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twitter for business

Nov 29
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Seven Ways Restaurants Can Use Social Media

By Social Media

My friend Ginger Germani was “helping” me find some shoes online the other day. It started with her razzing me about my choices, then Ginger said, “I’m not a complainer without solutions.”

I liked that, and that’s a good model to follow. I’ve tried to do that on this blog; when I note a company not communicating well or using social media to its full benefit (or making a colossal mistake) I follow it by sharing what they should do, or tips to help them improve.

As a follow up to my review of area restaurants and their use of social media, here are seven ways a restaurant in any community can improve their use of online interaction to increase customers.

  1. Create a chef’s blog that’s updated frequently (at a minimum, once a week). Use it to share new menu items, local ingredients and the occasional recipe. Make liberal use of photos and video, but don’t let that be the sole content on the blog.
  2. Work with FourSquare to offer special deals to the Mayor of your restaurant.
  3. Set up social web monitoring alerts to let you know when a community member is asking friends on Twitter, “Where’s a good place to take my boss out to dinner in C’ville?” or “I’m looking for a good C’ville restaurant for my mom’s birthday.” Be responsive when these conversations occur. Recognize the Twitter user when they come in and reward them for the interaction (you’ll likely have a customer for life).
  4. Create special, behind-the-scenes content or offers for fans of the restaurant on Facebook. Let the fans name a new dish, or offer to host a Tweet-up on an otherwise slow evening or at a time the restaurant is normally closed.
  5. Follow members of the community on Twitter and ask them what you can do to better serve them — the people who follow your restaurant become your online focus group.
  6. Monitor the social web for mentions of your restaurant, in case anyone posts about a bad experience (they will; I promise, no matter how great your restaurant is.) Before you find these mentions, develop a plan to react and respond to negative comments and make sure anyone who acts on the restaurant’s behalf, knows and understands the plan. Remember always that in the case of a negative customer experience, the right, first thing to say is “I’m sorry,” followed by, “how can we make it better?”
  7. Share the love. Look, no one is going to eat at your restaurant every night. The culture of social media rewards those who share, and who recognize others. Following other restaurants, retweeting their content, commenting on their blog posts, sharing their special offers won’t hurt your business, it will earn you respect in the social community. Respect is loyalty and loyalty means customers that come back to see you again and again.

Social media is a fantastic tool for restaurants who can time tweets to tempt us with menu offerings right when we’re starting to get hungry for lunch or dinner.

They can help us out by reminding us to make reservations for that special birthday or anniversary coming up.

They can offer to help us out of a bind by sharing menu options that suit the vegetarian or gluten-free guest coming to visit.

In short, restaurants are a vibrant part of our community, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be reaping the benefits of being part of our online community as well.

Nov 17
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Charlottesville Car Dealerships and Social Media: A Study of Four Automotive Brands

By Social Media

In the last few years I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of local car dealerships ending their television commercials with “Friend us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter.”

I became curious about what the local social media scene among the automotive brands really looks like and decided to conduct a small independent study.

  1. Price Kia is the first dealership that appears in a Google search that has an evident social media presence on its home page. The Kia dealership’s Facebook Page has 248 “likes,” 30 photos and four videos but  not a lot of engagement or customer interaction.
  2. Brown Automotive is the second leader in the Google search, and has a Facebook Page with only 141 “likes;” surprising because this dealership is so engaged in the local community. Twitter is where this dealership really stands out and that is largely due to www.twitter.com/brownautogal What really makes Brown’s social media engagement successful is that Brown Automotive’s Twitter presence has a face and a voice — and these belong to Jamie Schwartz, aka Brown Auto Gal.
  3. Jamie SchwartzFlow Volkswagen Charlottesville only offers a Facebook page for customer engagement. The page has only 50 “likes,” but offers good content, helpful tips and reminders. With such great content, it’s too bad that Flow Volkswagen isn’t living up to its social media potential.
  4. BMW of Charlottesville earns points for having Facebook and Twitter badges on its website home page, making it clear to their community where to engage. BMW’s Facebook page is active so it’s surprising that it has only 30 “likes.” The dealership also has a Twitter account, but they seem to be a bit confused about it — the account is http://twitter.com/bmwcharlville but the bio lists it as BMWCharville:

BMW

The Twitter account needs some help. A keyword-rich bio should be added and it should be evident who the person is behind the account. There are thousands of engaged Twitter users in our community – and yet BMW of Charlottesville is only following 12.

There is definitely some untapped potential for social media engagement in the car sales arena in Charlottesville. I see plenty of people in our community tweeting and posting on Facebook about a need for a new car, recommendations for where to get a car fixed or the next car they should purchase. With such a competitive marketplace, these dealerships should take a hard look at how they can pull ahead of the others with some simple social media strategy.


Sep 22
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5 Popular Blog Posts: Learning What You Like

By Social Media

Borrowing an idea from my friend Jay Baer in his great post, Content Lessons Learned From 25 Popular Blog Posts, and because this blog has not lived as long as Jay’s,  I’m reviewing the five most popular posts from Change the Conversation, below:

  1. Twitter: Why We Care What You Had for Breakfast Sometimes, when I’m incensed annoyed about something, I do my best writing. I guess you think so too because this post (with run-on sentences!) is a favorite so far. I think those of us who are active Twitter users “got” Twitter long before others and so have had to suffer the ridicule of others who don’t understand its power. It’s not about breakfast, people.
  2. Time vs. Newsweek and the Demise of the English Language called out a mistake and one of my pet peeves (peek, peak pique). Extra fun bonus: read the comments!
  3. How NOT to use LinkedIn: Three D’oh!s from a Real Life Example was another super popular post, probably because so many people in my network had experienced the same poorly-executed outreach. The result of this post has been an ongoing case study of what not to do and helped with instruction to others on the proper way to use LinkedIn and conduct oneself when engaging in social networking. (Incidentally, there was a follow-up conversation which took place and included a threat that I might not ever want to meet someone’s spouse in a dark alley. REALLY?)
  4. I watched a social media/reputation management nightmare unfolding in the local blogosphere and had several people direct me to it, suggesting it would make for excellent fodder for this blog. How could I resist that? As always, I try to be helpful here and redirect toward more productive use of social media and did so in Five Steps BHG Real Estate III Should Take Right Now. And you know what? I made a new friend from that one.
  5. Five Ways to Avoid a Social Media Spanking is another heavy-hitter and one of my personal favorites. It’s one of those posts I consider required reading for anyone representing their company on the internet. Share it with your employees and colleagues today!

Content lessons:

Like Jay, I’ve learned that numbers in headlines, or posts that include a numbered list seem to rank among the most popular. I will try to do more of these.

Twitter is a hot blog topic. People interested in learning about social media are still trying to get their arms around Twitter and posts that focus on that platform tend to do quite well.

You all seem to like it a lot when I get fired up about something or go after someone not following the “rules.” It’s good for me to channel my frustration into writing instead of oh, a pan of brownies, so when I’m annoyed I’ll stick more closely to the keyboard than the kitchen.

Do you have any favorites not listed above?

Sep 21
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5 Ways to Get Started on Twitter

By Communications

A friend of mine is new to Twitter. In fact, he has a new job and as part of the job has been asked to become active in using it to help promote the business. He needs to fast-track to success on Twitter so just for him (hey, this is for my friend Tom, not for you! Stop reading this!) I’ve put together a list of five things Tom can do to get rolling with his Twitter account:

1. Create a bio that more fully tells us who he is and what he does. The bio should include his location and keywords about the business he’s in.

2. Increase the number of people he follows. Since Tom’s business is based in Charlottesville, Va. he should start there. I’ve done some of the work for him, using Tweepz to grab the people in Charlottesville who are active Twitter users.

3. Integrate his Twitter account into his other social platforms. For example, on LinkedIn, include his Twitter handle in the last name field and where LinkedIn lists Twitter in the profile fields as I’ve done with mine below:

4. Start tweeting! Yes this seems obvious but Tom has yet to interact with Twitter followers or the users he’s following, nor has he tweeted about what he’s doing or what he’s thinking.  Be thoughtful. Be interesting. Link to content you think others might find of interest. Be helpful and responsive.

5. Use a management tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. It’s really cumbersome to try to manage a Twitter account when you begin following more than a few users and more than a few begin to follow and interact with you. It is also nice to be able to see, on one screen, your @ replies and direct messages in addition to the steady stream of updates from your friends. Schedule at least an hour a day to log in, catch up and engage with the Twitterverse.

After he gets the hang of this Twitter business, Tom can gauge his success by measuring his Twitter effectiveness using Klout.

Welcome to Twitter, Tom (and the rest of you who are new to tweets); we wish you much success!