Seven Ways Restaurants Can Build Traffic With Social Media

Restaurants have some of the best opportunities for building traffic through online marketing tools. There are many, many ways to provoke trial and create ongoing relationships with patrons that are inexpensive and require relatively little day-to-day maintenance.

A mobile user passes by a New York restaurant. What if this restaurant could send him a coupon right now?

Despite this, in my metropolitan area – which is one of the savviest for this kind of thing – I’m still yet to see much activity from this sector, while simultaneously there’s been plenty of hand-wringing over Yelp reviews and extortion. Get a bad review? One of the best ways to combat it by having a vigorous and authentic presence elsewhere on the web. It’s true that Yelp is very influential among its users, but they by no means comprise the entirety of your customer base.

Here are seven things any restaurant can do today at very little cost to start getting more new and repeat customers today. Think of these as giving you the ability to create your own media story and get away from reliance on mainstream reviews, traditional advertising and user-generated reviews:

1. Put Up A Facebook Fan Page: One of the great things about Facebook is it allows your customers to ‘Like’ your business without the rigamarole of writing a review as they do on Yelp. That ‘Like’ is then announced to all their friends, provoking interest and perhaps visits to your Fan Page. Make sure to communicate regularly on this page about specials, seasonals or any other promotions you might run.  Let your best customers tell their friends about you easily and quickly.
2. Twitter: My local bakery Arizmendi announces its daily pizza every day. I get frequent advisories cocktail specials from my local watering hole, The Easy Lounge. Take a moment every day to announce what’s on your menu, especially if it changes frequently. As a good menu writer knows, it only takes 140 characters to make a mouth water.
3. Location-Based Apps: Imagine a hungry person checks in a block away and gets a special offer for your place. Pretty great? This is exactly what Foursquare, Booyah and Gowalla mobile users can receive now – and there’s well over a million of each, especially in mobile savvy parts of the country. Starbucks is a huge user of these services; even if you hate them, you have to admit they’re pretty good at provoking and serving walk-ins. There’s no reason you can’t compete on this basis, too. Take advantage.
4. Collect E-Mail Addresses: This is simply a basic. Getting these will allow you to send out specials, coupons and news to a self-selected audience of your best customers. In addition, it can help you find your customers profiles on social networks like Twitter so you can follow them and get followed back.
5. Referral Programs / Couponing: If the whole battle for restaurants is getting people to come in at all, it’s constantly surprising that I leave venues with nothing in my hands to remind me of my visit. How about placing a coupon towards a future meal in the check sleeve – or, even better, some kind of referral offer that benefits both your current visitor and someone they might send in on their own?
6. Use The Whole Media: Are you waiting for the major metropolitan newspaper to review your restaurant? How about making outreach to your local bloggers? Every town has some self-appointed folks who are blogging on their town, sometimes just their immediate neighborhoods. Invite them in and make sure they have an opportunity to sample your wares, too. After all, all their readership is somewhere nearby and probably one of your best targets.
7. Integrate It All: Add your Facebook and Twitter IDs to your menus and signage. If you have a Foursquare special, post it in your window.  Whichever of these methods above you all – and it wouldn’t be tough to use them all – make sure that you tell people about it in the offline world, too.

By the way, did you notice that not a single one of these requires cash out of pocket?  Maybe a few discounts here and there, but even that’s optional.  If your restaurant needs more people in seats, it’s simply nuts not to at least give some of these a try.

Photos by Ed Yourdon used under Creative Commons license