delete slow-selling menu items or change their appearance to prompt customers to see them. “We’ve been in business for 91 years, and a change like this is part of how we’re trying to appeal to that younger 24-to-35 demographic,” Straughan said. He set the cost of upgrading to digital at about $10,000 per unit.
Also amid a brand evolution, 400-unit Taco John’s considered converting to digital menu boards. Yet after examining the cost, the chain’s corporate leadership and franchisees decided to make capital investments in other areas of their businesses, instead. According to chief marketing officer Billie Jo Waara, Taco John’s also found other chains reporting mixed results with digital menu board investments. “So we decided that the best investment at this point was aligning our menu strategies with how our current customers are ordering,” Waara said. That meant more vivid, backlit graphics and improved positioning on menu boards for combination meals and LTOs. “What we came up with has been really good for better merchandising of our LTOs, and it’s also helped with ease of ordering convenience and speed of service for customers,” she said. “We’ve had a really strong response to the excitement around all of our new marketing, but most of all, guests have responded to the menu board refresh.” Be on the lookout for new digital boards at select Popeyes and Dunkin Donuts locations, and expect many more chains to upgrade in the near future.
“So when we hear those customers say, ‘We love it. It’s more modern,’ we’re really happy,” he said.
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Groupon Gives Restaurants Greater Control Over Promotions www.fsrmagazine.com
September 23, 2014
Today, Groupon announced several additions to its popular Deal Builder tool for merchants that expand the platform to include restaurants and provide all businesses with greater control over the appearance and structure of their promotions. Deal Builder, which launched earlier this year and lives on GrouponWorks.com, is a convenient, 24/7 self-service option for merchants to construct their own Groupon deal and has been used to create more than 25,000 deals by local businesses in all 50 U.S. states and Canada. “Deal Builder has enabled us to vastly expand the number of merchants with whom we work and enhance the ways we help them promote and build their business through Groupon,” says Julie Szudarek, senior vice president, Local Deals. “More than 95 percent of the businesses that have built deals through the platform have been new to Groupon, which has helped us expand the selection and geographic reach of our marketplace.”
Restaurants can now write a summary for their promotions, telling customers everything they need to know and encouraging a sale.
Deal Builder now empowers all local businesses––with the new addition of restaurants––to do the following: • Select an Image – Choose a deal image from more than 5,000 category-specific stock photos. • Write a summary – Tell potential customers the key things they need to know about the business to make an offer standout. • More Flexible Deal Structures – Choose from a greater number of deal examples to create the perfect Groupon promotion. • Conduct an Interview – Fill out a brief question and answer interview that gets added to the live Groupon deal page, highlighting the aspects of the business and adding a personal touch to the promotion. With the addition of restaurants, Deal Builder is now available to all local businesses. The most popular categories since the platform’s debut are services (photography, automotive, cleaning), beauty and wellness (salons and spas), leisure and activities (fitness), and retail and shopping. Groupon’s local ecommerce marketplace had more than 240,000 active deals globally and more than 105,000 in North America at the end of Q2.
Full Service Restaurants Struggle with Mobile www.buzztimebusiness.com October 27, 2014 Recently, Restaurant Hospitality reported that full-service restaurants are lagging behind other segments when it comes to their mobile presence. Over 60% of the restaurant/catering mobile websites investigated used responsive web design, but of those sites, many took more than a minute to load! Speed like that isn’t exactly conducive to business—how many customers do you think are willing to wait more than a minute for a restaurant’s site to load? Probably not many. And as for why mobile is so important, it’s simple: because so many people are checking out your restaurant’s site on their phones. In fact, 25% of U.S. internet users only access the internet via their phones! You definitely don’t want to make it difficult for 25% of your customers to access your site. However, most restaurants have good intentions. Full-service restaurants are implementing responsive sites to help their business, but they’re actually hurting it by implementing responsive web sites improperly. This leads to slow loading times and sites that simply don’t work as well as they should. There are other problems besides speed. 87% of sites surveyed didn’t have meta descriptions, and 60% didn’t have buttons on the site to easily order food or reserve tables. While these might seem like small problems, they can make you lose big business if they’re missing! 6
After reading about these common site problems, you might be wondering what you can do to make sure your restaurant’s web site works like a charm. Here are a few questions to ask yourself: How fast is your site? Look at your site through the eyes of a customer. How long does it take to load? Especially on a mobile device. If you were a customer trying to quickly find a place to eat, would you be able to use your site quickly and efficiently? Is your site easy to use? If your site is too complicated or cluttered, it’s hard for customers to view it on their phones. Keep it simple and make sure that all of your necessary information is easy to find. The most important info should be easily visible as soon as customers hit your main page…you don’t want them to have to hunt around for it. Is your site responsive? Make sure your site design responsive and that it’s done correctly and in a way that won’t slow down your site. Many full-service restaurants struggle with mobile, but yours doesn’t have to be one of them! Take an objective look at your site, make notes to discuss with your web designer and keep these ideas in mind to ensure that you’re not turning away customers and missing out on business.
Reserve wants to be like Uber for dining out, with help from Uber’s cofounder www.mashable.com
October 28, 2014 Article by Seth Fiegerman
"Imagine us doing for eating out at restaurants what Uber did for personal transportation..." Every week, another startup seems to pitch itself as an Uber for something, tapping into the investor and media hype surrounding the taxi-hailing service. But Reserve, the company that sent the pitch above, has more bona fides than most: It is backed by one of Uber's founders. Reserve launched an iPhone app on Tuesday that promises to change the experience of dining out by helping users find restaurants, reserve tables and pay for meals (including the tip) in advance with a few taps in the app. It's essentially like OpenTable, but with a sleeker user interface and an Uber-like emphasis on eliminating the need to ever take out your wallet. Greg Hong, the startup's cofounder and CEO, describes the "painful" experience of restaurant-goers — searching through reviews on various websites, reaching out to the restaurant directly, trying to snag a good table, waiting for the check at that table — as though he's talking about a root canal. To that end, he and his team began working on a concept that he describes as a "digital dining concierge."
Once you enter in a time range and the size of your party, Reserve curates a list of restaurants (many of which are high end) with availabilities and then handles the payment process that follows. In some cases, diners who book through the app can order customized pre-fixe meals and even bid above menu pricing (surge pricing, anyone?) The startup has partnered with 17 restaurants in New York, 16 in Los Angeles and 30 in Boston and plans to add more partners and expand to San Francisco. While part of the goal is to eliminate the hassle for restaurant-goers, Reserve's team also aims to help restaurants fill more seats and cut down the number of cancellations and no shows. Those who book a reservation through the app are charged a $10 fee if they cancel less than four hours before the scheduled dining time and are fined $25 if they just don't show up at all. Reserve is the first product to come out of Expa, a startup studio created by Garrett Camp, the cofounder of Uber and StumbleUpon. Expa raised $50 million earlier this year to invest in helping startups grow. "We started Expa to create an environment where we can create products that we want to see in the world, that we ourselves use every day," Naveen Selvadurai, who cofounded Foursquare and joined Expa earlier this year as a managing partner, told Mashable in an interview. "Often times that means taking existing experiences in the real world and applying different types of technology to it." With Reserve in particular, Selvadurai sees an opportunity to impact the dining experience on both sides of the table.
Greg Hong, CEO of Reserve
"There's still incredible opportunity in the restaurant and dining space for both sides," he says. "There's great opportunity to not only make for a more elegant solution for diners, but we also have the ability to actually make our platform that much more meaningful for restaurants as well." 7
Hyperlapse: Instagram’s First Standalone App You’ll Actually Want to Use www.mashable.com
August 26, 2014
Article by Karissa Bell
Between Facebook's Slingshot and Instagram's Bolt, there was no shortage of photo-focused standalone apps from Facebook over the summer. But unlike Bolt and Slingshot, which have so far proved underwhelming, Instagram's latest standalone, Hyperlapse, is simple, elegant and actually really useful. The app allows users to quickly and easily create on-the-go time-lapse videos— something that hasn't been easily accomplished on mobile, until now. "We designed Hyperlapse to be as simple as possible," Instagram wrote in a blog post introducing their newest offering. In fact, the app is almost deceptively simple. Record a video, select a playback speed, save and share. No additional editing, tweaking or user account required.
Getting started The app launches with the camera, one tap starts the recording and a second stops it. As you record, you'll see two timers, the first is how long your video is and the second is how long your video will be once it's compressed into the default 6x playback rate (more on playback speed in a minute). The app's most powerful feature, image stabilization, is not immediately obvious. Time-lapse videos have traditionally required the camera to remain in a fixed position, which is a lot easier said than done on mobile. But videos shot with Hyperlapse are smoothed out and stabilized so seamlessly you could easily be fooled into thinking you just happened to record with an extra steady hand. 8
To see just how powerful Hyperlapse's stabilization is, hold down on the screen after you've recorded a video to see a preview of what your video would look like without stabilization.
Choosing a playback speed Playback speed — which can be set at 1x, 2x, 4x, 6x, 8x, 10x, or 12x — determines how much faster your original video will be played. If you record a 30-second video and select the default 6x speed, for example, the resulting video will be five seconds long. When choosing a playback speed, you should take into account the length of your original video and how you plan on sharing it. Generally speaking, the longer the original video, the higher you'll want the playback speed to be.
Unlike Instagram and the recently-updated Vine, you can't import videos you have already recorded into Hyperlapse. You can, however, record videos and save them to edit and share later. To save a video, tap the red "x" in the top left corner of the app and select "edit later." Unlike Vine, there is no limit to how many videos you can save, aside from the limits of your device's available storage capacity.
If you plan on sharing your video to Instagram, keep in mind the platform limits videos to 15 seconds (though you can trim videos created in Hyperlapse within Instagram). This means if you stick with the 6x speed, you can record up to 90 seconds of video, if you choose the fastest 12x speed, you can record up to three minutes of video.
This brings up another important point to keep in mind — HD video uses much more of your device's storage than photos. Though your video may be compressed to a fraction of it's original length, Hyperlapse's videos will still take up more space than photos, particularly if you're creating time-lapse videos from lengthy clips.
Saving and Sharing
Regardless of how long or expertly-crafted your videos are, having a super simple and easily-Instagrammable tool for timelapses is a game changer for amateurs and power users alike.
When you've finished recording and selected a speed, tapping the green checkmark saves the video to your camera roll. Once saved, you can also share the video to Facebook or Instagram.
TripAdvisor shifts focus to the restaurant industry www.restaurant-hospitality.com October 10, 2014 Article by Jason Q. Freed
Photos are essential for restaurant businesses and higher management response rates drive up average review ratings, according to new data released by TripAdvisor, a travel ratings, reviews and booking/reservations site. TripAdvisor, already widely considered the largest travel site based on number of visits, has decided to remedy its inconsistent presence across the restaurant industry. The company recently purchased LaFourchette to compete with OpenTable in the online reservations space. In conjunction with those efforts, TripAdvisor will work closely with partner restaurants and share data about how ratings and reviews can drive covers and check averages. Key among the most recent findings was that both userand manager-generated content can make a restaurant’s profile far more compelling to consumers researching on TripAdvisor. Factors that drive the most engagement on restaurant pages, ranked by level of impact on visitor engagement, were: - Overall number of photos (submitted by both users and management) - Number of photos submitted by management - Total number of reviews - Opening hours displayed - “Photos are essential in driving higher levels of engagement from prospective customers. Diners are keen to preview the appearance of the restaurant and the food they can expect to find there.” The report says that just by displaying photos on TripAdvisor restaurant pages, owners attract 73 percent more engagement from users as compared to pages that do not have photos. Restaurants with more than 35 pictures see an increase of 107 percent in the level of engagement. Walking the Walk One example of how restaurants can leverage TripAdvisor is IX Pour Bistro in Quebec City. The bistro became the No. 1-ranked restaurant on TripAdvisor in Quebec City in April and continues to reap the benefits. In a Montreal Gazette report, the restaurant's chef and co-owner Benoît Lemieux credited TripAdvisor for an influx of business from a new type of clientele: well-heeled tourists staying in nearby hotels. 10
"TripAdvisor is the best thing that ever happened to me," Lemieux told the Gazette. He says business was slow until a year ago when a positive review in a Quebec City newspaper generated local traffic. IX pour Bistro then appeared on a Top 10 list on TripAdvisor and the reaction was immediate. Reservations "went through the roof" when the restaurant took over the top spot. One recent review: “Thank you TripAdvisor! Based on the reviews we took a cab ride from our hotel to this restaurant. My husband and I each ordered an appetizer, entrée and dessert. Each course was absolutely delicious and creative. Kudos to the chef! “Highly Recommended” “(TripAdvisor) is the best publicity you can get, and it's free," Lemieux told the Gazette. "But it also puts pressure on you to perform at the highest level every night (and) stay on top as long as you can." IX Pour Bistro has 75 user-submitted photos on its TripAdvisor page and 143 reviews. Restaurant hours are clearly stated near the top of the page, a strategy TripAdvisor says has a significant impact on user engagement. Restaurants that display their opening hours on TripAdvisor see an 11 percent increase in engagement from potential patrons, the study shows. It also notes the importance of managers responding to guest reviews, not only to ensure they are able to share their side of the story but also in terms of increased engagement levels from visitors. Travelers are 12 percent more engaged on restaurant pages where the owner posts management responses, the study shows. “Restaurant owners should be encouraging their diners to share their experience by posting reviews and pictures on TripAdvisor,” says Severine Philardeau, v.p. of global partnerships. “Just as importantly, they need to respond to reviews, as the study shows that increasing the frequency of management responses has a measurable impact on average review ratings.”
How to Best Utilize Social Media Analytics www.socialnomics.net October 7, 2014 Article by Marisa Negri
Buffer - Similar to Hootsuite, Buffer began as a social media organization tool, but has since begun to offer clients data to help track effectiveness of strategies. Buffer for Business includes “free” analytics as part of a paid package deal. http://bufferapp.com Salesfusion - Salesfusion focuses on marketing automation solutions for medium sized B2B companies. They’ve added social media analytics to their platform as an integrated offering in their publishing and sharing tools. Their software gives you pre-built reports in easy-to-use dashboard formats and allows you to schedule report delivery to key executives. http://www.salesfusion.com HubSpot - This SaaS company has developed an inbound marketing software platform that helps companies attract, convert, and close potential customers. Their Social Inbox can tie into your contact database, and their software integrates marketing analytics and CRM to help show the big picture when it comes to social media engagement. http://www.hubspot.com
What is it?
How can I best utilize social media analytics?
Social media analytics is the practice of gathering and aggregating information from social media sites and analyzing the data to provide insight for a business.
Once you’ve chosen one or more platforms, take time to strategize: identify your core competencies when it comes to social media, as well as any weaknesses that stand out. Social media analytics blog Quintly reports that social media analytics solutions are in a “massive growth phase” as stakeholders continue to broaden social media marketing activities. http://www.quintly.com/blog
Why is it important? Companies thrive off of information about their consumers. Social media analytics can provide insight such as: • Understanding the customer - What are their values? How do they spend their time? What are their attitudes and opinions? • Forecasting consumer behavior - Will a customer buy a product or engage with content? Why or why not? • Targeting the customer - What are the best ways to reach a target audience? How can a business most effectively engage a certain demographic?
What tools can I use? Google Analytics - Free and easy to install, Google Analytics provides cross-platform analytics software. You can customize data collection and report creation, and utilize Google’s free online training for the platform. However, there are limitations to the free program and businesses may have to upgrade to a paid premium account. http://www.google.com/analytics/ Hootsuite - As a social media management company, Hootsuite became a popular platform for brand management. Earlier this year, they acquired UberVU to strategically expand their analytics offerings. Now, real-time analysis is a tool on their social media engagement platform. http://www.hootsuite.com
Here are basic steps you can take with social media analytics tools that can have huge impacts on your business: Determine your reach - One key metric to track is the volume of conversation surrounding your business. Track your daily, weekly, and monthly mentions and measure growth over time. You’ll be able to learn which days of the week and times of the day are most effective for dialogue by noting when there are spikes in the number of mentions you receive. You can also see if volume of conversation increases after a marketing campaign to help determine relative success. Gauge consumer sentiments - In addition to watching the quantity of conversation, analytics will help you determine the quality of conversation. Are people happy with your business or product? How do they react emotionally to a certain marketing strategy? Focus on channels that are most effective - Most social media analytics tools will allow you to take data from multiple platforms. You can use this information to determine which social media channels are appropriate for your content. Maybe customers respond best to content on LinkedIn but to ads on Facebook. Make sure that your marketing dollars are being well-spent by focusing your attention on whatever social media platform fits your business best.
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Getting Engaged Three brands with highly active social media fan bases share customer relationship-building strategies nrn.com
October 14, 2014
Article by Ron Ruggless
As the influence of social media continues to grow, restaurant companies are finding it has moved beyond a simple marketing tool to become the focal point of a company’s entire customer relationship management strategy. Some organizations currently outperform on this front. Whataburger, Potbelly Sandwich Shop and Legal Sea Foods are among the restaurant chains that have consistently excelled in incorporating social marketing strategy into their operations, according to the NRN Social 200.
Potbelly Corp. extends its overall brand mission of making people “really happy” into its social-media strategy, according to Dan Yates, senior marketing director of the 312-unit, Chicago-based shop. Yates credited that strategy with landing the No. 2 Engagement Ratio spot. The NRN Social 200 found that for the 30 days ended Sept. 30, 10.3 percent of Potbelly’s 93,300-fan audience, which is primarily found on Facebook, was actively engaged with the brand. Austin, Texas-based Sprinklr said that engagement, according to the Social 200 data, amplified Potbelly’s brand actions by 439.8 percent.
The NRN Social 200, a real-time ranking of the social media activities of the nation’s largest restaurant chains, quantifies brand efforts and consumer engagement through data provided by social analytics firm Sprinklr. http://nrn.com/industry-data/social-media-200
“Our brand has thrived because of our great customers and their passionate word of mouth,” Yates said. “They’ve been our advocates from the first shop in Chicago and fueled our growth. We view social media as our virtual neighborhoods, an extension to being the neighborhood sandwich shop.”
At the end of the third quarter, the brands with the highest Engagement Ratio rankings tended to be smaller, regional groups. The Engagement Ratio figure measures all social activity, such as Tweets, likes, comments, shares and @mentions against a brand’s overall audience.
Since Facebook debuted in 2004, social-media platforms have increased in number and breadth to offer restaurant brands additional channels to connect and engage with their customers.
On that measure, San Antonio, Texas-based Whataburger ranked No. 1, followed by: Chicago-based Potbelly at No. 2; Dedham, Mass.based Papa Gino’s at No. 3; Boston-based Legal Sea Foods at No. 4; and Bonefish Grill, owned by Tampa, Fla.-based Bloomin’ Brands Inc., at No. 5. Whataburger finessed its way to the top spot in the engagement rankings by employing a social-media strategy that weighs existing fans with new customers.
In the decade since Facebook’s founding, social media has expanded to include Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube and more, and become an integral part of consumers’ lives. But those conversations need to be interactive. The holy grail for many restaurant brands is finding ways to engage current and potential customers, and make existing patrons so happy that they will wax poetic about their experiences to their online connections. The playing field is fairly level in that regard, with smaller brands often exhibiting as much sway as the behemoths.
San Antonio, Texas-based Whataburger has a total audience of 1.9 million across three major social-media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The brand, which has restaurants in 10 states, has minimal presence on Google+ and YouTube. Of that 1.9 million audience, the NRN Social 200 calculated that 11.5 percent, or more than 218,000 social media users, were actively involved with the brand in September. “We have always placed an extremely high value on the relationships we have with our customers,” said Keith McLellan, social media manager for Whataburger. “We absolutely love serving them, and we appreciate their loyalty, so we listen to what they have to say [in social media and offline], and we do our best to provide them the Whataburger experience they have come to expect.” He said the burger chain regularly responds to customer questions and concerns through social media. It also provides content that highlights the brand and conveys information of interest to loyal customers.” “When Whataburger announced we were bottling our famous Fancy and Spicy Ketchup and making it available online, and at H-E-B Grocery, the response was overwhelmingly positive,” he said. McLellan indicated the company employs Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in its social efforts, with Twitter garnering the most engagement. “We find both Facebook and Twitter, as well as Instagram, do an excellent job allowing us to really engage with our customers,” he said. “We see the highest engagement rate on Twitter, but we know that all of the platforms are valuable because they reach different audiences at different times.” 12
Two keys to Whataburger’s high engagement scores are responsiveness and interesting content. The brand sees the highest engagement on Facebook and Twitter, but maintains a presence on other platforms, too.
Ida Faber, vice president of marketing at the 35-unit Legal Sea Foods Restaurant Group, said the brand’s social media is handled in-house and devoted largely to Facebook. Faber, who has been with Legal Sea Foods for seven years, said social media has become a more integral part of the company’s marketing mix in that time. “We try to communicate with our guests in a voice that is authentic to the brand,” Faber said. “And we try to provide fresh content.” Toward that end, the company endeavors to post new content at least once a day and looks for appealing photos, she said. “We are fortunate to have a brand that resonates with people over many generations,” Faber said. “They are passionate for the brand. It’s a virtual table, so to speak.” Legal Sea Foods generally posts photography, produced mostly in house, and by some outside providers, Faber said. “I see social media as an extension of other marketing. There should be an alignment so that you are communicating in the same voice and tonality as your other marketing activities.” Such narrowly focused efforts as part of an overall marketing plan can be a wise choice for restaurant companies both big and small.
The idea is sound, as long as that department has a way to handle social complaints quickly and close the loop. Scott Stratten, president of Unmarketing, a social media consultancy, and an author, said some restaurant brands are missing the boat when they overlook the consumer feedback available in social media channels. “Restaurants trip over themselves trying to get you to fill out comment cards,” he said, adding that many quick-service restaurant receipts have grown to a foot long with information about how to participate in some reward deal for feedback. Meanwhile, social channels are public, where other customers may read negative comments and chime in with their own. People also have review sites like Yelp and Urbanspoon at their fingertips on mobile phones with location-based recommendations. “We have more information at our fingertips about a restaurant than ever before,” he said. “And nowadays nobody believes what restaurants say about themselves. They believe what customers say about the restaurant. Customers are more educated and have the resources. You don’t even know you are losing customers now. They don’t walk in and out anymore. They just don’t walk in at all.”
“For anything to do with restaurants, it’s important not to be so busy with looking at what’s next that we forget what we’ve got now can be used very well,” Faber said.
Thus, he suggested, operators should think less about expanding, for example, their Instagram empire and “make sure the restaurant is making customers happy with what they are getting now.”
Some operators dedicate specific staffers to handle the immediacy that social media demands. For example, one reason Potbelly is able to focus its own social efforts is that it has a single, dedicated employee.
If operators were to do one single thing tomorrow on the Internet, his suggestion is to set up a Google news alert “to hear everyday what’s happening online in regard to the restaurant or brand.”
“We’ve had the Speaker of the House position [currently held by Janet L. Nowlin] for almost 10 years,” Yates said. “Her job is focused 100 percent on engaging with our customers to ensure we are always doing the right thing for them. She talks to our customers on a daily basis whether it’s answering an incoming phone call, e-mail or Tweet. This role requires an articulate communicator who lives and breathes the brand and truly cares about our customers’ experiences,” Yates said.
“You can’t keep up with everything,” Stratten reiterated. “It’s not your job if you’re in the restaurant business to talk in social.” Efforts should be put toward quality of product and service, then consider getting the good word out.
Yates said he believes that role is critical to building great customer relationships. “She can answer questions about when we’ll be opening a shop in their neighborhood or assist if we put the wrong cookie in their order. Answering and resolving issues consistently and with urgency, we believe, is a key part of our success and why we have such great loyal customers.” Eimear Lambe, a brand strategist for Twitter in the United Kingdom, said the social platform calculates 72 percent of those who Tweet about a restaurant are leaving positive comments. For those that don’t, 78 percent of those who leave negative comments are still in the restaurant when they do so, Lambe said. Those companies monitoring Twitter have the opportunity to address the problem in the moment, Lambe said, according to an article on William Reed Business Media’s BigHospitality website. She said Twitter also found: 52 percent of platform users are more likely to visit a restaurant if some sort of discount or promotion is tweeted; 43 percent are attracted to pictures of a restaurant’s dishes; 39 percent are more likely to visit a restaurant if others have tweeted about getting great customer service, and 79 percent of users are influenced to patronize a restaurant if they see a tweet about the food being great or positive information about the menu. At Legal Sea Foods, Faber said complaints are generally routed to the company’s customer-service department. “That department is very robust,” she said. “They do most of that fulfillment. When we see comments in social media, we try to steer them toward our guest-services department.”
Legal Sea Foods Social media specialists at the 35-unit casual-dining chain said they build audience engagement by posting new content daily and emphasizing appealing images, most of which are created in-house. 13
How Restaurants Can Use Social Media Effectively www.socialmediatoday.com August 20, 2014
Article by Vishal Pindoriya
A question for you: why has the McDonald's corporation been able to sustain dominance in the restaurant world for so many decades on end? Is it because they serve the best food? The answer to that should be an obvious "Not even close". You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would choose a McDonald's burger over many other burgers, given the side-by-side choice. Even other fast-food restaurants like Hardees would handily beat them out, especially in a blind taste test.
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Yet there is no doubt that Mickey D's is the undisputed king of burger sales, so how do they do it? There are two answers. First, they basically invented franchising and have opened more outlets through that method than any other restaurant in history. Second, and perhaps more importantly, they gear their advertising towards the younger generation. Not every restaurant can franchise out or put a new location every few blocks globally, but when it comes to reaching out to the young crowd the door is open and waiting for you to walk through.
More recently, the meteoric rise of Chipotle shows us how this strategy works. Chipotle is committed to "food with integrity", using organic, sustainable, and local ingredients whenever possible and practical. This has resonated with the younger, more socially conscious generation. Beyond just a slogan or even a practice, Chipotle actively promotes this theme using social media. Their Facebook page displays calendar events when they will go to visit farmer's markets to buy ingredients. They also promote and sponsor the Cultivate Festival, a traveling outdoor event for food, music, and ideas, and post pictures of the events on their page.
Food + Social Media + Millennials = $$$ The Millennial generation spends around $250 billion per year at restaurants, which is a pie that you want a piece of. They rely on word-of-mouth suggestions for local eats, and they use review sites like Yelp when they are in an unfamiliar town. As of last year, they check in at restaurants with Instagram even more than they do with Foursquare, and they love to post pictures of their meals. Over 30% check the menus from their smartphones before they go. And the biggie: over two-thirds of them take social media conversations about a restaurant into consideration when they are deciding where to eat. Add to this formula the fact that Millennials eat in large groups more than any other demographic group, and the point becomes pretty obvious: restaurants need to be doing social media well. Why the emphasis on Millennials? If it isn't obvious, they're going to be around a lot longer than Gen X or the Boomers, and they are quickly becoming the primary spending power in the world. It's time to find out how to slice a bigger piece of the pie from them.
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Engaging with your followers and fans is a given, but there are certain aspects of engagement that make a difference much more than others. For example, today's consumers want more than just a product list and a coupon (not that these should be ignored). They react much better to an overarching story and to involvement beyond the walls of your restaurant. The most notable and obvious example of this over the last decade has been Starbucks.
They also post their food pictures (and others) on Pinterest, the fastest growing and second largest social network today. Every restaurant should have a Pinterest account where they at the very least showcase their menu items. The New York restaurant Comodo encourages their patrons to post pictures of their dishes on Instagram before they eat it, creating a customerbased visual menu that is full of recommendations by default. This also would let you keep a pulse of what should be kept or removed from the menu.
Proactively Engage Eateries like Pinkberry frozen yogurt and Nando's chicken are masters of the response, even if the other party wasn't expecting one. They daily and actively respond not only to direct tweets and comments, they also monitor social media for restaurants through keywords and brand mentions looking for opportunities to respond. Proactive responses are viewed as authentic engagement rather than obligatory service, and it's that kind of interaction that creates brand loyalty.
Proactively Engage Your Audience – Nando’s Peri Peri is a master of direct social media response.
Perks and Promotions The last several years of a poor global economy have ingrained a sense of thriftiness into people, particularly into Millennials. They gravitate towards discounts and offers. Sunda, an Asian restaurant in Chicago, offers weekly special as well through their social media accounts. They also offer loyalty discounts such as a free appetizer after three Foursquare check-ins, as well as surprise flash promotions like a discount for the first ten check-ins at lunch on a given day. Over 40% of Millennials say that coupons and discounts are important when deciding where they will eat.
Online Customer Service Customers expect you to have online customer service through social media. It's just become the norm. When I had an issue with my smartphone several months ago, I took to the customer service Twitter account for my carrier. Although the issue wasn't resolved that way, I had a response and a back-and-forth conversation that helped greatly within a couple of hours. Every business should adopt this strategy. Your restaurant should have a dedicated Twitter account for customer service. It is the quickest and easiest way to handle most issues, and it will create loyalty and satisfaction more often than it will problems. Significantly, 83% of social customers will abandon a purchase or a business due to poor customer service. If you can ignore a statistic that high, you might as well give up now.
Your customers expect you to have online customer service through social media.
Ello – the anti-Facebook social network www.mashable.com
September 25, 2014
By now, you've probably heard something about Ello, the ad-free, invite-only, independent social network that has seemingly gone viral over the last week. The ad-free social network has quickly — and somewhat inexplicably — gained a reputation for being the "anti-Facebook." Which is odd, because new users tend to boast on Facebook about having scored an invite to the service. While it's not clear what's behind the site's sudden surge in popularity (it launched in March to little fanfare), several reports have linked the rise of Ello to the recent firestorm caused by Facebook's so-called real name policy. Facebook's policy, which requires all users to go by their legal name on the social network, has been in place for some time — but came under fire earlier this month as several drag performers and LGBT activists spoke out after being locked out of their accounts for not using their legal names. The furor resulted in several San Francisco city officials getting involved — and, eventually, a meeting at Facebook HQ. But though Facebook agreed to temporarily give individuals affected by the policy back their accounts, the social network has so far not changed their rules. This has caused some in the LGBT community to move to Ello, which allows users to identify themselves by any name they want. "We believe a social network can be a tool for empowerment," Ello'smanifesto proclaims. "Not a tool to deceive, coerce, and manipulate — but a place to connect, create, and celebrate life. You are not a product."
The site itself is like a cross between Twitter and Tumblr though with more limited features. Users can post status updates, photos and GIFs and comment on their friends' posts. There is a search tool to find the people you know. The creators have a long list of new features, including mobile apps and more privacy settings, they say are in the works. But the timing of those updates is unclear. Meanwhile, the sudden popularity has fueled massive interest in the fledgling social network. Reports have surfaced claiming Ello is receiving anywhere from 4,000 to more than 30,000 requests an hour. The network apparently received so many requests that it had to temporarily limit users' abilities to send them. It's impossible to say whether Ello is the next big thing or just another passing fad — but it has definitely succeeded in getting the Internet's attention. http://ello.co
Survey: Younger diners embrace tabletop ordering Older customers are concerned technology would negatively affect service www.nrn.com August 11, 2014 Article by Ron Ruggless Younger diners are more readily embracing tabletop ordering devices in casual-dining restaurants compared with older customers, a survey by Louisville, Colo.-based Market Force Information Inc. finds. Thirty-eight percent of the 6,106 consumers surveyed in April were “very favorable” toward the technology, 35 percent were not and 26 percent had no opinion, Market Force chief strategy officer Cheryl Flink told Nation’s Restaurant News. Leading casual-dining chains like Applebee’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chili’s and Olive Garden are employing or testing tabletop technology. “You can see that the younger population is much more comfortable and used to the technology,” Flink said. “As time goes by, this may become something that is much more looked for and anticipated, and maybe even becomes ‘the thing.’”
Forty-one percent of 18- to 24-year-olds were interested in tabletop technology in casual-dining restaurants, Market Force found. Percentages dropped as ages increased: 31 percent for 25- to 34-year-olds, 25 percent for the 35- to 44-year-olds, 20 percent for 45- to 54-year-olds, 15 percent for 55- to 64-year-olds, and 10 percent for 65 and older. For those ages 18 to 24, “What we see is that they think it will help them with convenience, in terms of streamlining the ordering process and getting faster service. It appears to be related to quickness and speed,” Flink said. Older diners “would rather talk to a person. They would rather interact live with a service person. And they are concerned service would actually decline if they used technology. It’s almost opposite extremes,” Flink said.
For more survey results, see the full article at: http://nrn.com/consumer-trends/survey-younger-diners-embrace-tabletop-ordering
Soupfly: bad news broadcasts fast www.fsrmagazine.com August, 2014 Article by Kirsten Ballard The name says it all: Soupfly. It’s the recently launched app from Spectrum Solutions that neatly packages the failing health scores restaurants earn and puts them in front of consumers, along with diner comments from restaurant review websites. Soupfly shows the latest health-rating scores along with the dates of the last inspection, and is updated every two weeks. The app recently launched its services in El Paso, Texas, and Las Vegas, with plans to roll out over the summer in a number of markets, including Albuquerque, New Mexico, and three additional Texas cities: Austin, San Antonio, and San Marcos. For the roughly 280 dining establishments in El Paso, Texas, that report failing health-code scores, this can be a huge fly in the soup of restaurant marketing. “[The scores] were available online, but the information wasn’t organized or made into something that was user-friendly, and it wasn’t promoted in some cases,” says Soupfly CEO Juan Hernandez. Soupfly collects scores from databases including any facility that serves food—from full-service restaurants to gas stations, and even the local jail. Looking ahead, Hernandez says the objective is to launch Soupfly in a new city every two weeks. 16
Because the scores are already public domain, restaurants do not have the ability to opt out of Soupfly. However, Hernandez is working with restaurant owners, allowing them to submit new scores earlier than the two-week mark and updating Soupfly manually when there is an improvement. From the diners’ perspectives, users can browse any food-serving venue by sorting through location, name, category, and health-inspection scores. A map is also available for users, providing them with insight into which side of town really has the most reputable food, and consumer reviews are also listed with each venue. In some instances, restaurants with very good customer reviews may have a low or failing health-inspection score, and that colors the opinions and decisions of diners choosing where to eat.