Social Media - Are You Doing It Right?
Enough has already been said about adding a social layer to your business. 'Social' seems to have become such an anchor phrase in all corporate roadmaps that its importance is often overlooked owing to it's overuse. Most businesses assume that a deep social penetration for their business would appear magically the moment they create a Facebook page. Some go ahead and design a campaign to get a million people to 'Like' the page and then get back to getting those orders on the table of waiting customers.
It should, in fact, be easy to understand why 'social' is another area that the operations department should keep a close eye on. Frequent new campaigns, innovative engagement programs, gauging the success of those campaigns/programs (both online and in the physical world) and then closing the feedback loop should be a regular feature of the way you are running your business.
Let's take a small example. In Church Street, Bangalore (one of the best locations for setting up a cafeteria or a pub) a cafe, modeled around Dutch cafes, replaced a pub a couple of years back. The earlier pub, called Nasa, had amazing interiors - the place looked like a spaceship from inside - the service was good and beer had just the perfect taste. Over the years the special ambience sitting behind the closed walls fell in popularity and eventually shut down.
Mateo, the cafe that replaced Nasa, besides serving good coffee, has a huge outdoor seating area. This arrangement involved the people walking the Church Street in a way that Nasa failed to do. When people walk past Mateo, they get to see what's happening in the cafe. They see other people having a good conversation and enjoying their coffee. They see an ambience that they want to be a part of too. More exposure results in more business and all that Mateo had to do was provide an outdoor seating area.
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