A few weeks ago Mashable released an interesting article, “13 Best Practices for Restaurants on Facebook”. While giving a pat on the back to some American food institutions, I thought it would be interesting to give a shoutout to businesses operating in Australia who also demonstrate some of the attributes listed. Here are some winners and their best practices:
BEST PRACTICE #2 - YOU MUST RESPOND
Fifteen Melbourne/ The Kitchen Cat
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Businesses that engage in social media should encourage two-way conversations to help maintain their online prescence and relationships with customers. Recently Melbourne restaurant Fifteen relaunched itself as The Kitchen Kat. When customers found the Fifteen website closed, they were promptly informed of the business change instead of left hanging for a response.
CIBO Espresso
Feedback of bad customer service should always warrant a reply (providing the reply offers something of value). When Adelaide-born coffee chain, Cibo Espresso, was informed about a customer’s experience, they let the customer know that their feedback was valued and provided instructions of how to lodge their feedback.
(Side note – Cibo coffee is great… The Rundle Street Cibo in Adelaide's CBD used to be my watering hole before moving to Melbourne!)
BEST PRACTICE #3 - EDUCATE YOUR FANS
Taste.com.au |
Taste.com.au
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Taste.com.au has been a long-time favourite of mine. I love how their Facebook page links to recipes and encourages interaction with their audience... I suppose cooking is one of those hobbies where you can never stop learning.
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Coles has also used Facebook to educate their audience by providing a recipes and a “Video Cookbook”, which you can also check out on their Youtube channel. This seems to be very useful means of observational learning.
BEST PRACTICE #4 - SHOW YOUR GOODS
Earl Canteen, Melbourne
Earl Canteen, Melbourne
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Melbourne eatery Earl Canteen cleverly enticed customers with their food offerings. It’s great how Facebook can be used to communicate “we make YUMMY food!" and show what they're made of. I’ll bet this brings forward some purchase intentions? While an image wouldn't go astray, imagining a salted caramel macaron is making me hungry...
Domino's Pizza
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The image of this delicious, topping-heavy pizza makes me feel like... pizza.
BEST PRACTICE #5 - DON'T JUST SELL, BE INTERESTING
Jim Beam
Jim Beam ran a promo where Facebook fans could download selected music tracks for free. Offering more than just a sell (as well as something of value) could possibly result in more page views… which may have an affect on sales.
BEST PRACTICE #10 - BE CHARMING
Midori Australia
Midori Australia
Midori Australia is constantly asking cute questions and posting little quips to interact with customers and display their brand values of enjoyment and ‘celebrating the fun’.
CIBO Espresso
Good manners can’t be a bad thing at the best of times. For Cibo Espresso, it shows their friendly and courteous nature when interacting with customers online, and probably attracts more customers to interact with them.
BEST PRACTICE #13 - TARGET CONSUMERS WITH FACEBOOK ADS
KFC Australia
KFC used Facebook to attract fans to “like” their page in exchange for exclusive deals. Not a bad offer! Considering as some company pages won’t even let you view their page without “liking” it beforehand…
Be sure to check out the original Mashable article... and let me know any other places that also fit the bill and deserve some love!
What a good showcase of some awesome SM sites for the restaurant industry. Do you think that as a particular restaurant, you may decide to focus on one rather than the other. I wonder how much of traditional media/traditional marketing marketing comes into play here. Real up-class brands choose very particular channels, will real up-class retaurants choose very particular SM sites, I would think so! Its all about building brand image and reputation!
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