How one Ad/PR agency’s actions is killing three brands: Disney Pictures, AMC Theatres, & MN Parent Magazine

Have you seen the excitement that ensues when a child wins a prize?  It can be any prize really, but how about if a child wins tickets to a new movie such as the new 3D Disney Movie, G-Force? You would expect the level of that child’s excitement would be pretty high, and if you’re a parent you’re probably rating the excitement even higher imagining your own child’s reaction.

Now, imagine the crash of disappointment that child experiences when they arrive at the theater to be told that the movie theater is full to capacity (a half an hour before the start time) due to the fact that the Advertising/Public Relations agency (Allied Advertising & Public Relations) purposely overbooked the theater to ensure they had a packed theater. Not overbooked by a few tickets, they overbooked by at least a hundred tickets based on the disappointed families left standing in the lobby of the theater.

Those families were outraged.  There was no second theater opened up to accommodate the families they overbooked. There were no offers of passes to see another children’s movie showing at the theater. There was no evidence of customer service skills demonstrated by the three people from Allied Advertising what-so-ever, and sadly that ended up tarnishing, damaging, and for those parents of disappointed children, killing three brands: MN Parent Magazine, AMC Theaters, and Disney Pictures.

The sad point is that many companies are often in the dark about how their brand is being handled when it is out of their “direct control.”  MN Parent Magazine and Disney Pictures were unaware of Allied Advertising’s practice when contacted.  AMC was worse; their onsite management team was apathetic. They could care less that their patrons were affected by Allied’s actions.  The AMC manager, claiming she was the “highest authority” I could speak to regarding the Edina, MN location, said that the theater was not “responsible” since Allied Advertising had rented the auditorium for the event.

As a parent, who had brought three children to see the movie G-Force (Who is also a PR practitioner) I was appalled by the actions of Allied Advertising and their practice of intentionally overbooking movie premieres.  One would have to wonder if Allied’s practice of this was to boost their numbers for their client, Disney Pictures.  Disney Pictures should be concerned then that they are paying for such surreptitious practices and not getting true results for their money being spent.  If Disney Pictures is testing or hoping to gain market research insight, then every event carried out by Allied is tainted, and cannot be considered valid data.

One of the Allied Advertising reps did finally offer to pay for myself and the three children to go see any other movie playing that night, but only after I identified myself as someone that worked in PR and after they witnessed/overheard me call a local news station to speak with the assignment desk to report on the events happening and see if they wished to send a reporter. At that point the Reps from Allied Advertising were willing to do just about anything to get me to leave. Of the three other brands associated, only MN Parent magazine has reached out to all of the parents that had received “free tickets” through them and promises to have Allied provide free passes to see G-Force in theaters.  AMC and Disney Pictures have yet to respond to complaints submitted via email on their websites.

So who controls your brand once it is out of your hands?  Do you have vendors, resellers, distributors, field reps?  How are they caretaking your brand?  Will they respond with the same level of customer service that you provide to your customers?  What are the repercussions if they don’t?  How will you know if they are carrying through your brand?  Are you set up to monitor your brand once it is out of your control? What is the cost if you don’t?  What do you think?

Horizon Realty – A Case Study in how not to handle online reputation management

It started out fairly innocuously, it was a single retweet on Twitter of a news source I monitor, but the headline was too intriguing not to read – Will one Chicago woman’s Tweet cost her $50,000? I immediately thought to myself; “boy, someone is in trouble…,” but as I clicked on the link and read the first article here, and then I saw it was a headline here and here, I quickly saw the writing on the wall, it wasn’t the person that was in trouble, it was the company referenced: Horizon Realty.

The company in their response and defense of the single tweet by a woman, Amanda Bonnen, with the Twitter username:  @abonnen, initiated legal proceedings seeking $50,000 in damages for claimed defamation.  This is the company’s right to do so.  It is even a recommended course in traditional public relations crises communications tactics, yet, it is never the first recommended course when trying to manage your brand and reputation online. It should be the last resort.

When someone brings out the giant cannon of litigation, without having investigated and addressed the message in a public forum, it is immediately seen by the public watching, as overkill.  The giant corporation is now seen as bullying, callous, and unfeeling towards its tenants in the actions it has taken in response.

The response the company was initially hoping to avoid (that of their reputation being besmirched by the remark, has instead inflicted 1000’s of remarks to their own reputation, when word of the lawsuit reached the Twitter community.  The Twitter community took the side of the woman, and began to tear the company to shreds online for its “heavy-handedness”, “Lawsuit-happy management”, and generally being “clueless” (all words being mentioned online as descriptors of the company).

The response by Horizon’s Jeffrey Michael in a Chicago Tribune interview  , was that they were a “Sue first, ask questions later, type of company.” Once again this irked the general public online. Michael later (1 day, an eternity online)  released a press release claiming the comments were meant to be “tongue-in-cheek”, and then delved into the details of some ongoing issues that Horizon has had with Ms. Bonnen and some prior complaints she has had with them.  AS you can imagine, this release was not received well online, and for a second day, Horizon was listed as a trending topic on Twitter as the negative conversations continued fueled by Horizon themselves.

In the first 72 hours that this occurred, the damage on the net was done.  It’s been classified as an example of the Streisand Effect - an Internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized.  Companies can no longer scoff at the idea that their reputation online does not matter, and that they have to participate in and listen to the conversations.  Horizon failed to do so, and the end results so far are these:

• They became a trending topic on Twitter, meaning that they went from the 22 followers of Ms. Bonnen’s to being seen potentially by over a million people (of their own doing with the news of the lawsuit). The most recent 1500 comments can be seen here (it would be more, but that is all that Twitter has room for in their search tool).
• If you Google “Horizon Realty”, four of the eleven first page listings are negatively related to the lawsuit. (Think of how that looks to a future potential tenant or someone searching for a management company).
• Their reviews on Yelp have exploded from three listings prior to this event to 26 listings (ranging from annoyed to enraged) as of today keeping their ratings as a lowly 1 and a half stars.
• Google Blog search shows over 16,000 blog posts that are already indexed, of which over 1000 include the phrase: “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization.” There are also over 14,000 posts mentioning Jeffrey Michael (predominantly in a negative manner)
• Not only has Horizon Realty earned the onus of being attributed to the Streisand Effect on Wikipedia, Horizon Realty has its own entry page.
• The story jumped to traditional media as well – earning mentions in the Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, The Wall Street Journal and too many other outlets (over 512 stories as of today’s writing) to mention.

Is there still doubt in your mind or in the minds of your company that social media doesn’t matter?

Crisis Communication on Social Media has to have different rules, since it is different from traditional media.  We recommend the following steps be in place as the basics for any online reputation management strategies and policies that need to be put in place:

1. Always investigate complaints made & verify the facts and source.
2. Responding to a complaint – where:  when possible, respond on the same site the comment was made.  If it was on a blog submit a comment – if the blogger refuses to post your response, notate this and publish your post on your own blog or website.
3. When to respond: respond in as timely a manner as possible, when the complaint has been investigated. 24 hours is a lifetime on the Internet – waiting makes things worse.
4. Legal action may be taken to protect your IP, Brand, & Reputation: but remember, Internet issues are tricky as there are 1^stAmendment issues involved that may require special expertise. Slander, Defamation of Character, Harassment, and online Bullying laws can apply. Legal intervention is required in most cases to force removal of material from the Internet. Copyright Infringement could be involved in the case of brand or identity theft.

As you can see, escalating to legal action is an option, just not the first recommended option, and never until the first three steps have been taken.

The final thoughts I will leave you with are these – the best defense is a good offense:

1. The conversation is happening online whether you like it or not – will you participate?
2. It’s not good enough to be present online – You need to engage your audience and participate in the conversation
3. Transparency and Authenticity rule the net – Lies and misrepresentation will always be found out and called
4. True Customer Service comes from listening, observing, and engaging – then, providing a thoughtful, timely response.
5. Perception online is always a consideration – if you are perceived as the bully in responding to a complaint, using threats, or worse – legal action that could be avoided, then you lose, even if you are in the right.

For the Multi-Housing Industry – Making Social Media Work for You

I’m linking to a valuable article for you today. I am quoted in it, but that’s not the reason I did. This article focuses specifically for social media strategies and learnings for the Multi-Housing Industry. It appears in the August 2009 issue of the Multi Housing Advocate Magazine. The Magazine is produced by the Minnesota Multi-Housing Association (MMHA), where I spoke in June on the topic of Managing your Online Reputation and Brand. The article is written by the MMHA’s PR Director, Tina Gassman and is full of insight about how to apply social media to the multi-housing management space. Here are the first two paragraphs and you can click the link following that to read the full article:

Last month, I sat in on MHA’s two-part Hot Topic seminar. Robert Turnbull of Rentwiki.com presented “The Social Media Phenomenon” and Christopher Lower of Sterling Cross Communications presented “The ROI of Managing Your Online Reputation.” While I had been reading about and researching this topic fairly extensively, I found the information to be very helpful in that it was tailored to our industry. As I discuss how this social media phenomenon must change the way we approach marketing, I will include the valuable points I learned from these two presenters and will provide you with a quick and dirty guide to your public relations efforts in this “always on” age.

Today’s marketing landscape looks much different than it did 30 years ago…

Please click here to read the rest of the article.

Removing Social Media Accounts – What happens when you need to end a presence online?

It’s become a fact in this economy that companies are going out of business.  Even those companies that were forward thinking in their marketing have not been able to escape the factors in the economy, and they have had to close down.  A client of ours became such a casualty two months ago.  They had just launched several online platform accounts at the beginning of the year.  All was going very well for them as they built their followers slowly and steadily to amass an engaged audience.  Then we received “the email” alerting us that the client was ceasing all business activities and requested we shut down all of their accounts online.

This would be a first for us.  We’ve worked with over a dozen companies, all with varying degrees of success, but, it has always been success.  It was even successful for this client as well; we had executed the initial strategy well, and were growing our audience to allow us to move into the second phase of the strategy.  Now we had proof though, that even the almighty social media with all of its bells and whistles could not solve all problems a company faced.

So we went and started deactivating accounts and learning to what degree the information could truly be removed or purged from the internet.  The results were interesting to say the least:

The Corporate Website – This was able to be turned off. Searches to the domain name now lead to a placeholder page put up by the hosting company.  Two months later though, the site still shows up in searches.  The links are broken, so I will assume Google, Bing, and other engines will eventually drop the results, it wasn’t gone in two months.  The search engines have archives and cached pages of the website, which are starting to deteriorate as well. Queries made to the search engine companies have come back with inconclusive answers as to how long something can live online.  Some items that are heavily linked to from other sites will last longer than those that had only a few links.

Facebook – the Company’s professional page was shut down, but the owner of the Company kept his personal page up to continue building his personal brand for a new career/job.  Facebook is fairly complete when it comes to deleting material permanently.  Due to the fact that most of the content is kept inside of the Facebook community tags, and unless it was open to search by the outside internet community, it seldom shows up in outside searches.

Twitter – After the corporate Twitter account was shut down, it was determined that the content would not easily go away, in spite of Twitter having the content open for immediate outside search.  The several different search applications associated to Twitter archived Tweets almost immediately and most kept running archives up to eight pages long.  The owner of the company decided to re-brand the Twitter account and continue its use for his personal brand.

A WordPress Blog – The blog was deactivated, but is still found in several searches. The codes that many blogs are created in are very search friendly.  Search sites have copies and cached copies of the blog posts, and many of the posts were reposted on other sites.  Unless those posts are removed by the individuals that reposted them, they will stay online.

Linkedin – The Company profile was removed, but the fact that it is listed by former employees, and as past positions of the owners, the company listings will stay online in Linkedin.

Some of this material can be litigated to be removed, but you’ll want to make sure you are going down the right path with the right legal team for that.  Most bloggers are protected by 1^st Amendment rights and you will need to engage an attorney with experience in Constitutional law.  Other sites may require formal legal requests to remove photos, videos and other charts and images.

The bottom line is that yes you can deactivate your accounts and remove some material online, that it will not result in the immediate removal of all of the material from being found online. It may fade over time, like the memory of the company, but for now it is a record of existence that won’t easily go away.  With that in mind, what kind of online legacy is company leaving online?

Twitter Basics for Business – Practical Applications for Impractical Tools

By popular demand, we have been asked to conduct small group training sessions on Twitter for Business.  We’re glad to announce our first class will take place Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 here in Minneapolis. Read on for more details:

Have you checked out Twitter and just can’t figure it out?

Are you looking to use Twitter, one of the fastest growing online communications platforms in recent history, to engage with your audience for tasks like: Sales, Promotion, Customer Service, Market Research, Customer Loyalty, Online Reputation Management, and establishing thought leadership?

 Are you frustrated by Social Media Boot Camps that don’t actually show you how to get started?

 Then this class is for you.

 Join us in a small group setting to learn the basics of Twitter for business and getting started on Twitter.  You can bring your laptop and you will be taught the basics.

 We’ll cover:

1. Setting up an account
2. Building an optimized profile
3. Discuss background graphics and profile pictures
4. The initiation of building followers
5. Rules of interaction
6. Including links
7. Tracking and monitoring conversations
8. Additional tools and time saving tricks

 After covering the basics we’ll cover basic business strategies that Twitter can help to optimize in your business.

 The cost to attend this class is $100.00.  This class is on a first come, first serve basis, and more classes will be opened up after each one fills.  If you’d like to reserve an entire class for six for your company, the cost is reduced to $75.00 per person.

We’ll meet in the Training Center at the offices of The Bailey Consulting Group, 4800 Olson Memorial Hwy., Suite 225, Minneapolis, MN 55422

Please click or visit here: www.twitter4business.eventbrite.com to register as seat are very limited!

Please bring a laptop that is wifi capable.  If you don’t have a laptop, and would still like to attend, please let us know and we can supply (1) one laptop per class to someone that doesn’t have one.

We’ll be getting together over the lunch hour for some power training.  You can bring your laptop and implement these tactics immediately. We’ll supply a few munchies! 

 

About your Trainer:

Christopher Lower has over 17 years of marketing, PR, and strategic consulting. He has 10 years of focus on emerging web technologies and their use in marketing – Blogs, Podcasts, Viral Campaigns, Social Media (Linkedin, Twitter, etc.), Wikis, Webinars, RSS, and Mobile Technology Solutions.

Sterling Cross is behind the social media campaigns for such companies as moto-i, Augeo Insurance Benefits, Baja Sol Restaurants, The Minnesota Restaurant Association, THe MN Lodging Association, The MN Resort & Campground Association, The Bailey Group, & The Dominium Group. Their work on moto-i was included in the book “Twitter Means Business” by Julio Ojeda Zapata.

Chris is also a speaker and has frequently published articles on Social Media Topics.

Today’s marketing for Resorts & Campgrounds – Building Community, Memories, and Lifetime Visitors with Social Media Tools

This is an article I wrote for Resorts & Campgrounds Magazine and appears in their summer 2009 Issue. Due to popular demand, it was reprinted here for those who do not have access to the Magazine. Enjoy!

I grew up lucky enough to have had an annual family trip to some resort or campground every year.  If you are the same, you probably have some great old photos.  Some might be in albums, some might be framed, but most are probably in a box or bin somewhere, but wherever they are, they capture and represent great memories.  There are great tools online these days that allow you to post and share these photos and memories online. 80% of all internet users are posting photos to share online, and 54% of them are posting vacation photos, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project data. 30% of those vacationers are posting to sites and communities connected to the place they went on vacation, if there is a space to post.  Disney is great at this for their Camp Wilderness property.

You too can create a space where your visitors can share photos.  You can brand your own photo sharing page on many social media photo sharing sites like Flickr, ShutterFly, and Photobucket. These sites can be linked back in to your own website, where potential new visitors can share in the memories and see great pictures of people enjoying your services and amenities. Of the 140 million Americans online, 63% of them are booking their travel destinations online. 53% of them state that their decision to book is based on photos or videos of visitors enjoying the property and amenities.  Social media tools allow your guests to share their great times and memories and empower them to build community by connecting to other resort and campground visitors.  Other tools like blogs, YouTube, and pages on sites like Facebook allow people to connect and share as well. The common backdrop across all of these sites is your location.

Like any vacation destination in today’s times and economy you must adapt to keep up. In 2008 it was reported that up to 60% of campgrounds and 84% of RV Parks have added WIFI internet access to their list of amenities, whether in the common areas, or available throughout the property.  If you offer internet access on location, you can encourage guests to post up photos while still there and even offer prizes for photo contests, to build your online content.  All photos posted should be tagged (identified) to include your property name and location to aid in the online search benefits you will receive from posted photos.

More often than not, these social media tools are low to no cost to implement, and can be managed by staff onsite.  For best results, you’ll want to invest a bit to ensure that your brand is represented across each of these social media sites which can be handled typically by your web developers or marketing team. Here is a list of tools that any resort or campground owner or manager can use to connect with their customer to convert them to brand evangelists and lifelong customers:

 

Social Media Tools for Resorts & Campgrounds:

• Make sure your property can be searched and reviewed through local business guides such as Yelp.com, Hotels.com and TripAdvisor.com. Suggest that positive feedback from patrons is shared on these social business guide sites.
• Twitter – sign up for a Twitter account. Use it also as a tool to listen and converse with your customers.
• E-Newsletter – Email a monthly newsletter with the latest happenings, new renovations, additions, or upgrades etc.
• Blog – Customers want to be part of something more than just a onetime trip; they want to feel like they belong.  You can set up a blog to allow guests to post their memories and stories.
• Facebook – Set up a Facebook fan page to connect with your customers on Facebook.
• MySpace – If your clientele is the MySpace generation, create a profile page and consistently update it with fresh content.
• YouTube – Incorporate video into your social media strategy.
• The Business Card – Provide a business card or note-card to each customer that visits your property with their receipt that maps out where they can continue their vacation experience online by connecting to you via social media to share memories.

 Christopher Lower is the Co-owner of Sterling Cross Communications, a Social Media, Public Relations, & Web Design Firm, that focuses on the Restaurant, Hospitality, Hotel, and Lodging industries. In addition to over 20 years of PR & Marketing experience, Chris worked over eight years in the Hospitality Industry. He can be reached at www.sterlingcrossgroup.com or can be found on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mrchristopherl.

Domino’s proves why Restaurants must monitor their brand and reputation online

It was a Restaurateur’s worst nightmare. In the span of a few minutes of video posted to YouTube, a 50 year old brand was brought low.  Two (fired and facing felony charges) employees of a franchise location of Domino’s Pizza recorded a video of themselves doing horrendous and disgusting things to food that was potentially about to be served to an unsuspecting customer. The video went viral.  The YouTube video reached one million views in less than 3 days. References to it were in five of the 12 top search results on the first page of Google search for “Dominos,” and discussions about Domino’s had spread throughout Twitter. Several major news outlets have covered the incident, including the New York Times, USA Today and Fox News.  

Reportedly Domino’s knew about the video for nearly 48-hours before it launched a PR blitz to respond to the overwhelming amounts of negative comments, and comments faulting the company for not responding in a timely manner. They were first notified of the video from bloggers that had seen it online.  The company itself was not monitoring what was being said about its brand and reputation online. That was a fatal mistake that has brought great damage in customer confidence and loyalty and has crushed an iconic brand.

As Domino’s is starting to realize, social media has the reach and speed to turn tiny incidents into marketing crises. In November, Motrin posted an ad suggesting that carrying babies in slings was a painful new fad. Unhappy mothers posted Twitter complaints about it, and bloggers followed; within days, Motrin had removed the ad and apologized, but as with Domino’s, it was a case of too little, too late.

There was no one watching out for their brand online. 

If this can happen to a mighty chain with a fifty year history, how much can it affect independent restaurants, smaller chains, and family owned businesses?  If you are in the restaurant industry, or for that matter, in any industry that can be reviewed online, you cannot afford to ignore what is being said about you online.  Many restaurateurs are not even aware of the many sites and places where people can and are talking about them online.  Sites like Yelp, Urbanspoon, Chowhound, Metromix, Getsatisfaction.com, and Trip Advisor offer consumers a platform to get their complaints or raves heard.

Crises Communications is not a new practice, but it is new when trying to be performed in Social Media. There are several tools though for low to no cost for a restaurateur to watch what is being said about them (good or bad) online. You can do simple things, such as setting up Google Alerts, or searching Twitter and blogs to monitor what is being said, or you can pay for more robust search tools to and firms to do it for you (We offer such services for clients). No matter what you do though, you need to start watching what is being said starting now, and on a regular basis.  Domino’s and Motrin failed to respond quickly 48 hours is an eternity online, and the damage is done.

What is the cost of not paying attention, or “hoping it will go away”? A majority of your business could be in jeopardy. 89% of US online buyers read customer reviews before they purchase: 43% most of the time, 22% all of the time. A bad reputation hits your bottom line.

So what should you do? Here are a few things to get you started:

·         Create a Crisis Communication plans for online issues.

·         Execute effective online Customer Service.

·         Get the tools to monitor what’s being said online about your brand, your company, and you.

·         Learn the strategies and steps to take to respond to information already posted.

·         Learn the strategies and steps to take to have negative information removed, mitigated, or retracted.

If you are in the Minneapolis – St. Paul area, we are holding a seminar on April 28^th, 2009 on The ROI of Managing your Online Reputation & Brand. Click here for more details: http://onlinereputation.eventbrite.com/.

The ROI of Managing your Online Reputation & Brand presented by Sterling Cross Communications

Who: Sterling Cross Communications, a Twin Cities based Social Media, PR and Web Design firm.

What: 90-minute workshop presentation that educates and arms participants with awareness and tools to understand, monitor and shape their online reputation and brand.

When: Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 – 8:30 – 10:30 a.m.
*Breakfast/registration opens at 8:30 a.m. – session start time 9:00 a.m.

Where: The Learning Center at the offices of Lurie Besikof Lapidus and Company LLP; 2501 Wayzata Boulevard; Minneapolis, MN 55405

Cost: $100 for general admission – $85 for Early bird purchases by April 17th.

Registration: http://onlinereputation.eventbrite.com/ for more details contact Sterling Cross Communications – 763.496.1499 or info@sterlingcrossgroup.com

People are talking about you online. Do you know what they are saying? Is it good or bad?
Bad reviews, comments, or complaints can be costing you business every day.
• Do you know how to respond?
• Do you have a contingency plan to handle an online communications crisis?
• Why does it affect you?
89% of US online buyers read customer reviews before they purchase: 43% most of the time, 22% all of the time. A bad reputation hits your bottom line.

Christopher Lower, Co-owner of Sterling Cross Communications will open your eyes to the status of your brand and reputation online, how to monitor and manage it, and give you tangible steps to improve its condition.
We’ll discuss:
• How and where to monitor what’s being said online about your brand, your company, and you.
• Strategies and steps to take to respond to information already posted.
• Strategies and steps to take to have negative information removed, mitigated, or retracted.
• You’ll learn the key components of Crisis Communication plans for online issues.
• Discover how to execute effective online Customer Service.
• Best of breed tools and solutions that provide immediate results will be discussed and demonstrated.

About your Presenter:
Christopher Lower has over 17 years of marketing, PR, and strategic consulting. He has 10 years of focus on emerging web technologies and their use in marketing – Blogs, Podcasts, Viral Campaigns, Social Media (Linkedin, Twitter, etc.), Wikis, Webinars, RSS, and Mobile Technology Solutions.

About Sterling Cross Communications:
Sterling Cross is a Social Media, Public Relations, & Web Design Firm. They are the firm behind Social Media campaigns for over a dozen companies including; moto-i, The Bailey Consulting Group, Augeo Benefits, Baja-Sol, and several other clients that do business in both the B2B & B2C space. For more info please visit www.sterlingcrossgroup.com.

Strategically Promoting Your Restaurant with Social Media Tools

This is an article I wrote for Restaurateur Magazine and appears in their April 2009 Issue. Due to popular demand, it was reprinted here for those who do not have access to the Magazine. Enjoy!

 

You work hard to get everything right, the food, the atmosphere, the service, the kitchen and back of the house staff, and once a guest comes through the door, you have the power to make sure they have the best possible experience. Then they go home.  A place you can’t control the experience – and you don’t know what they’ll tell their family, friends, co-workers, and anyone who will listen, about their experience. What if you could control it? What if you could extend the dining experience beyond the walls of your restaurant? With social media tools, you can.

 

You’ve heard the buzzwords: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, and YouTube.  These tools allow you to enhance and carry the dining experience beyond your front door. They allow your customers to take the physical connections and loyalty virtual to experience it online as well. With customers increasing their online activity, the online experience that guests have with you can make or break you.

 

You put thought, consideration and passion into every physical aspect of your guests’ interaction with you, but how is their experience with your website?  Does it convey your brand, atmosphere, and message? Is it easy to navigate? Are your menus and specials quickly found? Is your contact information, location, hours of operation and amenities crystal clear? These are just the bare minimum standards now needed to entice someone to interact with your online brand.

 

When they interact, they feel connected. When they feel connected, they’ll often be your evangelists and make a point to refer your establishment or brag about their incredible experience. They are inclined to take someone with them the next time they visit, and will want to connect your restaurant to others.

 

In the best of times, it’s hard to promote a restaurant.  With labor and food costs constantly battling to take the lead as your primary concern, you need systems and tools that can give you the greatest return on your investment of dollars and time. Social Media are emerging tools that fit that bill.

 

Social Media tools are increasingly moving from consumer to consumer tools to business to consumer vehicles.  6,000 people a day are signing up for Facebook and only a percentage of them are the college students that the platform initially attracted.  Many businesses are motivated by the opportunity to opt in at a fairly cost effective manner, and also the ability to bring them to an intimate space next to their customer. What you are seeing is a vast array of Social Media approaches that converse and connect. Once you realize who your customer is, what makes them tick, what they like and dislike, using social media can be that missing link that transforms a casual customer into a brand evangelist.

 

Using tools for the “cool” factor of saying you use them will not bring you a tangible return.  You’ll need to start with a strategy. Once you’ve determined who your customers are, you need to know which social media tools they use, and engage with them on their turf. The effectiveness of social media isn’t simply using the tool; it’s listening, answering questions and connecting with others. These tools are just opportunities to connect your customers to your brand and by connecting with them, they’ll help you build relationship and gain invaluable insight to their propensity to buy from you.

 

Here is a list of tools that any restaurant owner can use to connect with their customer to convert them to brand evangelists:

 

Social Media Tools for Restaurants

• Make sure your restaurant can be searched and reviewed through local business guides such as Yelp.com, Urbanspoon.com, Getsatisfaction.com and TripAdvisor.com. Encourage your guests, that if they had a great experience to please post it to one of these sites.
• Twitter – sign up for a Twitter account. Use it also as a tool to listen and converse with your customers.
• E-Newsletter – Email a monthly newsletter with the latest happenings, new menu items, entertainment news, recipe of the month etc.
• Blog – Customers want to be part of something more than just a meal; they want to feel like they belong. A blog can be that tool.
• Facebook – Set up a Facebook fan page to connect with your customers on Facebook.
• MySpace – If your clientele is the MySpace generation, create a profile page and consistently update it with fresh content.
• YouTube – Incorporate video into your social media strategy.
• The Business Card – Provide a business card or note-card to each customer that visits your establishment with their receipt that maps out where they can continue their dining experience online by connecting to you via social media.

 

Christopher Lower is the Co-owner of Sterling Cross Communications, a Social Media, Public Relations, & Web Design Firm, that focuses on the Restaurant, Hospitality, Hotel, and Lodging industries. In addition to over 20 years of PR & Marketing experience, Chris worked over 8 years in the Hospitality Industry. He can be reached at www.sterlingcrossgroup.com or can be found on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mrchristopherl.

 

Sterling Cross is a proud to have been selected as a preferred vendor for Hospitality Minnesota. Hospitality Minnesota is the management entity for

 

 

 

The Minnesota Restaurant Association, Minnesota Lodging Association and Minnesota Resort and the Campground Association. These Associations provide legislative and regulatory advocacy, marketing, education and information and money-saving programs to members. In addition, Hospitality Minnesota operates a non-profit education foundation, the Hospitality Minnesota Education Foundation, which provides a high school curriculum in foodservice and lodging management and provides scholarships to students pursuing higher education in the hospitality field. For more info: www.hospitalitymn.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sterling Cross Communications Presents Social Media Boot Camp

We’d like to present our Social Media Bootcamps here in the Twin Cities:

 

What:               Sterling Cross Communications Presents Social Media Boot Camp Basic Training & Advanced Maneuvers

 

When:              Wednesday, March 25^th, 2009 – 9:00 – 10:30 am for Boot Camp Basics 11:00 – 12:30 pm for Advanced Maneuvers

*Breakfast/registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. and the beginner session will begin at 9:00 and run until 10:30.  There will be a half hour break and then from 11 – 12:30 the advanced session will take place ending with lunch.

 

Where:             Hilton Hotel in Bloomington (3900 American Blvd West, Bloomington, Minnesota, United States 55437 Tel: 1-952-893-9500)

 

Cost:                 $100 per session or $175 for both – Early bird purchases by March 16^th – $85 per session or $150 for both

 

Registration:   Basic Training Session (or both sessions) http://socialmediacamp.eventbrite.com/ Advanced Maneuvers session http://socialcampadvanced.eventbrite.com/ For more details contact Sterling Cross Communications – 763.496.1499

 

                                               

Social Media platforms are the fastest growing segments of the Internet user population.  New users of Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, Flickr, and so on, number in the millions daily. Besides the basic benefits of networking, there are a myriad of ways you can utilize and incorporate Social Media tools into your business to support and enhance such functions as communication, customer service, PR, marketing, sales, new business development, research, education, human resources, recruiting, training, and more. 
 
Boot Camp Basics will cover:

·         Introduction of Terms

·         Getting Started

·         Early Adaptors vs. Practical Marketing

·         Basic Training – Initiation of Followers

·         Measurement & Tracking

·         Strategy Overviews

 

Guest Speakers -

·         Robyn Flach, Partner from Excellanz, will speak to why a business owner must engage in social media.

·         Julio Ojeda-Zapata, author of Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging Can Help or Hurt Your Company will speak about his book and why businesses are flocking to Twitter, as well as what they are doing once they get there.
 

 

Boot Camp Advanced Maneuvers will cover:

·         Creation of Live Twitter Case Study

·         Integration of a Social Media Campaign

·         How do I speak to my audience in Social Media?

·         Base Initiative Ideas

·         Time Management for Social Media Applications

·         ROI (Return on Investment) /ROP (Return on Participation)

·         Strategy and Tips for Selling Social Media Initiatives to Marketing and Financial Decision Makers (as well as clients)

 

Guest Speakers -

·         Phil Wilson, Partner from Localtone Radio, Comic Twits, & Remain Comm.com, will speak to the transformation of Traditional media to social media.

·         Julio Ojeda-Zapata, author of Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging Can Help or Hurt Your Company will speak about his book and why businesses are flocking to Twitter, as well as what they are doing once they get there.

 

Media Sponsors – MinnesotaBusiness Magazine & Minnesota Meetings + Events Magazine