Posts Tagged: Ideas in Action

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26
Apr 10

Is it better to Yelp or to Tweet?

Figuring out what form of social media works best for your small business or restaurant is an ongoing process. SmartBrief Senior Editor Megan Conniff reached out to the front-of-house manager Nicole Maddocks at Garrido’s Restaurant in Austin, Texas, to learn how this young business is tackling social media and engaging its customers. Maddocks is responsible for monitoring and posting on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and more for Garrido’s. (Disclosure: SmartBrief employee Elena Ziebarth’s brother is the general manager at Garrido’s.) How did Garrido’s develop its social-media game plan? How has it evolved since you first started using social media? We started out just exploring the idea of using Facebook as an avenue of free marketing, then expanded to Twitter . Then we learned how valuable maintaining our presence on Yelp , Citysearch and sites like that is. Now Foursquare , a social-mapping/city guide, is the new trend, so I’m trying to jump on that bandwagon by offering specials when people become the “mayor” of Garrido’s (someone becomes the mayor when they are the most frequent visitor of a location). Our social-media game plan is ever-evolving because that is the nature of social media itself. Do you make changes to the restaurant or menu based on online reviews or customer comments? In general, is such feedback useful to you as a front-of-house manager? So far, only minor changes have been made. We have noticed that people either love or hate our beans on Yelp reviews, so we’ve recently made some tweaks to make them more widely appreciated (fingers crossed!). What is Garrido’s Twitter strategy? Do you engage actively with your followers? I attempt to post something roughly every other day, so as to not irritate my followers with constant postings. My posts are usually something about specials we’re having or perhaps related to one of our other social-media outlets. I try to reply to anyone who mentions Garrido’s on Twitter – even if it’s a “Great! Thanks! Can’t wait to see you again!” I think it’s important to interact and not just spew marketing at them. Which social-media platform or tool has proven to be the most useful in engaging diners and driving foot traffic to Garrido’s – Facebook, Yelp or Twitter? Most people go to Yelp for restaurant reviews and advice, so as much as I wish my answer could be Twitter because I spend so much energy on it, I would have to say Yelp. As a “business owner,” we can log in on Yelp to see our page views and respond to any comments, so I try to be interactive on there (mostly through private messages, especially if they do not give perfect reviews). If they have any complaints, I offer them a free appetizer to entice them to come back. Rewards Network program , which is trackable down to the dollar amount spent by members, and it has been very beneficial. Their diners also write comments, and I am sure to respond to each one. I would say that 95% of those comments have been positive so far. Do you have any tips or ideas for Garrido’s and other businesses as they develop their social-media strategies? What works for your business? Want to learn about how to tackle your company’s social-media strategy? Morton’s the Steakhouse’s SVP Roger Drake and Yelp’s business-outreach manager, Luther Lowe , will join Andy Sernovitz for a special SmartBrief Webinar: Social Media for Restaurants on April 28.

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Is it better to Yelp or to Tweet?

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23
Apr 10

The great wall of Apple

Today’s guest post is from Mark Story. Mark is the CEO of Intersection of Online and Offline, LLC and has served as adjunct faculty at Georgetown University . The term “crisis communication” is often used interchangeably with “reputation management.” A crisis is when something goes wrong that disrupts a company’s operations. And in a crisis, companies should never stonewall. Given that Steve Jobs’ Apple guards new-product releases with a level of secrecy that the National Security Agency would envy, it was nothing short of a crisis when the next generation of the iPhone, version 4.0, fell into the hands of a tech publication. Gasp. As Gizmodo recently reported , one of Apple’s software engineers left the device in a Northern California bar. Was this a bad thing for Apple? According to Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz, “When it comes to the big stuff, everything is airtight. At their Cupertino campus, any gadget or computer that is worth protecting is behind armored doors, with security locks with codes that change every few minutes.” This could — maybe — turn out to be a good thing for Apple. With a curious and loyal customer base already salivating over the next generation, doesn’t a sneak peek just fuel the flames? Consider the following: A tease for the phone (remotely wiped by Apple) could build up hype for when they do launch the phone. Most companies would come out with some sort of crisis communications plan — or a least a statement — but Apple has chosen silence. Despite the “great wall of stonewalling,” their zealot/customer base will, as always, line up to buy their latest product. The only thing that Apple is giving up is the “wow” factor at Mr. Jobs’ news conference. With Apple’s passion for security, could this stonewall actually be an intentional effort by the company to create word-of-mouth buzz leading up to the product launch? What do you think? Will the “leaked iPhone” peak interest, or take the pizazz out of the product launch? Is this truly a leak, or could it be that Apple has pulled off one of the greatest viral marketing stunts in recent memory?

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The great wall of Apple

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16
Apr 10

Tips and tools for filtering the noise out of social media

T oday’s guest post was written by Kaukab Jhumra Smith. Sreenath Sreenivasan , dean of student affairs at Columbia Journalism School , has worn so many tech-reporting hats that he’s widely considered a guru in new-media education. Sree, as he’s commonly known, was named one of the top 25 media people to follow on Twitter by AdAge. Sree stopped by Washington, D.C., last week for a day of nearly back-to-back workshops on advanced social-media techniques for journalists. “Social media is the biggest advance in the Internet for journalists since the debut of the public Web in 1996,” Sree said to the 50-odd people crowded into the Foreign Press Center for his fourth stop of the day. “Take all the good stuff you know — how to tell a story, how to report, contacts, connections, hustle — and then take social media and amplify your message.” Don’t worry if you feel you can’t keep up with its rapid changes, Sree said: Social media is still in its infancy, kind of where television was in 1950. The key lies in finding the right tools to bring order to its chaos. “Find the things that work for you instead of worrying about what everyone else is talking about,” Sree said. “Too much noise in social media? Find that funnel!” Here are Sree’s top ways for journalists to use sites such as Facebook , LinkedIn and Twitter : Find new sources, ideas, topics and trends . Search for sources among LinkedIn’s professional profiles or follow your beat on Twitter using MuckRack.com . Connect with new and existing audiences . “Plural,” Sree emphasized. “Everything has multiple audiences.” Repeat your tweets at different times of the day and repurpose content between Facebook and Twitter to maximize your reach. Bring attention to your work . The scarcest resource of the 21st century, “after water and food and all of that,” will be human attention, Sree said, quoting Les Hinton, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. The way to reach the BAW demographic — people Bored At Work — is to make your posts and tweets as informative, relevant and fun as possible, he advised. Include a link with every tweet, and don’t reference yourself more than one tweet out of five, he added. Create and enhance your online brand . Aim to be among the sites a person visits once or twice a day. Sree also recommended using the following sites to help bring order to your social-media chaos, particularly on Twitter, so you can focus on achieving your goals: Bit.ly provides permanent, shortened links for long urls. Users who sign up for accounts can accumulate metrics for everyone who clicks through. Mashable.com aggregates news about social media, so you can stay on top of the latest developments. MuckRack.com brings together Twitter feeds by journalists and lets you slice them by publication, topic or beat. HootSuite lets you manage multiple social-media accounts, including allowing you to postdate tweets so you can customize optimum posting times for your various audiences. Twiangulate helps you identify common followers of two or more Twitter accounts, letting you pinpoint important sources or trends. For a complete, ever-changing list of useful sites, check out Sree’s social-media tips . Image credit, mmaxer , via Shutterstock

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Tips and tools for filtering the noise out of social media

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12
Apr 10

The ABCs of pitching to influencers

Everyday I get some version of this e-mail from someone who wants to be featured in the SmartBrief on Social Media newsletter: Dear Editor, I know I just found out about your publication, but I’m confident your readers need  to know about my client’s remarkable product! Of course, I can’t really be bothered to explain what I’m promoting in a way that you might relate to — so I’m just going to copy and paste in a boiler-plate press release below. Love and Kisses, Anonymous PR person It’s not just public relations folks either — there are variations on that e-mail from bloggers, researchers and entrepreneurs as well. They’re all sending the exact same e-mail to me and every other blogger, reporter or editor who turned up on their keyword search. These messages are meant to convince someone influential in your field to talk about your work, but more often than not, they end up being a waste of time.  It’s a shame that even though the principles of social media engagement are permeating every other aspect of marketing, we’re still trying to attract the attention of some of the most discerning media consumers with decidedly Web 1.0 tactics. I’m not suggesting that pitching to influencers is a simple matter. I’m frequently on the other side of these e-mails, trying to get the real ace bloggers of the social media world to notice a particular post — and maybe even send a tweet or an inbound link my way. I’ve still got plenty to learn, but I’m starting to develop a system — an ABCs of Pitching — based on the approaches that have worked for me in the past, as well as the tactics that seem to get my attention when I’m on the receiving end. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far: A ppeal on a personal level. Your pitch is a message written from one person to another — not a business transaction between two brands. Be human. Don’t fall back on a form letter. Use natural language and personalize your message. Show that you’re familiar with the influencer’s work and place your pitch in that context. If you can’t do that, maybe that’s a sign you should be pitching to someone else. B e a problem solver. Your influencer isn’t looking to do you a favor. Whatever you’re pitching needs to be genuinely useful to their audience.  Resist the urge to use the old standby: “I think your audience would love to know about …” — your job is prove your worth, not assert it. You need to be able to show them how your pitch answers a question or solves a problem that the influencer’s audience is concerned about. Responding positively to your pitch should never feel like a stretch for your influencer. C reate curiosity. Tell your influencer about your surprising discovery, your awesome product or your counterintuitive conclusion — but don’t bog them down with details. Be concise. Be provocative. Leave a little mystery. Don’t be confusing or misleading — that will only erode trust. Just leave them with a single natural question in the back of their mind. That question gives them a reason to e-mail you back. D on’t oversell it. I’ll admit that I’m particularly sensitive to this — I’ve been know to literally growl at pushy salespeople — but I don’t think I’m the only one. Reporters, editors and bloggers of all stripes tend to be a skeptical, independent people. You can’t badger them or expect to wow them with hype alone. Push too hard and you risk getting redirected to their spam folder from now on. You need an easy, light tone to pique their interest. You can lead a blogger to content, but you can’t make them link. Of course, this list is a long way from comprehensive. Got any other tips that belong in the ABCs of Pitching? Leave a suggestion in the comments — let’s see if we can fill out the alphabet. If you can come up with a half-decent tip that actually begins with the letter “X,” you’ll have my undying respect as both a blogger and vocabulary enthusiast. Image credit, Palto , via Shutterstock

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The ABCs of pitching to influencers

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7
Apr 10

With changes, Yelp offers a peek behind the curtain

Yesterday CEO Jeremy Stoppelman announced substantive changes to the way Yelp displays and filters reader reviews.  These changes directly impact the way users and businesses utilize the review site. Two product changes are now live on the Yelp site: Visibility into filtered reviews :  Yelp users now can  see reviews that have been removed from the review string. While the filtered reviews are not front and center in the user navigation, transparency into what has been removed shows that Yelp’s system applies to everyone equally: users and advertisers. “People can now see which reviews have been removed from the site, so they can judge for themselves whether or not advertisers are getting a special advantage and whether the reviews are worthy,” said Stoppelman. Filtered posts still have no impact on overall ratings. You can see Yelp’s filter policy here . “Favorite Review” discontinued : While this popular feature was labeled as “advertising,” it still confused users, thereby prompting its removal. From Yelp’s perspective, these changes are transparency wins for both businesses and users. In reality, though, businesses may be split on the changes.  Some businesses saw the “Favorite Review” as an opportunity to have some level of control over their Yelp presence. Others have complained ( and even filed suit ) contending that the sale of “Favorite Review” was being used to extort their business into buying a a bigger advertising package. Regardless, it’s great to see that the review site is open to feedback and understands the concerns many have had on whether or not they have the right to curate the content on business pages. Stoppelman was candid in his assessment, “Not sure we’ll ever get to a perfect solution — but these moves will help.” Another key move Yelp made to work with and get feedback from local business owners was hiring Manager of Local Business Outreach Luther Lowe. On Wednesday, April 28, Luther will join SmartBrief for a webinar that demonstrates how restaurateurs can utilize the new, more transparent Yelp to address positive and negative ratings and customer reviews.

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With changes, Yelp offers a peek behind the curtain

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