I am not specializing but I am starting to do some local location based social media for some small mom and pop places around here…

I am currently working with a couple restaurants and thinking of focusing my efforts in recruiting clients within our locally owned restaurant community. We are losing so many of our restaurants because of the national stores and it would be a win, win if I could improve their bottom line through social media. Curious what kind of experience other group members have in this area.

@kathyweir I’m not clear what you mean by recruiting clients.  Do you mean trying to share the clients among select restaurants?

It could work… not something we tried.

The areas we worked on a lot with the ones I dealt with was trying to manage their online reputation.  We just did searches and found sites like Urban Spoon where their reputations where poorly tarnished because of past issues.  We did the best we could to try to manage those and encouraged as many new clients to give us “thumbs up” on those sites to improve our reputation.

One client I had worked with did on their own and tried to get their customers to vote for them on some of these public restaurant sites.  After a few months, they were ranked #1 or #2 in the area for their specialization (BBQ).  Now people from almost 30-45min away with tons of BBQ restaurants in between come to them for food.

@kathyweir Hi, My company does consulting to restaurants and Social Media is a marketing tool that greatly helps this industry, and I would also suggest you also incorporate Mobile Marketing in your marketing plan, mobile marketing is now becoming the best way to help a restaurant get more clients and more profits.

A successful marketing plan should consist of Social Media accounts, Custom Mobile App for the Restaurant, Mobile Website (not a mobilized version of their website), Qr Codes and an Online Reservation System such as Open Table.

Hope this helps,
Rick 

@kathyweir
I agree time is an issue! The solution is…. We manage it for them!!
They are more than willing to pay us to do this for them.

Rick

Amani thanks for the article.

@carolinechen-whatley Lots of great tips for restaurants.
@rlmosca  Great checklist for Restaurant marketing
@ahr19 What a great article! Thanks for sharing.

Anyone else read the 30 predictions on SME a few days ago?  Some great points that apply to this situation.  It’s not about how many media but being strategic on which ones you use.

I’ve had good results with e-mail marketing for my restaurant client. It’s a building process, but they’re getting great feedback. I need to try more campaigning from Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for the resources and ideas.

@caren  My restaurant has had excellent luck with Living Social and Yelp deals. + they just have freaking good food!!!!

@kathyweir, we are launching an “app suite” specifically for restaurants in the next couple of days. I’ll keep you updated.  It is several apps that create a website in the FB Page that includes a home page, location (map), reservation request form, coupon (builder & uploader).  Let me know if you are interested and I can message you the info.  

Hey @kathyweir!

Have you thought about utilizing printable coupons on the Facebook landing page that people can acquire in return for Liking your Page? You can build a local community for the restaurant on your facebook page by encouraging the customers to join your facebook page and get instant savings.

Here is a great Coupon Builder that I have seen some restaurants use.

@coreybuller you make some great points dude!

I think it is really important to have a distinct plan for all your social media promotions.  I think Landing Page coupons are a great incentive, but only if you do it with a “limited-time” or “seasonal” approach. I found this very easy to do with customize-able coupon builders like Social Stage and using what @brandonlee mentioned.

I helped a client dramatically increase sales in his restaurant by simply offering Free Appetizer Coupons that is to be redeemed through their Facebook Page. Their return on investment was very large and I am pleased to say that we exceeded their initial expectations.  Furthermore, the restaurant achieved a lot of re-occuring sales through their newly built Facebook community.

Hope that helps @kathyweir!

@kathyweir Hello Kathy, my company Magnified Mouth maker of Local Promos specializes in restaurants. Here is the link to local promos on Facebook. http://apps.facebook.com/localpromos/. Please connect with us and browse through the features.The system works like this. A fan receives a FB update that Company A has an exclusive promo running on Facebook. They click the promotion, connect with Local Promos and print out the promotion to use. The fan brings their promo in to company A and gives it to the server. The server or manager can redeem the promotion using his or hers cell phone by scanning a unique QR code located on the promotion, also during redemption the restaurant can record the sale price and original price, thus keeping strict accounting records concerning their social media marketing efforts.There are many more benefits that restaurants can realize when using Local Promos. I would have to speak with you one on one so that I can fully explain the full marketing solution in further detail. I am excited you made this post, thank you. I look forward to speaking with you in the near future.