• Static FBML allows for page customization using Facebook’s mark up language, FBML, which is very similar to HTML.  Functionality is more limited than with standard HTML but you can still build fairly complex designs for custom tabs and boxes.  We used this application to design the TwoTables landing page, which enabled us  not only to provide a consistent look with our website but also allowed us to direct visitors to various tabs on our Facebook page that they may not otherwise have found.  We were also able to provide links to pages on our website and blog to give the visitor more options to engage with our brand.   TwoTables will offer more guidance on using FBML to create custom tabs for maps, menus and more in future posts, so if you’re interested in learning more, subscribe to our feed or get updates sent to you automatically via email.
• YouTube Channel and Photo Gallery from Involver add visual functionality to your restaurant’s page.   If you’ve already set up a YouTube channel for restaurant videos, then the YouTube app allows you to add a tab to your page that will update automatically whenever a new video is added to your channel.  Photo Gallery allows for uploading of photos to be displayed in a carousel format.  Both of these are free, however you do have to register with Involver to activate.
• Extended Info is a flexible app that enables administrators to add more information to their company profile that the standard info section provided by Facebook.  We’ve used this application to better explain our mission and services to our page’s visitors.  Restaurant marketers could easily use this app to add their menu, detailed driving directions or any other information that doesn’t fit into the standard Facebook info tab.
• Promotions from Wildfire is the only app included on this list that is not free however they do offer an affordable option for small businesses.  Promotion Builder allows page administrators to quickly and easily set up a campaign for sweepstakes, surveys, coupons and more.
• For restaurants that offer online reservations, OpenTable has an app that allows your fans & visitors to book a table without ever leaving Facebook.  Very handy!
• For those that use Contant Contact to manage their email marketing campaigns, they offer an application that allows users to sign up for your email list directly from Facebook.

Of course, the caveat when adding any Facebook application, either for your business page or personal profile, is that you authorize the application to have access to all the information you make available within Facebook.  That said, you can easily remove any application with one click if you find it is not useful or if it is invasive.

What apps have you added to your Facebook restaurant page?  Are there any applications that you would like to see offered that aren’t currently available?  Let us know by leaving a comment to this post.

• Update or Claim Local Listings – Enter your business name and zip code here, to see if your business listings have been claimed and updated on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yelp, and Business.com.  In less than 15 seconds, a report similar to the one below but specific to the business you have entered, will be available for you to view and act upon.

• Check for new marketing opportunities via keyword research – There are many good keyword research tools out there for professional marketers, but if you want a no-cost alternative it’s hard to beat Google’s own tool.  Simply enter your website address or a keyword phrase, such as “Denver restaurant” and Google will show a list of related search phrases.  Don’t rely heavily on the specific number of searches that are returned, instead use the results to rank relative demand for keyword phrases.  Are people looking for restaurants that offer gluten-free alternatives in your area?  Maybe a good place for Mother’s Day or Graduation celebration?  Keyword research is a great way to uncover emerging trends to be included in your restaurant marketing plan.  Make sure to include a new page on your website for any new markets you uncover!
• Do a bit of competitive research - How and what are your competitors doing online?  Check out Compete.com and enter in up to three website addresses to compare unique visitors, top search phrases and top referrers for each site entered.  This is a great way to discover new sites from which to get links to your own website and new search phrases to use in marketing your website.
• What’s being said about your restaurant online? – Here’s a two-for-one freebie!  Monitor what the search engines are finding about your brand by setting up Google alerts for your restaurant’s name and the name of your chef.  You’ll receive emails, for the time frame you select (immediately, daily or weekly), listing all mentions found on the web by Google.  Do the same with social media mentions at SocialMention.com, where you can enter your brand name and see, in real time, what is being said about your business on social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs.  You’ll not only see each mention listed, this site also calculates the strength of your brand, the ratio of positive to negative mentions and lots more.  Subscribe to the RSS feed for your brand search to remain updated on mentions across the social networking universe.
• Download TwoTables’ whitepaper, Big Picture Internet Marketing , where we detail how to formulate an all-encompassing internet marketing plan for restaurants.  Although compiled last year, the message, resources and tactics are still effective in 2010.  You can also keep up to date on all things internet and restaurant related by subscribing to the TwoTables blog, following TwoTables on Twitter and liking TwoTables on Facebook.

That’s it!  Enjoy your Cinco de Mayo celebrations, everyone.

The collaboration aims to make the experience on Yelp more personalized for their members and make friends’ opinions on local businesses visible on Facebook.

Here’s an overview of the features announced on Wednesday:

• Yelp will pull personalized information from Facebook to automatically create a profile for new Yelp users.
• A new user will land on Yelp and be able to see which Facebook friends have reviewed a business and easily read their reviews.
• Users will be able to view a feed of what their friends are doing on Yelp (adding pictures, writing reviews, and  liking businesses).
• Yelpers will be able to see which friends have “liked” a particular business

Yelp offers the following information about liking businesses on either of the sites:

• Any user logged into either Yelp or Facebook will be able to like a business on Yelp by pressing a Like button. This is similar to the functionality Facebook has that allows you to like the content your friends post on Facebook.
• Liking a business on Yelp will also mean you like it on Facebook, however users can opt out of sharing.
• Liking a business in Yelp means it will also show up on the user’s Facebook profile, much like the way pages fanned on Facebook are currently displayed.  This link will point back to Yelp’s business page.

What should the savvy restaurant marketer do to make the most of these features?  Join, engage, connect.  Your goal as the face of the business in social networks should be to facilitate interaction with your brand.  Business owners can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines while conversations regarding their establishments take place online.  Whether or not you have raving fans or disgruntled patrons posting their thoughts on Yelp, their comments are going to have a much wider audience now that their opinions will be ported automatically to their friends on Facebook.   This requires that there be an official voice of the restaurant conversing with customers in these venues.

If it hasn’t already been done, create an official presence on Facebook and Yelp.  This entails claiming or adding the business listing in Yelp and creating a business page in Facebook.   Once the profiles have been created, view activity on each of these pages on a daily basis.  Yes, this takes time out of an already busy day, however it’s not as much as you might fear.  Five to ten minutes each day should be adequate to monitor and respond to comments entered in Yelp and Facebook for an average independent restaurant.  Even franchised businesses shouldn’t have to spend much more than that on social networking on the average workday.

It’s important to acknowledge both good and bad reviews – graciously accept compliments and quickly address any complaints that may appear.  TwoTables strongly recommends responding publicly rather than sending private messages within the social sites.  This serves two purposes:  other users can see how you respond to make a negative situation better and you have shown that you are an active member of the Yelp & Facebook communities.  Over time, this investment pays off in building trust and loyalty with your online customers.

I know that Yelp is a volatile subject in the restaurant industry and would love to hear how you feel about the new partnership with Facebook.  How do you think this will affect your business?  How will you adapt to this new paradigm?  Let us know by leaving a comment!

If the ever-changing landscape of web marketing leaves you dazed and confused, please take a minute to contact us either by phone, email or via our quick and easy contact form.  We’ll provide you with a free analysis of your restaurant’s online presence and specific tactics you can employ for improvement.

Early on, the test advertisers will be able to promote their regular tweets to the Twitter community.  Initially, these promoted tweets will show at the top of Twitter search results.  For example, if a member searches for “Starbucks,” a promoted tweet from the coffeehouse chain may appear at the top of the list of search results.  Twitter assures users that ads will be organic tweets and will provide added value and relevancy for both users and advertisers.  Here’s a mockup of how the ads may appear when launched:

After some testing, Twitter plans to have promoted tweets appear in users timelines as well as in partner and client applications.  They promise users that all promoted tweets will have to meet very stringent guidelines, including a “resonance factor.”  If a promoted tweet doesn’t resonate with the Twitter faithful, judged by retweets, replies and favoriting, the promoted tweet will be pulled from display.

Peter Kafka of MediaMemo liveblogged at a followup presentation by Twitter COO Dick Costolo at the AdAge Digital Conference yesterday, where Costolo offered up more details, including the ability for advertisers to assign specific keywords to specific tweets they’ve published previously.  The promoted tweets will stay at the top of the search stream.  The pricing model to begin with will be cost-per-impression, however once they dial in the resonance metric, the pricing will move to an ROI model.  During a Q&A session, Costolo revealed that at some point the ads will include the location as part of the platform, possibly offering nice opportunities for local-store marketing.

It’s expected that more details will emerge at the Chirp Conference, the Twitter developers gathering held today and tomorrow in San Francisco.  Needless to say, TwoTables Internet Marketing for Restaurants will keep you posted as more information becomes available.

That’s the premise behind Dr. Srikumar S. Rao’s recently-published article entitled “Why Positive Thinking Is Bad For You.”  Dr. Rao suggests that the mere identification of daily happenings as negative sets in motion a stressful cycle in which we then feel the need to make the best of these experiences, what conventional wisdom calls the “if life hands you lemons, make lemonade” technique.  The article is a quick read that certainly got me to thinking.

I can recall many instances that I have automatically viewed as “lemons.”  Now, I’m no Debbie Downer by nature, I’m talking events that “everyone” would assume were bad:  the serious illness of a loved one, the disillusionment in a previously-fulfilling job and the struggles associated with launching a business during a recession.  I’m sure each of you could compile your own list.  How would I lived differently through these “bad” times had I not assumed that what was occurring was bad?  I don’t know but I’m sure at the very least I would have been in a more positive frame of mind and certainly much better company had I adopted Dr. Rao’s advice.

How to apply this strategy in our daily challenges in the restaurant business?  The bad review on Yelp becomes an opportunity to connect in a meaningful way with your customer base.  Staff struggles are now viewed as a way to strengthen the team.  The battle to survive in a struggling economy becomes an opportunity to employ previously underutilized sales-driving and cost-cutting techniques.

Once we shed the yoke of accepted truths in running our businesses, we suddenly have the ability to evaluate our tactics based upon radically different criteria, not as “good” or “bad,” but as “effective,” “necessary,” “successful” or perhaps as “questionable,” “doubtful” or “expendable.”   Eschewing labels frees us to see unsuccessful techniques not as failures but as tactics to revamp or replace with more productive strategies.

So, what do you think?  Is Dr. Rao on to something?  How would adopting his advice change your perspective at work?  Let’s get the conversation going!

This isn’t a guilt-ridden, you-should-be-doing-more-for-others admonishment. I find those a bit presumptuous, frankly. We all do as little or as much as we desire or we can, and that’s just fine. No, this post is a direct result of a question that invariably arises within that general discussion of helping others, and that’s the question of how.

Perhaps unfairly, I have always shied away from the major players in the land ‘o’ charity. You hear so much about administrative costs, wasteful budgeting, and, sometimes, corruption within the ranks. At some point I’d like to investigate how unfair those assumptions truly are. But I’m honest enough with myself to know, that along with those vague suspicions about the big boys, I also harbor a selfish need to make it all fun, and that’s more likely the driving force behind finding my own paths to advocacy. Plunking over a $2,000 check to a multi-million dollar organization is a selfless, admirable, and helpful thing to do, but it sure as hell isn’t fun.

Mindi and I were fortunate to hear Blake Mycoskie, the founder of Tom’s Shoes, speak in a relatively intimate setting, and I’m here to say the man was impressive.  One of the key points I took away was his commitment to forming a philanthropic organization that was SUSTAINABLE. He was talking specifically about the organization making enough money via products and/or services to pay for its entire operation and its charitable work. Agreed 100%, but I also found myself taking it to the level of emotional sustainability as well. No one can give and give and give without receiving anything in return. Try it. You can’t do it. So, for me at least, a certain percentage of that type of work has to fulfill one or more of my needs as well, and fun seems to be as good a need to cover as any.

Obviously, that narrows the options a bit. Throw in “creative”, “active”, and “hands-on” – three terms that pop up often enough as well, and you’re at the starting line for a fun brainstorming session. And no matter where it ends up, it’s going to help some folks somewhere, because helping someone is the sole non-negotiable requirement.

Opportunities abound when you put a keen eye to ‘em. If you haven’t had such a brainstorming already, you’d be surprised at how many ideas spring up when you start looking around with those requirements as your perspective.  For example, I’ll never forget our trip across Colorado last Fall (the keen eye for that one was Mindi’s). It was truly one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and one I got to spend with people I enjoy immensely. I won’t rehash our trip here – you can read about it if you’d like – but I do think it’s a great example of the type of philanthropy you can be “up for” again and again. And what’s more important in philanthropy than consistency and stamina?

So…how do y’all maintain your energy? What “emotionally sustainable” ideas have you come up with? We’d love to hear ‘em…

“Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all – the apathy of human beings.”
~Helen Keller~

Local newspaper advertising is hardly groundbreaking, but while many restaurants include advertising in the newsstand version of their local papers as standard, few restaurants have added the digital equivalent to their marketing mix.  In a brief review of the online versions of newspapers throughout the state of Colorado, we found that there were no restaurants currently displaying advertising on either the homepage or the food/dining/entertainment sections of these websites.

Based upon the study results, we’d recommend that restaurants consider adding local online newspaper ads (linking directly to the restaurant website) to current advertising efforts.  Many newspapers will include an online version of an ad in addition to the print ad for a comparatively low cost.  It’s also possible to bypass the newspaper altogether and use content advertising in Google Adwords to select specific newspapers in which to display an ad via pay-per-click campaigns.  Expected benefits include increased brand recognition and trust in brand as well as increased traffic to the restaurant’s website, resulting in more diners at tables.

Have you considered or tested online newspaper ads?  Give us your thoughts in the comments section!

Charles Darwin contemplates the hazards of ignoring Internet marketing.

The conversation involved my friend’s boss and his ongoing reluctance to admit a good, easy-to-use, visitor-friendly website has long since reached “necessity” status in providing quality customer service. That reluctance has resulted in my friend getting his ear bent daily by visitors about what a crappy site they have, how they couldn’t find this or that page or this or that schedule, how they “need to get a new one”, etc. And, lest he visibly cringe, he avoids mentioning that the website went through a redesign fairly recently, and that its reconstruction involved less thought and planning than your average “garage Dad” uses when building a bird house.

You have to wonder, don’t you, what this man was thinking at the time. “It’s just a website”, maybe? “Not everyone uses the Internet”, perhaps? “People won’t notice they can’t navigate to the ‘Contact Us’ page”? “Even if it pisses people off, they won’t bother to complain”?

It’s hard to say. And, unfortunately for him, and everyone involved with him (including, obviously, my friend), it’s a good bet that in a competitive market his reluctance to embrace change will have taken the biz down and everyone else with it.

I once worked for a shop that proved the point solidly. Shortly before I arrived, two owners of a single shop, due to circumstances irrelevant here, decided to split them into two – I worked for the first owner, who kept the original location. The second owner, who kept the original name, built his shop right down the street. So in the beginning, it was quite an even playing field. It rapidly became clear, however, that one was going to dominate. Can you guess the reason? Yep, despite my somewhat nagging pleas, my store owner wouldn’t build a website. The owner down the street was a bit – okay, a lot – more open to it, and had a website up within a couple of months. Within a year, he decided to include an online reservation system for their services (both shops provided both goods and services). Within two years, their overall service numbers had increased by 20% and they were booking 40% of their services online. A year after that, they were selling their goods on their website as well. Two years after that, my store closed its doors for good. True story.

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. ~ Charles Darwin

Amen!  It was refreshing to see the TwoTables’ mantra published in the current issue of The Restaurant Standard, published by the California Restaurant Association.  The article underscored several recurrent themes we have addressed in this blog, including:

• Regularly review the restaurant’s website to ensure that it is presenting a fresh, up-to-date image
• Keep SEO at the forefront of the website’s goals when contemplating a design/redesign project
• Integrate social media into the website
• Adopt a simple, easy-to-use content management system (such as WordPress) so that any member of the staff, no matter how technically-savvy, can make updates to the site
• Keep the website simple and effective – avoid annoying “click to enter” landing pages, flash-only pages, intrusive music and poor photography

In addition to these points, I would add the following to the list to ensure a thorough Internet presence:

• Claim and update the restaurant’s local search profiles.  (Find out in less than a minute if this has been done for your establishment here.)  Make sure the full street address and phone number appear on every page of the website.
• Search for <restaurant’s city><restaurants> in Google.  Where does the website currently rank in the search results?  Do the title and description entice searchers to click through to the website?  This step takes just a minute to complete and offers valuable insight into the restaurant’s search engine presence.
• Claim and update the restaurant’s listing on directories such as Yelp, UrbanSpoon, TripAdvisor and any local review sites.
• Monitor the restaurant’s online reputation at the above-mentioned sites and respond to reviews (both good and bad) when appropriate.
• Use social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook and a company blog, to create a community surrounding the business.  SAME Cafe in Denver does a great job of utilizing their blog and Facebook to include their customers.  They also realize the benefit of a redesign; currently TwoTables is developing a fresh, new look for their website.
• Review the website’s statistical data regularly.  Don’t have access to this information?  Ask your website hosting company to provide it.  If they can’t, Google Analytics is a free tool that offers in-depth information about your website visitors.

Keep up-to-date on internet marketing issues as they relate to the food service industry!  Subscribe to our blog feed, get blog posts via email, follow TwoTables on Twitter and Facebook.