*

The Opportunity

My love affair with social media goes back to the days of MySpace, where I met the father of my children and left sunny Las Vegas to relocate to freezing Northern Alberta in Canada. Alone in a new country with a metric system that I neither understood or appreciated thanks to my small town American upbringing, it wasn't the optimal time to start a business, but I did it anyway with every last penny from my hard earned 401k. Creating Canada's #9 fastest growing company, winning a ton of entrepreneurial awards, and ending up on three reality television shows- all without a traditional advertising agency. That's what you do when you're bootstrapping a venture that is growing 981% from year to year and you're pregnant 18 of the first 24 months. I didn't have time to stop and be strategic. I was busy fire fighting and the only marketing I knew was word of mouth and social media. So, as each social media platform launched, I embraced it fully and set about mastering it for the benefit of my business.

After five whirlwind years, I moved back home to Las Vegas and began working with brands large and small. Frankly, I was shocked that they, too, hadn't mastered social media. I mistakenly assumed that every entrepreneur must know the magic of engaging with people on a personal level through social media. Every business leader must know the value of authentically listening and connecting with the people giving you money, right? Wrong. I couldn't be more wrong. Back in those first years of working with brands I realized that the vast majority of business leaders didn't understand the value of social media. I spent four more years after my first venture helping business leaders to master just what social media was and how they could use it to get results before my own professional epiphany would occur.

It was early April on a beautiful patio of a thriving restaurant in one of Las Vegas' finest suburbs. Sitting with one of the world's most accomplished chefs in the world, asking the same questions that I'd come to ask each potential client. “What do you want to grow?" I asked with the results oriented focus I'd become known for. Clearly unimpressed, Chef said, “Nothing." He continued, “Listen, I know that the restaurant will grow. I don't need you to do that." As I began to wonder what I could possibly do for this accomplished culinary leader, he went on, “Everything we do here is different. We are creating an experience. We are in the experience business. We use food and alcohol to create that experience." It was clear: my job was to share that experience in a unique way through social media.

Sharing experiences on social media isn't new- in fact, it's a basic business concept that brands have understood for generations before social media existed. The epiphany was that the vanilla cookie cutter strategy that every other advertising agency or social media consultant was using wasn't working. Today there are entire services that exist to eliminate the authentic personal content of dining experiences. Yes, they make your life easier and they automate social media, making it more efficient. But, as any good Chef can tell you about preparing fine cuisine, there are some shortcuts that are never worth taking. My professional epiphany was that there had to be a way to create an effective social media system for restaurants to share their experience while growing the bottom line.

Restaurants are notoriously traditional in their operation and dogma. Marketing is no exception. I have yet to meet any chef- from a food truck to a five star restaurant- who is more concerned with his advertising than the creation of his cuisine. Automation and systemization is tempting, but the best restaurateurs and chefs are just in the beginning stages of embracing technology in the back of house with Cloud ERP accounting systems. There are still restaurants that have no online reservation system or who have barely began using the basics of Open Table. It makes perfect sense to me- in the same way that a great craftsman is more focused on the quality of the wood he is working with to create a beautiful dining chair, a chef is more concerned about the quality of his food and team than how the world will hear about it. Good food travels quickly thanks to word of mouth in even the smallest of communities.

So where does this leave social media for restaurants? It's not about social media. Social media is just a tool in your restaurant marketing tool box. It's about creating social dining experiences. A social dining experience is one that begins the first time your Guest interacts with your brand on any social media channel. From that first Instagram #FoodPorn photo that led them to book a reservation to the server who encouraged them to share their experience or the social media manager who thanked them for coming in at 11PM on a Friday night, a social dining experience is comprehensive from start to finish, enhancing the Guest experience. From Snapchat to Pinterest to Twitter, I'm going to give you my secret ingredients for helping restaurants to become known and make money.

The author hasn't added any updates, yet.