Facebook: A Winner with Restaurants?
For restaurants, Facebook seems to be the standout in social media marketing. With 500 million users and at least half of them logging into the social network once a day or more, it’s clearly a choice tool to reach consumers.
In fact, Facebook’s power as a promotional and advertising tool has only just begun to be realized. With the enhancements to Facebook Pages, the new Deals product and Facebook Places, restaurants are finding out that Facebook’s power lies in creating a relationship between the company and user. And, they learn that it’s a relationship that builds over time.
You’d think restaurants, caterers and others in the foodservice industry would find Facebook their ideal platform because they are pros at building long-term, positive relationships with their customers.
According to MustHaveMenus.com, the leading provider of online menu editing software, this is far from the truth.
A recent survey conducted with a random selection of restaurant owners, managers, caterers and food and beverage directors, proved that Facebook was the winning social media candidate. However, a follow-up survey showed that while restaurants were willing to use the social network, the execution wasn’t ideal.
In the latter survey, MustHaveMenus found that 11 percent of respondents didn’t use their restaurant’s Facebook page for any reason – no daily specials, drink specials, events or coupons.
Interestingly, this percentage was greater than the food service pros who reported using Facebook to post coupons (10%) and contests (6%).
“Clearly, restaurants and other food–related businesses realize the potential of Facebook, but are unsure what to do once they set up a Page,” says Jim Williams, CEO of MustHaveMenus.
While many restaurants are not hesitating to jump into Facebook promotions, there’s a need for direction once a restaurant starts a Facebook Page.
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