Facebook Fan Pages – There Are No Shortcuts

by John Moore July 19, 2011

Well, the simple answer to that question is no.  Despite everyone using fan counts to gauge popularity the simple truth to the matter is that the number of fans, or “likes”, your page accrues can have very little relationship with the effectiveness of your page. The simple analogy would be would you count a Broadway show event a success if the theater was packed, but no one was looking at the stage? Especially one where tickets were free. There are

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Restaurant Social Media – It’s In The Details

by John Moore April 15, 2011

Social Media has proliferated through every segment of our commercial universe during the past two years and has changed the playing field forever. Companies are scrambling to catch up to the wave and re-organize entire marketing departments based on the new paradigm of customer engagement. No where is this change more evident – and game changing – than in the restaurant industry. To paraphrase the Bard – Some restaurants get Social

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ReTweets – An Important Tool For Expanding Your Audience

by John Moore May 25, 2010
See who's following on Twitter

See who's following you on Twitter

ReTweets, the re-posting of a Tweet by another user, are one of the most critical components of the micro-blogging system.  They enable the viral propagation of information across the Twitter-verse and can increase a potential audience exponentially.  While this constitutes a great method for individuals to get their personal messages out, it is also an important tool for business users – especially those in the hospitality industry.

For example – recently I posted an announcement for an upcoming wine dinner at Mozza Osteria in Los Angeles. While their list of Twitter fans has been growing steadily, it still only numbers about 600 followers. However several LA food bloggers had started following our postings and retweeting them. This resulted in the initial posting reaching well over 10,000 people.  There is no way to overstate the significance of those numbers, or their importance in reaching your target audience.  Each of those bloggers has several thousand followers – all of them people who care seriously about food.

A note on how to encourage bloggers to follow your posts:

Contact them directly – Find the most important food bloggers in your area, and they might not always be the ones with most followers.  Follow them and thank them for positive comments – address criticism directly and fairly.  Encourage their participation in getting your message out.  This also means you have to make sure to pay attention to who is mentioning you on Twitter – you can track mentions either directly through the Twitter search filed, or by employing a third party application such as HootSuite.

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Sidenotes

July 19, 2011

Despite everyone using fan counts to gauge popularity the simple truth to the matter is that the number of fans, or “likes”, your page accrues can have very little relationship with the effectiveness of your page.

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April 15, 2011

Some restaurants get Social Media, some restaurants are catching up to Social Media – and, like websites (and I’m sure the phone at some point in history) some restaurants are going to have Social Media thrust upon them.

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February 8, 2011

While Twitter lets people know what you think and FourSquare tells them where you are Foodspotting combines the two with a nifty little photo app that allows you to easily upload pics o0f your favorite dishes to your friends.

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January 27, 2011

While there are many aspects of Facebook Fan Pages for restaurants that vary from market to market and venue to venue, there are some rules that are universal and are ignored at your own peril.  Here’s my list of the five most important parts of your Facebook campaign: 1) Pictures, Pictures, Pictures –  Whether it’s a post [...]

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