I was told today that we may have to be patient for success. That, while social media are indeed being embraced by the enterprise, the FohBoh vision may be too big for foodservice. Hmmm. The 4C's of Social Media FohBoh has content. In fact, more P2P content in one spot for the foodservice industry than anywhere else.
FohBoh Is collaborative. We have 13,000 members that suggest that we are an active, engaged community. Not all at once, but we are engaged.
FohBoh is The defacto online restaurantcommunity. We have members, content, groups, interaction, dialog sharing, and 13,000 members...
FohBoh has collective intelligence. We are the deepest peer-to-peer resource for our industry. Our members are the voice of the restaurant industry.
The Restaurant industry isn't waiting for analysts and investors to say, ok, the timing is perfect for us now. That concept is a circular reference.
We are working hard to move this needle and educate investors, analysts and others to deliver solutions to this industry. We need social media business cases and thought leadership now, not when prognosticators say so.
I find that I am always thinking about what's next. I am a gadget guy, for sure. Call me the ultimate early-adopter. I remember my first computer purchased for a ton of money in 1984. It was a Macintosh. I jumped right in and started playing with it. Totally unafraid, as I should be. Unless I dropped it, I wasn't planning to break it. Really, what could a 512 machine do? Practically nothing, almost everything.
I'm a believer, and I practice the art of the possible. I have no fear. So, why is that? What was it during my childhood that turned this personality on? My parents were hard working, middle class folks. But not risk-takers. My grandfather was an entrepreneur and inventor, howevever. Maybe "it" skipped a generation; kind of like hair-loss.
Being a risk-taker is a hard thing to tell someone. Like your wife! Actually, my wife knew it long before we were married. It's my first wife that didn't know. That is, until I had quit my job, moved to Reno, Nevada in 1980. Then a year later, I opened my first restaurant at the age of 26. I just decided to be an entrepreneur. I had a vision and focused on that goal. In those days, being an entrepreneur wasn't something you actually put on a business card. It wasn't something that I even identified with. I was just a someone that had a dream and followed his heart. I was a risk-taker restaurateur.
Here's the thing I just don't get about the restaurant industry. An operator will take enormous personal and financial risk developing and operating a restaurant. Huge amount of risk with huge failure rates. But when it comes to technology, clams up. "No thanks." "Not for me." "Too complicated." "Too expensive." "Never had it, don't need it." "It's a fad." "We have all the technology we need around here, thank you very much!" Gez. Ask any technology vendor about selling into the foodservice industry and they just look down and say, "man, can you say late adopters?"
But, wait. I see as small crack. A glimmer of hope for the sales rep and the operator. Its called social media. Why does it takes an economic meltdown and a fundamental shift in how humans communicate to drag a restaurateur to the table?
First, foodservice is already very late, so may they are right on time, again. Social media has been around since the Internet started. Social media is just people having conversations online. The change is speed and dialog...a two way conversation. The future of the social web is positioning restaurants to leverage this amazing force of change betetr than many industries. If, they will use it. Don't be afraid. You cannot break the Internet.
1. It's mostly free. 2. You cannot break it. 3. It will, if used strategically, build relationships with new and existing customer and should increase sales. 4. It is powerful and can, drive operating costs down. 5. It should be looked at as a utility: Business CRM, Social CRM, Business Productivity and Workforce Productivity tools to help sustain and grow your business.
The trend is more use, not less. The reality is your customers and employees are online using social media and social networking right now. Are you?
Over the past two years, I have somehow found the time required to be more productive. While I have been blogging since 2006, this past 20 months, since founding FohBoh, I have been a very active blogger and social media practitioner. Now, with my frequent posts on FohBoh, bi-weekly posts for the FohBoh newsletter, "In the Window", my new Social Media Kitchen blog, this new Restaurant Social Media blog and my forthcoming monthly column for the California Restaurant Association "The Standard", I am now fully engaged. Lately, more speaking engagements, moderating and participating on panels discussing my passions, social media, online communities, technology, and foodservice social media.
So, where do I find the time to actually run my business? How can I be creative, continue my research, read, raising capital, create and sell new products and still have a balanced life? I think I just work, alot.
I find what takes the most time is messaging. Crafting messages. Revisiting the last message, learning new messages and trying not to live in PowerPoint. FohBoh is a small company with just a few employees. We are NOT venture-backed, so resources are skinny. We do have a few shareholders and a couple of note holders. But, most of the capital is from my wallet. Deferred luxuries include things like like a paycheck. This is skin-in-the-game and dedication.
Blogging has become our SEO strategy and we have learned to be patient and optimistic, however. Testing and evaluating new technologies has also become a big part of our daily routine because we need to accelerate user adoption, FohBoh member activity. So, adding to our daily activity is Twitter, Digg, Friendfeed, Facebook, and dozens of foodservice and other blogs. Writing now consumes 4 hours a day, seven days a week.
I had a foolish thought recently. Maybe I should write a book?
This is a test blog using Zemanta. I downloaded the Firefox plug in to see how it works for me on FohBoh. The test topic is cheeseburger, seems appropriate, since this is the most popular food served in restaurants. So, Zemanta popped up on my right side and I added "Cheeseburger" in the search box as my topic. Up pops relevant photos and articles that have been posted using Zemanta.fohboh.com, Testing Zemanta to enhance your blogs - FohBoh, May 2008
The core of your business to consumer (B2C) strategy will be to open up two-way communication between you to the customer. This allows you to inform them about what you offer as well as allowing them to offer feedback about what you’re doing well and what you can improve upon. One side benefit is free focus group polling. Once you’ve opened up the lines of communication, joined the conversation and engaged your customers, there’s then the opportunity to create a community around your brand.
Restaurant owners can no longer afford to ignore the shift in power from business to the consumer. It started the day the Internet was available to consumers. Now, control of your brand is in the hands of the many, who love to be honest, transparent and open about nearly everything. Advertising your business through traditional means is part of your strategy, but not the tactic of choice. You must take advantage of social media to outperform your competitors and engage with your customers and employees.
The foregoing seems obvious to many of us, in part, because social media is just so, well, restaurant. Customer-facing businesses, like restaurants, are naturally social. They are just used to doing this in person, not asynchronously.
The crown jewels of your social media strategy begin with understanding who your customer is. This starts with understanding behavior. Ask these five questions first:
1. How is your restaurant is positioned? (segment, sub-segment, pricing, service and staffing philosophy, etc.) 2. Who is your most loyal customer demographic? (Gender, age, ethnicity, etc.) 3. How do you define frequency? 4. Where does your customer consume media? (if you are sending out tweets at midnight and your customer is in bed, then, is that tactical?) 5. What motivates them to make their decision to dine at your restaurant over another?
Once you understand behavior, you can start crafting a strategy.
The first step is to develop a strategy for how you will use social media for your brand. It's an integrated marketing strategy that makes your traditional marketing efforts work harder and more efficiently. Once you start, make sure you commit time to execute. Or hire a company that specialize in restaurant social media to manage your programs for/with you. No one knows your brand better than you. But, consultants will leverage your time and ensure you keep the conversation going.
Core Media First, update your restaurant website. Too many restaurants created a website 10 years ago and haven't changed a thing. Web 1.0 is so obvious. Take the time to update it to include facebook fan links and "follow me on Twitter" badges. Add industry-centric badges and widgets that show you are relevant and connected. This is the center of your online branding efforts, so start here. If the customer isn't coming in to your restaurant, they need to be thinking about your restaurant.
Too many restaurateurs drop the ball after their initial effort because they do not take the time. Managing your social media is a key success factor today. Be sure none of your competitors are using social media before you make this mistake.
Measurement is a big part of your strategy. What is your online reputation? What is the blogosphere saying about your brand online? There are a lot of tools and services that will provide this data to you including Guest Pulse and BooRah. Start by going on Twittersearch (launching July 2009) and search your brandname. Welcome to reality. You are no longer in control of what is said. Your customers, employees, vendors and their relationships are.
I thought rather than have this important, relevant and topical conversation hidden amongst my other blogs on FohBoh, I would start fresh and link to/from where appropriate.
Social media are •Blogs •Micro Blogs •Online Chat •RSS •Widgets •Social Networks •Social Bookmarks •Message Boards •Podcasts •Video Sharing Sites •Photo Sharing Sites •Virtual Worlds •Wikis +
As far as restaurant social media, well that's just using the above in creative ways in the restaurant industry. Social media can be used in B2B and B2B and C2C environments. We will discuss this too.
There are a few restaurant social media success stories. A catering truck with a few hundred followers on Twitter, moves from place to place. Denny's leveraging MySpace, touring bands and their 4th day-part to stimulate new business trying to make Denny's hip, with New Millennial's. There are others.
Most restaurants and restaurant chains are thinking about it, do not have social media strategy. They use tactics and generally fail to measure their effort or its success. To be sure, restaurant social media is more than creating a Facebook page and having a Twitter account.
This blog is about restaurant social media. What it is and how to use it. We will discuss what others are doing and what is working. We will define tactics and help you create a social media strategy for your business. We will find, evaluate and list tools and technologies that make executing your social media strategy easier. Finally, we will attract "experts" that can provide solid advice and get you going.
The point here is to join the conversation and engage. This is a powerful force of change that is affecting everything we do. It MUST be part of your business plan and used daily. It is also fun!
Please sign in here to follow this blog and by all means, join fohboh and visit The Social Media Kitchen, this will start you on your way.
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