Downtown Raleigh restaurants turn to social networking to bring patrons in and keep them coming back
Note to readers: This is a revised version of an article written as an assignment for a course on digital writing that is part of the UNC Certificate in Technology and Communication. You can also read the original post.
By Noelle Talley
RALEIGH: Next time you’re hungry, you might want to check Twitter or Facebook to decide where to grab a meal or snack. Restaurants, including some in downtown Raleigh, are using social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to bring in customers and to keep them coming back by highlighting specials, seeking feedback, and offering prizes.
Eric Harris started using social media to promote The Pit in March 2009, soon after becoming manager of the barbeque restaurant on West Davie Street. He said he’d read and heard about businesses using Twitter for marketing and decided to try it.
“With everyone having smart phones and being linked in with each other, the timing was right for it,” said Harris, who posts to both Facebook and Twitter on behalf of The Pit.
Gaining fans and followers
Harris estimates that he spends about an hour and a half a day using Twitter and Facebook for The Pit, which has 373 members in its Facebook group and more than 1,600 followers on Twitter. He initially gained followers by following local breweries and other people who posted about barbeque.
Harris posts photos of The Pit and lists weekly beers on tap on the restaurant’s Facebook page. He averages around six tweets, or Twitter posts, a week.
Recent tweets by Harris included a pre-lunch reminder about the restaurant’s pulled pork barbeque and ribs, a promise of a special desert for people who dined at The Pit that night, and a link to a song about southern barbeque on YouTube.com.
Staying local
Harris credits social networking with helping The Pit build and maintain relationships with its local customers following a wave of national publicity that helped turn the restaurant into a destination for barbeque lovers from beyond the Triangle.
“We want to keep our hometown, local flavor,” Harris said. “Our focus, when I finally figured out what I was doing with it [social networking], was to really emphasize local things. For example, highlight specialty beers on tap and that brings in customers.”
From no cell phone to social media marketer
Blaine Nierman, executive chef and general manager of 518 West Italian Café on West Jones Street, said he didn’t even have a cell phone until four years ago, but his restaurant started using Facebook and Twitter to reach customers in January of this year. Nierman, who had previously started a blog on 518 West’s website, liked the idea of viral, friend-to-friend marketing made possible by online social networking.
“It’s one more marketing tool to use to keep your name in their frontal lobe, in the top three or four choices,” Nierman said.
Enticing customers with gift certificates and prizes
518 West posts messages about once a day, with most posts appearing on both Facebook and Twitter. The restaurant tries to bring customers in by listing specials and giving away gift certificates and other prizes, Nierman explained.
For example, in early November, 518 West gave two tickets to South Pacific to the first person to comment on a Facebook post about the musical. Every Wednesday, 518 West offers gift cards to the first person to re-tweet, or repost, its drink special.
Nierman said he initially offered gift certificates more frequently and counted on word of mouth to bring in fans and followers. 518 West has 314 fans of its Facebook page and 242 followers on Twitter.
“Cost-effective and timely”
Sara Coleman, owner of The Cupcake Shoppe Bakery located at 104 Glenwood Avenue, said she started using Facebook as a marketing tool soon after she launched her business in July 2007, and then opened a Twitter account for her bakery under the name bakeshopgirl in 2008.
“We have a pretty varied client base, from stay-at-home moms to corporate clients,” Coleman said.
She thought Facebook and Twitter would be good ways to communicate with her customers quickly and cheaply, especially compared to printed advertisements and mailings, which must be planned months in advance and cost money.
“It’s a cost-effective, timely way to reach customers,” Coleman said.
As the owner of a busy small business, Coleman also said she likes the convenience of posting to Facebook and Twitter.
“I can do it at 5 AM, or I can do it at midnight,” Coleman said, describing her posting schedule. She said she spends one to two hours on social media in an average week, and three to four hours during busier weeks.
The Cupcake Shoppe Bakery has 853 fans of its Facebook page and 476 followers on Twitter.
Flavor of the week
Coleman uses Facebook and Twitter to share The Cupcake Shoppe’s special flavor for each week. Recent cupcake flavors of the week include sweet potato with marshmallow frosting, cranberry orange, chocolate bacon, and German chocolate.
Coleman also uses social media, especially Facebook, to invite customers to events at the bakery, like a holiday open house. To gain more fans, she said that she makes sure Facebook users can share her invitations with other friends.
Responding to customer feedback
Facebook and Twitter aren’t one-way streets; customers can also share their own views and respond to businesses’ postings.
During the week of November 8-15, 2009, other people mentioned The Pit more than 40 times on Twitter, including several re-tweets of Harris’ posts. A re-tweet means that followers of The Pit shared several of his posts with their own followers. During the same week, 518 West garnered four re-tweets on Twitter and six comments, or online responses from fans, on Facebook, while The Cupcake Shoppe got x re-tweets and 10 Facebook comments.
Nierman said he thinks responding to customers’ comments is key. A customer identified as Pamela posted a comment on Facebook on October 30 questioning a recent health rating of 90 for the restaurant.
“I hope this is something that is being addressed b/c [sic] it’s a shame to have such a low rating for such an otherwise fantastic restaurant,” Pamela commented.
518 West responded to the comment by explaining that the restaurant had purchased new coolers to fix the problem and had requested a re-inspection.
Nierman also recalled a comment from a customer criticizing a dish and suggesting ways to improve it, feedback he says was helpful.
“Any comment, whether good or bad, is going to help us be a better restaurant,” Nierman said.
Coleman said that most of the comments she’s gotten via Facebook and Twitter have been positive, although she recalls one post from a customer who was unhappy about having to stand in line for cupcakes on Valentine’s Day.
On The Cupcake Shoppe’s Facebook page, customers share photos and comments about cakes they’ve ordered for special occasions, like birthdays and wedding anniversaries.
“We send the cake out in a box. We never really get to see where it goes and who’s enjoying it. It’s nice to get to see that and nice to get the feedback,” Coleman says. She also pointed out that other potential customers get to see those positive comments, too.
Free marketing?
Neither Facebook nor Twitter charges money for posting to its site. The low cost of marketing through online social networking is a large part of its appeal for Harris and The Pit, and for Coleman and The Cupcake Shoppe.
But Facebook and Twitter aren’t free for 518 West. After starting the restaurant’s Facebook and Twitter pages, Nierman hired a marketing firm to take over posting duties. He’s considering bringing those duties back in-house to save money.
“We feed them ideas and they actually post it for us,” Nierman said, adding that it’s expensive.
Nierman said he recognizes the irony of paying to use a service that is usually considered to be free. He also thinks it’s hard to tell whether online social networking has actually helped his business’ bottom line.
Advice for other businesses
Doug Sutton, Jr., marketing and community relations manager at NBC 17 and MyNC.com, believes that most businesses can benefit from using tools like Twitter and Facebook.
“This is how people are getting their information. They’re not watching TV all day anymore, but they have their computer or their mobile phone with them,” Sutton said. However, he recommends against relying solely on social networking to bring in business.
Harris recommends that businesses strike the right tone in their messages, which he describes as jovial but professional.
“The real pain of it for me was getting what I wanted to say down to 140 characters and not sounding cheesy like a used car salesman,” said Harris.
Messages posted on Twitter can be no longer than 140 characters, spaces included. Messages posted to Facebook can be up to 420 characters.
Both Nierman and Coleman recommend against posting too many messages because customers may find it annoying, and Sutton cautions that businesses need to make sure they’re using Twitter and Facebook to communicate with their customers, not just to promote themselves.
“Don’t necessarily make it about selling something. People like to make friends online. People go to match.com to find dates. People go on Facebook to find friends. Make it about relationships,” Sutton said.
He recommends finding someone with the business who has the right personality to develop relationships with potential customers through online social networking.
Harris, Nierman and Coleman said they would recommend that other businesses consider using Facebook and Twitter.
“In this economic time, you don’t know what’s driving people to come to a restaurant,” Nierman said. “You need to be willing to try anything to see what’s going to work.”
“You’d be crazy not to use it,” said Coleman.
Tips for Businesses: How to use Facebook and Twitter
- Learn how Facebook and Twitter work before you start using them for your business.
- Find someone entertaining and engaging to post on behalf of your business.
- Check out what the competition and similar businesses are doing and saying online.
- Focus on building relationships with customers, not just on promoting your business.
- Encourage and respond to comments from customers.
- Don’t go overboard by posting too many messages. Know your customers and think about how much information they’ll want to receive
- Make Twitter and Facebook work with traditional marketing, not replace it entirely.
- Be patient. It can take time to gain fans and followers online.
Sources: Sara Coleman, Eric Harris, Blaine Nierman and Doug Sutton.
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