Digital identity 2015 v4

Your Digital Identity Social Media Marketing Trends for Restaurants 2015.v4

How to Handle Haters on Yelp • Snapchat and the Rise of Vertical Video How Facebook’s Recent Changes Affect Small Businesses • New Apps for Restaurants Groupon To Go • Where Social Media Marketing is Headed • ChefsFeed

Groupon launches restaurant delivery service Chicago is first market in planned nationwide rollout www.nrn.com

Deal promoter Groupon has launched a restaurant delivery service in Chicago with plans to expand nationwide to serve the growing number of consumers looking for “on demand” dining.

Called Groupon to Go, the Chicago-based company has piloted the program with about 500 restaurants and chains since March.

Unlike other technology-based delivery providers, Groupon combines the offer of delivery with a deal: 10 percent or more in the form of instant cash back for consumers who order through Groupon’s dashboard.

The launch in Chicago of Groupon To Go follows the company’s July acquisition of the delivery provider OrderUp, based in Baltimore. OrderUp is currently in 40 markets and is one of a growing number of third-party operators battling to capture a part of the estimated $70 billion ordering-and-delivery business.

OrderUp will continue to operate as a stand-alone brand, but the acquisition gives Groupon access to the company’s established technology, as well as the ability to scale up delivery service quickly to compete with rapidly growing players like GrubHub/Seamless, Postmates and DoorDash.

July 30, 2015

Article by Lisa Jennings

The pilot in Chicago, however, included restaurants that already offered delivery services, such as chains like Quiznos, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen and Subway, as well as independents like Ditka’s Restaurant, Al’s Beef, and Adobo Grill. Delivery fees vary by restaurant.

Smyth said Groupon is taking the discount out of its own margins in Chicago.

How Groupon To Go will work as it moves into new markets has yet to be determined, Smyth said. Delivery service may or may not include a deal, for example.

But, like OrderUp and other delivery players, Groupon To Go will depend on independent contractors as drivers, he said.

Groupon To Go will be expanded to Boston and Austin, Texas this fall, and the company plans to roll it out to other major markets in coming months, Smyth said.

In Chicago, Groupon is promoting the delivery service with the offer to win a Groupon To Go office party, complete with tailgate games and food delivered by former Chicago Bears coach, Mike Ditka.

Groupon boasts about 160 million visitors monthly around the world, and about 105 million customers have downloaded the Groupon mobile app.

Sean Smyth, vice president and general manager of Groupon To Go, said offering delivery is a natural extension for the brand.

Groupon is an established marketplace, he said. With OrderUp offering the “last mile” of delivery, bringing meals to the doors of consumers, the partnership offers an “end-to-end solution.”

“Food and drink is one of the most popular categories for Groupon and we’ve been working with tens of thousands of restaurants for years,” he said. “We want to be the place you go before you do/see/eat anything, to see if there’s a deal or some value to be had.”

Over the past couple of years, Groupon has been expanding its services beyond the deal platform to offer “solutions that appeal to a wide variety of restaurants,” said Nick Halliwell, Groupon’s PR manager.

Last fall, the company began offering a new reservations service, piloted with Chicago chef Rick Bayless. The service allows restaurants to drive traffic during off-peak hours by offering discounts specific to certain reservation times or days of the week. Guests can book through Groupon without the need for a voucher.

Smyth said the move into delivery grew organically as more restaurants asked for delivery or takeout options to be incorporated into Groupon deals. “This comes from a desire to do something meaningful in the space,” he said. “We want to help restaurants with fulfillment.”

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Launching in Chicago, Groupon To Go expands to Boston and Austin this fall, with other major markets to be announced soon.

www.fsrmagazine.com July 2015 Article by Chris Moreno

Pay-to-Play Social Media for Restaurants To generate good exposure for your brand, the social media world has become pay-to-play.

Creating good content is an integral part of any digital marketing strategy. The issue many brands face now is how to generate exposure with the content they've developed. While quality content can sometimes stand alone and reach the right audience organically, paid social advertising helps align the right users with the proper content and ensure visibility at the ideal time in the customer lifecycle.

As social platforms have evolved to meet consumer demands and handle the surge of digital content, paid advertising has become a necessity in order to be seen and generate engagement. Today, brands big and small are being forced to pay-to-play — or be left behind.

Trends in Social Content Recent updates to Facebook have changed how content is delivered by showing fewer user engagement stories in news feeds. This is a trend that affects brands by limiting the exposure for content that users engage with through “likes” and comments. What this means is that brands that wish to remain visible must rely on quality, sharable content and paid advertising amplification. This trend can be seen across social platforms and will continue to develop and push paid media to the forefront of social interaction.

Top content trends for both organic and paid have shifted to offer quick, visual, and engaging content. Users expect instant gratification at a glance to stop them from scrolling through news feeds, and to influence them to engage. Accessibility and mobile-focused content also dominate social channels and drive the highest levels of user interaction.

Within the restaurant industry, a mobile-focused strategy is essential, as 75 percent of smartphone users access restaurant information on-the-go.

Evolution of Social Advertising With the birth of social media dawned a new way to connect with users. Even in its early days, social advertising allowed unique ways to connect with consumers based on their interests and online behaviors. Today, social advertising allows highly specialized targeting options and a variety of platforms to deliver content. Ads can be used to promote pages and websites in side banner ads or to sponsor content directly within news feeds among the content users already want to see. This allows brands to focus their content and deliver a more effective, engaging experience.

Content can either be shaped for engagement or for conversion, but both forms should be amplified with advertising to develop more visibility. Facebook has pioneered the social ad space, and has introduced a variety of new ways to deliver ads and acquire new customers. Most recently, their new “Product Ads” allow brands to showcase an assortment of products to offer users variety, interaction, and a more complete story.

Restaurants can leverage these ad platforms to showcase new promotions, customer reviews, and stimulating visual content.

Pay for Visibility Advertising has become a necessity to be seen. Your brand needs to identify its target audience segments and how they behave online. Create content based on user interests and leverage paid media to deliver that content on the ideal social platforms used by each segment. Targeting features can help isolate niche groups and deliver your content at the right time. Experiment with different ad features across platforms to find what combination generates the highest ROI and user engagement.

Recently, major social media giants have announced big plans to improve the reach and targeting features of paid platforms, showcasing the demand by users and brands alike. Don’t get lost in the noise of digital content; amplify your digital reach with paid social advertising.

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www.mashable.com July 9, 2015 Article by Karissa Bell

ChefsFeed, which helps you eat like a master chef, adds more cities to its plate Whether it's hangover-relieving greasy cheeseburgers, perfectly assembled fish tacos or expertly mixed craft cocktails, eating and drinking like a famous chef is a lot easier than it seems.

At least, that's the premise of ChefsFeed, a restaurant discovery service that relies solely on reviews from local chefs. The company recently rolled out a redesigned app and website, and expanded the platform's chef-curated reviews to 25 new cities.

The newest version of the free app (iOS and Android) has ditched the company's signature chef's coat logo and opted for a more "punk rock" app icon and design that CEO Rich Maggiotto says is more in line with the aesthetics of the app's chef reviewers.

The revamped app emphasizes hyperlocal recommendations with a new "feed me" feature that surfaces recommendations within walking distance.

Getting recommendations directly from a group of chefs who are often among the best in their cities has the added advantage of serving as a kind of barometer for what the latest food trends are in a given city. "We kind of get a sense of what those trends are before they're really considered trends — we knew the hottest thing in 2014 was ramen on the west coast," Maggiotto said.

The updated app passes these real-time trends and insights onto users through the new "scene" tab, which identifies dishes that are trending locally as well as new posts from chefs and curated collections from ChefsFeed.

Maggiotto sees his company as something of an "anti-Yelp." It was born from a desire for chefs to regain some control of restaurant reviews after a surge in popularity of sites like TripAdvisor — and, of course, Yelp.

Though user generated restaurant reviews are still far more prevalent than the more "expert" reviews of ChefsFeed, the company's expansion into more than two dozen additional cities stands to attract users outside of the typical foodie cities like New York and San Francisco.

"Food discovery and what's good to eat in restaurants in the last five to seven years became dominated by online rabble — a lot of anonymous user-generated reviews of food," he said.

This, he explains, left chefs feeling like "the food discovery was left to the palates of amateurs."

The company is also preparing for a bigger international presence — it's already in London and Canada — with plans to begin expanding to Lima, Rome, Tokyo, Paris and a handful of other foodie cities by the end of the year.

Late-Breaking News!

• Facebook introduces live-streaming video feature for Facebook Mentions, their celebrity-only app that enables public figures to interact with their fans. Will they eventually roll out the feature to the rest of us?

• Hootsuite adds the ability to prepare and schedule Instagram images from the Hootsuite dashboard.

• Twitter monthly average user numbers grew at the slowest pace since the company went public in 2013.

Their share price drops 11% as a result of the news.

• University of Maryland researchers find that daily deals like Groupon and Living Social tend to undermine the reputation of many restaurants that offer them, but can be an effective marketing tool for higher-end startups.

Facebook’s new priority options are affecting small businesses On July 8th, Facebook changed the way content is distributed on people’s walls. It’s now possible to prioritize who we see posts from first. Personally, this is great and will help all of us keep in touch with the people we want to hear from most. For people with Facebook Business Pages, it’s also going to impact any posts that a person is getting from you. Business posts will likely take a back seat to personal posts read.

There’s a second issue that going to push smaller companies further back down the reading chain. It’s Facebook’s “discover new pages” feature. Pages already followed influence Facebook’s new suggestions. Pages that your friends follow also factor into the offerings you’ll see. There’s little surprise that small businesses aren’t showing up in these suggestions.

One solution may be to ask all your followers to please choose your page as one that they’d like to see. If not, you may fall so far down their streams that your posts won’t show at all. To do this, ask your followers to go to their Facebook Settings. Scroll down and select News Feed Preferences. When they see your company, they can click the ‘Following’ menu and choose “See First.”

Alternately, they can browse to your Facebook page and click the ‘Following’ button that appears at the lower right of your cover image, and select “See First” from the drop down menu.

These new preference choices are available now on the IOS app and via your computer. They’ll be available soon on Android devices, too.

The new priority options put more pressure on small businesses to run Facebook ad campaigns to stay in front of their customers.

Delivering great content is more critical than ever. Many in small business groups I belong to report their content alone isn’t working as well as it did in the past. Their posts simply aren’t as visible on their customers’ walls.

What does Facebook’s CPC mean and how are ad costs effected?

Speaking of ads, the definition of Facebook’s Cost Per Clicks and their costs to advertisers just changed, too. Yes, the definition of a CPC has changed. Now, it only includes clicks to websites and apps, not likes, shares, and comments.

www.brandgoodness.com July 13, 2015 Article by Diane Cook-Tench

Here’s the specific list of what’s covered: Clicks to visit another website Calls-to-action clicks that go to another website (i.e.… Shop now) Clicks to install an app Clicks to Facebook canvas apps (an app for games embedded on Facebook) Clicks to view a video on another website

How Will These Changes Impact Your Business?

This new change allows you to tightly target your goals. Separating link clicks from engagement clicks will allow you to decide what you value. If you care most about the links that your followers are engaging with, you’ll just pay for those.

Your campaign reporting metrics will look different, too. By excluding likes, comments and shares, your CPC may increase but its cost will reflect greater value based on more important link actions. Your Click Through Rate will decrease since it won’t factor in the old likes, comments and shares. You can still pay for Engagement Clicks by choosing different optimization choices that are available.

Facebook won’t be tracking the Engagement Click results in their updated version of CPC, though.

Businesses buying their own ads through Facebook’s Marketing Partner will see messages about new decisions they’ll need to make.

If a company is buying and placing the ads for you, you’ll want to talk to them about these changes so that the proper formula is used to reach your goals.

There’s Time To Continue Using The Old CPC Formula Facebook is allowing its customers to continue to place media using the old CPC up until October 7, 2015. After that date, you’ll only have the option to use their new CPC system.

The Future We’ll have to see how just how much these latest changes impact small businesses. My guess is that they’ll drive greater need to grow customer email lists and the content that’s sent directly through them.

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5 Cool Digital Tools for Restaurants Want to work more efficiently, save money and put more guests in your seats?

We’ve found some apps for that. www.restaurant-hospitality.com July 21, 2015 Article by Gina LaVecchia Ragone

Allset Reservation app Allset promises to speed up the lunch process. Besides providing a reservation function, Allset enables restaurants to accept food and drink orders for dine-in guests at the time of reservation.

Its developers describe it as a “hybrid table booking plus food pre-ordering” app in which “orders are placed and payments are settled in advance.” The thinking is that quick turnarounds can help full-service restaurants better compete with quick-service outlets during the lunch daypart. Setup for operators is free; restaurants pay $1 per order placed. A web dashboard allows operators to create a public profile, connect bank accounts and add menu items. While it is still in beta testing phase, Allset is accepting registrations of participating restaurants.

Orderly Promising operators better control of their buying, Orderly automates the purchasing process, while still using “your suppliers, your specifications and your purchasing strategy.”

The app tracks spending and provides data, suggesting best practices to help with supplier, menu and purchase decisions. Orderly has an inventory tracking function and remembers users’ preferences. The app also creates data to populate your back-office system, and documents all transactions.

The dashboard functions include spending graphs so operators can see how much they’ve spent over a given period of time with various suppliers.

Another report displays food spending and compares it to sales so that operators can calculate food costs.

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There is a free 30-day trial, then a monthly subscription cost ranging from $49 to $400, depending on the services you require.

Wisely Beacon technology is rapidly being adopted by retailers, and restaurants can get in on the game early with this app. Wisely uses beacons to identify repeat visitors as they walk through the door. Sensors detect and transmit, to the manager or operator, an electronic signal when a guest who has downloaded the Wisely app enters the establishment.

According to its developers, the app also “provides analytical tools that test and measure the drivers of increased visit frequency and spend,” including preferred guest status management; guest intelligence, (the guest’s name, photo, visit history, staff notes and feedback from prior visits are pushed to a manager’s phone or tablet the moment a preferred guest arrives); visitor feedback; and a guest messaging function that allows operators to communicate nightly specials and other events.

Tipsi Tipsi’s developers describe this wine app as a cross between Yelp (users can post reviews and photos) and Pandora (there’s a recommendation algorithm that will suggest wines based on a patron’s individual preferences).

For $99 per month, restaurant operators get the Tipsi app, a mobile inventory management tool with features such as stock level alerts, and a web-based, real-time wine list to replace the PDFs most restaurants post online. Restaurant operators can even make menu pairing suggestions.

For patrons, Tipsi is a continuously growing wine database. It features a personal rating system function, wine encyclopedia and social media tools. According to the company, Tipsi is connected with “hundreds of thousands of wines across tens of thousands of wine lists” in restaurants throughout the U.S. The app is available on iPhone and Android platforms.

Zomato Have you noticed the redirect when you log on to Urbanspoon? That’s because the site has been folded into Zomato, an Indian company that purchased the popular online dining portal last month. All users’ accounts and data have been migrated to Zomato, so all of those positive reviews of your restaurant are still there. On the operator’s end, the new Zomato mobile app has new marketing, customer feedback and cashless payment features.

On the guest’s side, changes include: a five-point rating scale; the replacement of Urbanspoon’s like/dislike system to “positive” or “negative” votes; a new policy allowing only one review per person of a restaurant (that can be updated to reflect subsequent visits; and finally, logins, which were not required with Urbanspoon, but are required with Zomato.

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5 ways to handle haters on Yelp www.restaurant-hospitality.com May 27, 2015 Article by Darius Fisher Since Yelp’s inception in 2004, “Yelpers” have written more than 77 million reviews. Fortunately, according to a 2014 Small Business Trends article, these online opinions are largely positive, with four- and five-star reviews comprising about 67 percent of the reviews, and one-star reviews accounting for only 13 percent.

As if getting multiple positive reviews is not challenging enough for an operator, a 2013 Steam Feed article illustrates how Yelp’s filtering system has created an even bigger hurdle. In a worst-case scenario, this system may prevent any positive reviews from appearing, while allowing negative one star reviews to consume the page.

Unfortunately for those who have fallen victim to malicious attackers, Yelp often populates the first few spots in every Google search for a particular restaurant. With more than 142 million unique monthly visitors, ignoring negative Yelp reviews is not a wise decision. What's a restaurateur to do?

1. Take ownership.

If you haven’t done so already, activate and “claim” your restaurant's Yelp page. This way you will be ready to respond to all reviews.

Claiming your page also allows you to market your restaurant.

You can upload a current menu, hours of operation and photos.

2. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Photos of beautifully plated appetizers, entrées or desserts are the first line of defense against any complaints of “unappetizing” or “unpalatable” food. Similarly, photos of smiling waitstaff are likely to diffuse many “poor customer service” complaints. For some customers, looking through photos is an alternative to reading through comments, so make a quick and lasting impression by uploading quality photos.

3. Think Outside of the Yelp box.

Plenty of other authoritative review sites exist where you can encourage guests to share their opinions. These include OpenTable, Yellow Pages, Urbanspoon and, of course, Facebook, which boasts 210 million active monthly users in the U.S. and Canada—30 percent more than Yelp.

4. Keep social media accounts active and updated.

Regularly updated Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts with solid followings and positive fan interactions are likely to outweigh a less-than-stellar Yelp page. Just like alternative review sites, active and regularly updated social media accounts are likely to occupy those top spots on the front page of Google and influence more potential customers.

5. If all else fails, bring in an expert.

Consider hiring a reputable online reputation management firm: one who can effectively push Yelp off page one of Google, rather than one offering to delete negative comments or sell you positive reviews. Be wary: it is actually impossible to remove reviews unless they violate Yelp’s terms of service. As for beefing up your number of rave reviews? Getting caught purchasing reviews will result in a public shaming, courtesy of Yelp. Pushing Yelp off of page one of Google’s search results will reduce the amount of traffic that lands on those negative reviews and more importantly, prevents negative comments from reaching your potential customers.

6 ways to prepare for a crisis

www.restaurant-hospitality.com July 9, 2015 Article by Lisa Jennings

Subway's handling of news about its spokesperson points out important steps any restaurant should take.

Most restaurant operators know that each day brings with it the possibility that a crisis will occur. It’s not a question of if, but when.

Recent news that the home of longtime Subway brand ambassador Jared Fogle was the target of a police investigation is a perfect example of the type of crisis that can occur, says Laurel Kennedy, principal of the crisis management firm Blink, which specializes in food channels.

Fogle has not been charged and the investigation is believed to be tied to the arrest of an associate who worked for the nonprofit Jared Foundation, Russell Taylor, who faces charges of producing and possessing child pornography. Still, Subway has suspended its relationship with Fogle after he served 15 years as spokesperson.

How damaging the incident will be for the brand will depend on how Subway manages the crisis going forward, and speed is an issue, Kennedy says.

“Social media has redefined the whole approach to crisis communications. It’s a 24/7 world,” says Kennedy. The key, she adds, is being prepared.

While most crises can’t be anticipated, restaurant operators can put a plan in place that will give them tools for responding to just about any potentially damaging event, whether it’s salmonella in the ice cream or a disgruntled employee seeking revenge.

Here is Kennedy’s six-point plan to help restaurant operators prepare for the worst: 1. LISTEN The first step is to pay attention to how your brand is faring across all media sites, including print, broadcast and social platforms.

Your own employees can help. Encourage them to bring brand mentions to your attention.

Companies can also use various software tools, such as Google Alerts, that allow them to track dialog about their brand across multiple media platforms, or even watch in general for things like foodborne illness activity that could have an indirect connection to their brand.

3. BE READY TO PIVOT There will be a point when you can shift the dialog from dealing with the crisis to a more proactive recovery stage, said Kennedy.

If the crisis is a foodborne illness, for example, a pivot could include changing the conversation to your food safety program and how your restaurant takes steps to keep customers safe. A community outreach program with a local hospital on health and nutrition issues, for example, could change the conversation from illness to wellness.

4. LEVERAGE LOYALTY A growing number of restaurant chains are building their loyalty programs and e-mail marketing databases, which can pay off in spades in times of crisis, said Kennedy.

“You have a clientele of evangelists predisposed to your brand and willing to listen to your message and share it,” says Kennedy.

“They’re willing to take the chance and be the first ones to come back after an incident.”

Restaurants should reward and incentivize those loyal fans as their vanguard, she explains. She suggested buy one, get one free offers as an effective tool to bring back those loyal fans and more.

5. EDUCATE EMPLOYEES Old school thinking was that companies should never allow employees to say anything publicly about their brand. “We, on the other hand, advise harnessing and leveraging the power of those employees,” Kennedy says.

“They’re super credible sources and people will believe them,” she adds. “You can put the tools in their hands.” One way of doing that: In staff meetings or before shifts, give them one or two key messages that they can share, whether as servers at the table or on social media.

Whenever there’s a crisis, it’s always best to let employees know before the news hits, if possible. “That way they’re ahead of the game, rather than finding out after the fact,” Kennedy says.

6. Be a good neighbor all year round, not just when something happens.

2. CONTROL THE DIALOG This is a media-driven world and someone is controlling the message. If it’s not you, it’s someone else,” Kennedy observes.

How to grab control? Use social media to push your message out.

It allows restaurants to address concerns both individually and on a more global basis. Communicate clearly and accurately. Build your story point-by-point and bring in outside experts, if necessary.

Being totally enmeshed in the community and viewed as a good neighbor helps build goodwill, said says. “People will be willing to give your brand the benefit of the doubt because they perceive you as being an invested member of the community.”

Donate to charity auctions. Offer your parking lot as a staging area for community 5-K races. Sponsor a Little League or soccer team.

“Do it on an ongoing basis, so it’s authentic and real,” Kennedy advises. “If it looks like you’re being opportunistic, people won’t trust you.”

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Social Media Marketing for Restaurants www.socialnomics.net June 23, 2015 Article by Boris Dzhingarov Most companies use social media to promote their business.

If you haven’t jumped on the bandwagon, it’s probably because you’re skeptical about it – especially if you run a restaurant.

Most restaurant owners and managers assume they should be spending their time and energy on customer service and food prep instead of social media. Of course, those are absolutely crucial aspects of a restaurant business, but it’s also important to consider how social media can enhance your relationship with current customers and attract new business, too.

The following are four signs that might indicate it’s time to start using social media.

1 – Most of Your Customers Are First Time Visitors It’s nice to have a first time customer stumble upon your restaurant and walk in. But great restaurants succeed based on repeat business. Many people use social media to talk about food.

They take pictures of their food, they refer restaurants to their friends, and they might even rate a restaurant online.

Some managers assume that they avoid bad reviews by staying away from social media. This is not the case. Customers will review your restaurant whether or not you have a web site or a Facebook page, and if you don’t have a Yelp page, they can actually create one for your business! Having a professional presence on social media means that when your customers are online, they have an engaging, fun way to interact with you.

This allows you to build a relationship, address complaints, and create a following. Also, with social media, you can encourage people that love your restaurant to come back again.

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2 – People Don’t Know You’re There Even if you serve the best food in the world, your restaurant could flop if people can’t find you. This is one of the benefits of social media.

It enables people to find restaurants – even if they are located in areas that are less popular. If you have a new restaurant, you can get the word out about your location using social media.

3 – Your Specials Are Not Selling If you have great happy hour specials or amazing new seasonal entrées that people are not coming in for, then you might need to get on social media and promote your restaurant. These specials are a great way to increase traffic, but only if your prospective audience (including your current customers) know about them.

You can use social media to talk about what’s coming up for happy hour. You can also post pictures of your latest meals. This is an easy and effective way to get the word out about all that you have to offer.

4 – Other Advertising Options Are Too Expensive Many restaurants do not have the budget for other traditional advertising. After all, sending coupons in the mail can get expensive quickly. The good news is that social media is very inexpensive in terms of marketing value. Promoted social media posts gain you thousands of viewers very affordably, and if your content is good enough, you can probably still get the word out by only using free methods, including holding customer contests (to encourage sharing your posts, posting food photos or reviews) and giveaways (such as a free appetizer or t-shirt). This lets you build a community to engage with. It will also provide you with a platform for future promotions.

Do these signs apply to your restaurant? Perhaps it’s time to spend a few hours outside of the kitchen and focus on interacting with your customer online. Talk to them. Ask questions. Network.

Start reaping the rewards of your smart social media marketing.

Facebook search now includes restaurant reviews www.mashable.com May 26, 2015

Article by Jason Abbruzzese

Facebook is introducing a new feature that many users are likely to give five stars.

Facebook is trying out a new feature that integrates critic reviews when you search for and visit pages of restaurants on the social network. The publications that are part of the program include New York Magazine, Bon Appétit, the San Francisco Chronicle, Condé Nast Traveler and Eater.

It's not quite Instant Articles — Facebook's new program to lure publishers into putting content directly into the social network instead of linking out — but it represents another effort to get high-quality content to appear directly on Facebook rather than directing readers elsewhere. Facebook has said that this kind of integration provides a better experience for customers, particularly on smartphones.

As part of the feature, Facebook will host short summaries of the publications' reviews, which will appear when people search for a restaurant and also on the business pages of some restaurants.

People can then click on links and be taken to the full reviews on the publishers' sites.

"In order to give you access to even more helpful information about local places, we're testing a new unit that will display critic reviews for certain restaurants in the U.S. Starting today, you'll now see critic reviews in addition to reviews from friends and other people who have been there," a Facebook spokesperson told Mashable.

In addition to putting more content natively on Facebook — its native video player has also been a hit — the company has been pushing hard to embrace small businesses. COO Sheryl Sandberg recently stated there are some 30 million business pages on Facebook, and that they are trying to figure out how to make it easier for those companies to advertise to a highly-targeted audience.

Restaurant reviews have been a surprisingly competitive part of the online ecosystem, particularly as companies compete for share in the mobile search market. Yahoo struck a deal with local review website Yelp in March, 2014 to bolster its offerings. Google acquired Zagat for $151 million in 2011.

Restaurant reviews are only the most recent small business feature from Facebook. It recently announced that WhatsApp could soon allow businesses to contact customers on the messaging app, providing a new way to boost customer service.

Twitter increases direct message character limit blog.hootsuite.com July 26, 2015 As more and more people reach out to businesses on social channels, it’s key to have a streamlined process for dealing with questions or feedback. It’s a win-win for companies and their customers: according to a recent stat, 71 percent of people who experience a quick and effective response on social media are likely to recommend that company to others.

With its real-time nature, Twitter can be used by businesses to reach out and quickly respond to mentions and inquiries. Twitter’s Direct Message feature is incredibly useful when conversations need to take place over a private thread. And Twitter’s upcoming plans to increase the DM character limit from 140 to 10,000 will enhance this experience, allowing users to message each other more freely.

Brevity in Tweets helps to create bite-sized and engaging content.

However, as inquiries can often take more than 140 characters to explain, conversations may need to be moved offline or to email.

The increased DM character limit offers an option for brands to keep the conversation in one channel. Users can also ask questions and offer feedback on the brand’s products or services without the need for a lengthy thread, or worrying about limited space. To give you a sense of how much you can fit into 10,000 characters, consider the length of this blog post: 380 words, or almost 2,300 characters.

Imagine being able to fit nearly five times that amount into a single Direct Message!

The character limit update is one of several improvements made to Twitter DMs this year. In March, Twitter introduced the ability for users to receive DMs from anyone regardless of their follower status. This made it even easier for customers to reach out to Twitter accounts that enabled this option, and do so privately if they wanted.

And while Twitter has no plans to change the length of public Tweets, these updates to Direct Messages will help brands better connect with their customers.

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Snapchat drives trend toward vertical videos www.latimes.com July 15, 2015 Article by Paresh Dave Whether it's in a movie theater, on TV or on a computer screen, the videos you watch have almost always been horizontal.

The rise of smartphones has quietly rotated that standard 90 degrees, with people — particularly young mobile users — flouting long-held ideas about the "right" way to capture video.

On Snapchat, one of the most popular apps among teens and twentysomethings, vertical videos have become the norm.

Sensing the shift, the Venice company has embraced the atypical format and is betting that whether users realize it or not, they prefer watching videos on the go that are tall and narrow instead of short and wide.

The company is so confident in the future of vertical video, it recently partnered with WPP, the world's largest advertising agency, and the Daily Mail to form Truffle Pig, an ad agency whose specialties will include vertical video ad development.

With more than 100 million users and 2 billion video views daily, Snapchat's acceptance is forcing its competitors and advertisers to reconsider video formats as well.

Last month, Twitter started showing landscape videos after only allowing square videos. Facebook recently began playing vertical videos on smartphones in full screen and now plans to sell vertical video ads. YouTube says it's "looking into" vertical, and some start-ups are building apps and hardware that treat vertical video as a distinct art.

The cardinal rule for video has been to shoot in horizontal mode, which caters to people's horizontally spread eyes. But smartphones are built vertically to take into account the distance between the ears and the mouth.

YouTube and other early apps encouraged users to turn their phones to make video viewing familiar. But Snapchat rejected the approach, launching four years ago with buttons on the app placed in such a way that shooting and watching videos with the phone upright would feel more logical.

It was a risky strategy, given the wide usage of landscape video and the disdain for portrait mode. But the calculated choice by Snapchat Chief Executive Evan Spiegel, who studied product design at Stanford University, was ultimately a wise one. Mobile users have become comfortable reading emails, scrolling through photos and watching videos without rotating their phones.

On smartphones, about 94% of website visits across the world begin in portrait mode, according to ScientiaMobile, which tracks more than 1 billion Internet browsing sessions each month.

"Now that everything is on cellphones, it's more valuable to shoot content vertically," said entertainer Shaun McBride, whose Snapchat videos are viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. "It's not necessarily that vertical is better, it's just that it's how cellphones are commonly viewed."

McBride, 28, who goes by the Snapchat user name Shonduras, said he appreciates the in-your-face perspective of vertical videos and the fact that it feels natural.

"If something cool happens — a deer runs across the road — you don't think, 'I'm going to turn my cellphone horizontally and get a really good shot,'" he said, noting that "99.89%" of the Snapchat messages he receives from fans are in portrait.

Digital media executives don't expect two-hour movies in portrait mode to appear any time soon. But as people increasingly replace thumbing through TV channels with tapping on smartphone videos, it's hard to see vertical's upswing slowing. That is turning shooting in vertical, once an anathema in Hollywood, into a real consideration in certain cases.

If more apps that prioritize vertical videos emerge as platforms in which content producers can make money, it's going to become "very worthwhile to put resources toward building vertically," said Kathleen Grace, chief creative officer of online video studio New Form Digital.

That has major implications for online video ads, a fast-growing industry that is expected to reach $2.6 billion in revenue this year in the U.S., according to EMarketer.

Since first appearing last fall, all video ads on Snapchat have been vertical, including promo spots for Tide detergent, ‘Jurassic World’ and the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge.

In recent months, Snapchat's Spiegel trumpeted the initial success of those vertical video ads in an Adweek cover story, at a big digital advertising conference and during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in France.

The company says quick video ads that fill vertical, or portrait, displays are nine times more likely to be watched than the horizontal, or landscape, ads found on most other websites and apps.

Now, with its new Truffle Pig ad agency, the company is going a step further. The aim is to get advertisers to recognize vertical as the preferred mobile screen orientation among consumers, and subsequently make it easier for advertisers to create vertical ads by providing them with a suite of portrait-centric insights and tools.

"Sometimes, you can't imagine something is better or more dynamic until it comes," said Alexander Jutkowitz, an advertising veteran who is Truffle Pig's CEO. "Well, it has come and we should see what we can do with it."

Jon Gieselman, senior vice president of marketing for DirecTV, said advertisers will be excited to take advantage of the new flexibility offered by vertical video ads on smartphones.

“Is it going to change the industry? No,” he said. “But vertical can sometimes be more impactful.”

Some in the entertainment technology industry are unsure where portrait goes beyond Snapchat. Would people really want to watch a ‘Game of Thrones’ episode or a baseball game vertically on their phones? Is it the app, the content or the ergonomics driving the behavior?

So far, Google-owned YouTube is standing by landscape. Portrait video in YouTube's app displays in a tiny frame with black bars on the sides, and Google's Camera app encourages capturing video in landscape mode.

But several start-ups are starting to push vertical, or at least embracing both screen orientations.

Video-streaming app Stre.am was designed for portrait or landscape viewing and horizontal filming. Now, the start-up is developing technology to allow horizontal capture while maintaining a portrait grip, Chief Technology Officer Jeremy Martin said.

San Jose start-up Vervid, meanwhile, wants to be the vertical YouTube. When Chief Executive John Whaley noticed angry YouTube commenters criticizing video owners for shooting vertically, he saw an opportunity in the friction between video purists and the selfie generation. His app makes vertical videos look attractive by displaying them in full screen, with no black bars, and high quality.

Even big TV screens are now hanging the long way. Enplug, a Culver City start-up that specializes in real-time digital signage software for businesses, initially installed screens vertically so that the surprising orientation would draw people's gazes, said Ryan Gushue, the startup's marketing director.

The company now lets customers handle installation, with about 1 in 4 choosing to hang their screens vertically.

Snapchat propelled the vertical video movement forward. But Chris Swain, a design expert who has taught video game-making at USC, also credits the iPhone with changing long-held rules about the look of content. These days his phone's camera roll is filled with both portrait and landscape images taken, he said, "with no rhyme or reason." "It's about what feels right," he said.

Shaun McBride, whose Snapchat user name is Shonduras, holds his phone vertically to film a scene for the show "SnapperHero" which aired on Snapchat earlier this year.

Clockwise from back middle are YouTube stars Freddie Wong, Anna Akana and Dash Dobro.

5

Dave Kerpen

Melonie Dodaro

Brian Fanzo

3 Social Thought Leaders on Where We Are and Where We’re Headed in Social Media Marketing www.socialmediatoday.com

August 1, 2015

Article by Andrew Hutchinson

As we're all unavoidably aware, the social media landscape is constantly changing. This year, we’ve seen the rise of live-streaming, the decline of Google+ and the explosive growth of Snapchat, to name a few – and that’s just within the first six months.

A commitment to constant learning is a must in social media marketing circles. Without it, you’ll fall away quickly as the things you know to be true are superseded, overtaken and left behind.

What’s ‘best practice’ one day can be meaningless the next.

Turn away for just a month and significant changes may have taken place that force a re-assessment and alteration of your overall approach.

As we move into the latter half of 2015, now seems like a good time to take in the view and examine our current position in the digital and social media marketing space. To do this, we’ve asked a range of leading minds in the social media space for their thoughts on where we are, where the next big opportunity lies and what skills social marketers should be working on in order to best align with current audience trends.

These leaders, chosen for their varying perspectives, have provided some great insights into current and future trends – first up, we have Dave Kerpen, CEO of Likeable Local, Melonie Dodaro, Founder and CEO of Top Dog Social Media, and Brian Fanzo, Partner and Chief Digital Strategist at Broadsuite Media Group, each sharing their knowledge and perspectives on the current state of play.

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Existing Opportunities Due to the rate of change in social media and digital marketing, new opportunities can sometimes pass by so quickly that we don’t even notice. New platforms rise in popularity, new tech opens up different avenues. So the first question I asked the trio was: “What’s the biggest current opportunity that many social media marketers are missing?”

“The biggest current opportunity many social media marketers are missing is LinkedIn updates and ads,” Kerpen said. “Not only does LinkedIn now boast 380 Million users, but those users are also, on average, much more affluent than those on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. So you're getting more bang for your social media buck on LinkedIn.” “I would say the biggest thing social media marketers are missing is combining email marketing with their social media,” Dodaro said.

“It doesn't matter how large a following you grow on any platform, if you’re not converting those followers to email subscribers, you’re missing out on a big opportunity. It’s much easier, and more effective, to make offers via email than it is via social.” Dodaro also advised that marketers should use social to drive traffic to a free offer that people need to opt-in to: “It has to be desirable enough for them to be willing to provide their name and email address.”

Fanzo, meanwhile, noted that community sponsorship and engagement presents a major opportunity. “Many social media marketers are still thinking the old way, that if they don't own the asset or media, they can't create value or build community around it. But today, sponsoring events and media that the community produces – like Twitter chats, hangouts, podcasts, live streams and webinars – is not only a great way for a brand to show that they support that community, but also to capitalize on the major benefits of such events without having to do all the leg work themselves.”

Crucial Skills

The Next Big Thing?

Along with new opportunities, of course, comes the need to develop new skills to stay up with the changes. So what’s the most important skill that social media marketers should be developing right now?

The next big thing in social is always just around the corner.

While it’s hard to predict, some people can sense the trends and shifts and see where audience attention may be headed – and who better to ask than these three? So what’s the next big thing in social media?

“The most important skill that social media marketers – and all marketers, and all people reading this – should develop is listening,” Kerpen said. “Listening is the single most valuable and underutilized skill in business and in life. As I've written: Listen first and never stop listening.”

Fanzo emphasized adaptability as an important trait of anyone working in the field: “The ability to roll with the punches would be the one skill I feel is most important for today's social media marketer. With so much change, both with the technology and how customers are using social media, today's social media marketer has to be able to roll with these changes, adapt on the fly and understand that mistakes will happen,” Fanzo said.

“Focus on providing value and always learning as you go.”

“There are three skills that I think that social media marketers need to develop,” Dodaro noted. “They are: lead generation, content marketing and understanding analytics to measure what's working and what's not.” All are definitely required skills for the modern social marketing mind.

“In a word: video,” Fanzo said. “Video on all platforms is not only growing in demand, but it’s growing in options also. Twitter video is an amazing way to engage an audience with 30 second clips that are embedded and auto-play within the news feed. Facebook video is producing amazing organic reach, YouTube is continuing to grow as the second largest search engine.” Fanzo, who’s also a major proponent of live-streaming, also made special note of that option’s ongoing growth: “you can't be on social media without talking live-streaming. Mobile live-streaming apps Meerkat and Periscope are only the beginning as our phones and cell phone networks are now strong enough to allow every brand and user to be their own broadcaster.”

“It's always hard to say what the next big thing in social media will be,” said Kerpen. “But based on Mark Zuckerberg's prognostication and purchase history, I'd say it's group messaging, a la WhatsApp, followed by 3D connectivity, a la Oculus Rift," Kerpen predicted. "[Zuckerberg] sure was right about Instagram, so my money's on him being right again here.”

“Less is more and paid ads,” Dodaro said. “In regards to less is more, you can't be everywhere and do it effectively. I would suggest concentrating on content marketing, creating quality content that will position you as an authority on your topic, as well as limiting the networks you use to the top two you can do well, where you can easily reach your target audience.”

And in regards to paid ads? “This is especially relevant if Facebook is one of your preferred networks. They’ve now created an environment of "pay to play" if you want to see results. If you have a high converting landing page and offer, this can be an investment well worth making.”

“The biggest thing social media marketers are missing is combining email marketing with their social media.

It doesn't matter how large a following you grow on any platform, if you’re not converting those followers to email subscribers, you’re missing out on a big opportunity.”

- Melonie Dodaro CEO Top Dog Social Media

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8 ways to become more social media savvy www.socialmediatoday.com July 19, 2015

Richard Branson once said “If you're an entrepreneur and you don't have a social media presence, your company is at a competitive disadvantage.” While he speaks the truth, social media can be intimidating if you’re not familiar with the techniques, tools, and platforms. But if you follow these eight tips, you’ll become more social media savvy in no time.

1. Make Sure Your Brand is in Order Prior to joining any social media accounts, you first need to understand your brand and make sure it’s in order. This means knowing who your audience is and where they are located. For example, take a look at Taco Bell’s social media marketing. The fast food chain has a younger fanbase that is active on social media platforms like Twitter and Snapchat, so that’s where Taco Bell hangs out. The Taco Bell brand wouldn’t exactly fit in the LinkedIn community, but a law firm or marketing agency definitely would. Remember that just because your business is entering the social media world doesn't mean you have to lose your professional look and feel.

Your brand should have a website, or a complete LinkedIn profile if you’re in the professional world, so that social media visitors can head there to learn more information about your brand and verify your authenticity.

Bonus tip: Make sure your brand aligns across all channels.

If your brand uses blue as its predominant color and has a logo, then that color and logo should be the same on your website, Facebook page, Twitter account, etc.

2. Be a Little Curious Listening to what others are saying about you or your brand is one of the most important components of being active on social media.

By monitoring and listening to what’s being said about you, and even about your competitors, you’ll be able to make more informed decisions.

Curiosity, however, isn’t just about listening to your audience, it’s also about exploring social media channels and tools you may not be familiar with. This doesn’t mean you should jump right in, but it wouldn’t hurt to do a little investigating to see if a particular platform or tool could work for you.

3. Don’t Back Away From Mistakes We’re all human and we all make mistakes. Instead of freaking out and going all Amy’s Baking Company on your followers, you need to own up to your mistakes. If you do have a social media mishap, you need to admit that you were wrong, apologize, and handle the backlash with as much grace as possible. You could even make light of the situation, like Red Cross once did, or even ask your community for help on how to improve.

Making a mistake isn’t necessarily a bad thing - if you are able to learn from the experience and manage it with dignity. It may be a bit bumpy for a period of time, but you’ll earn the trust of your community.

4. Be Authentic Customers today can see through the promotional messages on social media. And guess what? They’re not buying it. If you want to be successful on social media, you have to put aside the sales pitches and actually build relationships with your audience.

Remember, customers want to deal with an actual person who cares about them, not just a faceless company looking to grab their money.

5. Engage and Interact Social media is not a broadcasting tool. It’s a communication tool.

As mentioned earlier, you can’t just go on Facebook or Twitter and share promotional messages over and over again. You need to give your audience content that they’ll find useful or entertaining. You also have to strike up conversations with them when they leave a comment or ask a question. Engaging and interacting with your audience is a simple yet powerful way to build relationships and your brand.

6. Use the Right Tools When you use awesome social media tools, you have the power to do everything from discovering influencers, automating and scheduling content, managing all of your accounts from one location, and creating calls-to-action. Tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, HubSpot, and Sprout Social are all great places to start for managing your social media platforms, but there are many other tools you can use to give your channel a little something extra. For example, IFTTT help you automate content by connecting apps, Influential and Thunderclap mobilize your current followers to advertise on social media, and Topsy is an analytics tool.

7. Have a Plan What do you want to get out of social media? Do you want more followers on Facebook? Do you want more visitors to go to a landing page? Do you want to increase sales? Having a game plan will keep your efforts focused and will help you create and share consistent content with your audience. Don’t forget to measure your efforts by establishing metrics and using analytics tools.

8. Be Open to the Advice of Others Whether it’s from a colleague, a recent college grad who is now your intern, or even your children, stay open to advice and suggestions from others. Just because you are not a pro on social media doesn’t mean there isn't one in your inner circle who is willing to share their knowledge and spark your creativity.

Take Snapchat; the high school-aged daughter of Lightspeed Venture Partners Jeremy Liew brought the app to his attention, which lead to the investment that saved Snapchat early on.

Ideas and advice are everywhere. Don’t be too quick to turn them down. Now it’s time to take these tips and get to learning!