Times have changed. It’s no longer essential to get the best ad placement in your neighborhood newspaper to showcase your specials, deals and new menu items. No, print isn’t dead, but there are more effective ways to get in front of this target in a more long term successful way. The Internet has provided a platform for many innovative companies to create applications and websites that attract YOUR potential customers. Are you a little curious?

Yelp

Yelp is a crowd-sourced business review platform that has a lot of awesome and usually unknown features.

* The mobile app allows for geo based searching. You can see the menu, get directions and call right from the app on your phone.

* Businesses can set up check-in deals for those that wish to tell their Yelp (Facebook and/ or Twitter) community where they are dining.

* Everyone is  a critic these days and Yelp knows this. They allow for you to draft up a review from your phone as you’re eating your meal. (reviewers do need to log online to review and post fro ma computer)

* The analytics provided to the business show how many people searched, asked for directions, called and of course checked in at that location.

Why is Yelp important for restaurants?

Because your customers are telling you exactly how they feel about your service and their experience. If we listen we are only able to improve and attract more customers.

How should restaurants use Yelp?

Monitor for new reviews, encourage reviews from your customers via QR code campaign or other awesome strategies. Don’t forget to incentivize potential diners by offering a check-in special.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a location based check-in tool that allows its users to see where their friends are, what’s near to them, who is running check-in specials and of course check-in to let the world know where and what they are doing.

Some awesome business-end features:

•  Businesses are able to (after they claim their location) create check-in, loyalty, friend and Mayor specials.
•  Businesses are encouraged to utilize their update feature and list their specials or announcements for your Foursquare followers as well as those that check-in at your location.
• Businesses are able to link to Twitter and Facebook for seamless sharing.
• Foursquare provides amazing analytics including gender, number of monthly check-ins and your most recent and most loyal visitors.

Why is Foursquare important for restaurants?

Foursquare provides something that Yelp doesn’t and that’s a more game-like app for its users. Everyone wants to be Mayor of a business, right? I was once Mayor of Mayor Dick Greco’s campaign HQ… That was a Mayorship to be proud of!

Foursquare also is integrated with Twitter quite nicely. You can see your recent visitors that shared their check-in to Twitter.

NEW FEATURE: Foursquare now includes the Twitter name of the business when a customer checks in and links to Twitter. Talk about a great way to encourage conversation and engagement!

How can a restaurant get started on Foursquare?

First… Claim your location. Once you’ve claimed it figure out what kind of specials you want to create for people when they check-in. Make sure you promote in your restaurant that you are on Foursquare and do have Foursquare check-in specials and be sure to update as often as you can with your day to day activities and specials!

Instagram

Instagram is a photo sharing tool that comes complete with a ton of hipster photo filters to transform your images.

Why is Instagram important for restaurants?

Instagram is important for restaurants because food is HUGE online. People love sharing their food, taking images of their food and often can be swayed on a meal decision based on a social media connections reviews or pictures.

How can a restaurant get started with Instagram?

First you will need to download the app either from the Google Play store for Android or iTunes for iPhone/ iPad. Once you download the app you will be prompted to sign up. Be sure to connect your Twitter account (Facebook is not necessary for businesses) and within minutes you will be ready to start sharing mouthwatering images of your food.

Tip: Be sure to use hashtags for the best Instagram experience. If you’re sharing a picture of a burger and you’re a burger joint in NYC I would use the following hashtags: #foodie #NYCFoodie #Burger #NYCBurger #Instadelish #Instagood #NewYork #EatNewYork #DineNYC #NYC #NewYorkCity

Foodspotting

Foodspotting is another mobile app that allows you to share images of your meal as you’re indulging. You can upload your picture to the actual venue listing  and share whether you had it or LOVED it and then leave a message like “Just had the most delicious #vegetarian burger ever!

How can restaurants use Foodspotting?

Right now there isn’t really too much that restaurants can do on the actual site. You can definitely feel free to spot all of your dishes, but the gravy comes from crowd-sourcing images and reviews of your food directly from your customers.

Be sure to promote that you guys are watching Foodspotting, encourage a photo contest making use of unique hashtags for tracking. At the end of the day  you want to give your customer a reason to share their delicious experience with the Internet, right?

Of course there are the regulars; Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc…., but we wanted to give you some insight on 4 unique tools that many restaurants have yet to discover.

If you have any questions about these applications or would like to see how your restaurant can use them in their overall social media strategy feel free to email us at besocial [at] kimediastrategies [dot] com or fill out our contact form below.

Many still struggle with how exactly to measure and attribute success

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It’s easy to think that all social media campaigns are successful almost immediately, but sadly they aren’t. Not unless you happen to end up with a genius viral video or you’re pretty darn famous and let’s face it… that’s not very likely to happen meaning that you have to work at your campaign in order to find success. You need to nurture your platforms just as you would a child.

Here are a few tips that will help you, over time, achieve success through social media:

☑ Log onto your social media platforms daily, update, engage with others all while creating a unique strategy.

☑ Find out what your competitors are not doing and do that.

☑ Be where your target audience is and engage with them, not as a salesperson, but rather as an acquaintance.

☑ Be social, not promotional.

☑ Don’t give up. If things don’t appear to be working tweak your campaign, don’t quit.

☑ Don’t be afraid to do the undone – be unique and think without boxing yourself in.

If you think you’re going to find immediate success Online, don’t be disappointed when you don’t. Those that are successful right away are so because they worked their butts off building their brand reputation long before they joined any social media sites. Be patient and persistent and you will reach the success you hope for.

If you need help with your social media campaigns please feel free to contact us at besocial [at] kimediastrategies [dot] com

Originally posted on our Social Media blog

We are often asked how we are able to manage as many social profiles as we do for all of our clients. We use quite a few apps that help us monitor, manage, listen and update different social platforms allowing us the ability to quickly and efficiently take care of business. Here are two of our favorite applications:

Facebook Pages for iPad

Why we love this app: The minute someone interacts with a page we manage we are notified making our response time quicker than most.

Echofon for iPad

Just like the Facebook pages app, Echofon allows us to monitor and manage all Twitter accounts making it easy for us to switch between accounts keeping our response time low.

We are always on the lookout for apps that allow us to keep our campaigns social, just as they should be!

What apps do you use to help manage your day to day social media campaigns?

Originally posted on our social media blog

Last week we were Tweeting with some of our connections when we saw a post from one that cut our eye. A Twitter connection had seen an ad that was obviously targeting her for one reason or another, clicked it and much to her surprise… was not directed to the pedicure promotion she had clicked on from LivingSocial. This makes me wonder how many other companies are doing things like this and why they would even bother. Let’s be real for a minute. If you are advertising pedicures, but the landing page is selling tires, how many sales do you really think you’re going to make?

False advertisement should be banned from Facebook and is considered spam. Don’t be that company that scams others!