If you’re anything like me, you started the year never having heard of Pinterest. Then you woke up one day and it was everywhere, as consumers and brands glommed onto the visual social platform that gives users a way to display, share and comment on pretty pictures that make them happy, touch their emotions or add a chuckle to the day.
Luckily for restaurants and retailers, users also pin products and brands they plan to buy, including a favorite pair of jeans or a favorite vegetarian meal. Who are they? Nearly 5 million visitors in March were women, and moms are 61% more likely than other demographic groups to spend time on the website, ClickZ reported.
The site is young, but its popularity has grown so quickly that there are plenty of experts offering tips on how to market on Pinterest, including a Restaurant Hospitality article by TVI Marketing Manager Eugene Farber. (read more…)
Paul Barron is founder and CEO of DigitalCoCo as well as founder of FastCasual.com and QSRWeb.com. SmartBrief interviewed him on the future of fast casual and his new book, “The Chipotle Effect,” excerpts of which were published on SmartBlog on Food & Beverage.
“The Chipotle Effect” is touted as the first book on the fast-casual restaurant business. What inspired you to write the book?
The vision was one that started back in the mid ’90s, when nobody was really looking at the space the way I was. I saw this as a revolution in how the restaurant industry would innovate to meet the new demands of the consumer. At that time, I knew the Web would transform everything we do in the business, including connecting with our guests, but even then I still did not fully grasp the massive impact that social media would play in the future of the business. (read more…)
Social media are essential to promoting your restaurant. Marketing and public relations agencies swear by networks including Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and Foursquare. While it is important to promote your restaurant on all of these platforms, some interactions are worth more than others. I’ll break down the value of each user, post, tweet and check-in, which will help you prioritize your social media efforts.
Yelp
A Yelp review makes you the most money, at $9.13 each. Each Yelp user is worth $21.21. People visit Yelp to hear what others are saying about a certain restaurant, and the platform is structured so that each restaurant has its own page, with all content talking about the venue on one page.
Customers don’t have to track down tweets or posts to read reviews, and they don’t have to follow or be friends with strangers who visit your restaurant. Each positive review on Yelp brings about $10 — an excellent reason to pay attention. (read more…)
Consumers will spend $3.4 billion on a special meal to celebrate Mom this weekend, according to the National Retail Federation, and it’s likely that quite a few honored moms will head home afterward and blog about it.
Restaurants traditionally create a special brunch or dinner for Mother’s Day, and they’re increasingly turning to social media for marketing, which is especially appropriate given mom bloggers’ growing role in food marketing. Their ranks have swelled to about 4 million in North America, and their importance to food marketers is increasing along with their influence.
Why mom bloggers?
McDonald’s, which has always worked to market its quickservice meals to moms, was one of the first food companies to actively recruit mom bloggers, flying 15 of them to Chicago in 2010 for a perk-filled tour of the chain’s test kitchens, The New York Times reported. In exchange, the bloggers were asked to write one post about the experience, although the company said it never told them what to write or edited their work. (read more…)
Generations of consumers who grew up on burgers and hot dogs downed at July 4 barbecues came to see the dishes as national symbols, as American as apple pie — and presidential politics.
Former President Bill Clinton’s penchant for Big Macs was satirized on “Saturday Night Live” more than once. But times have changed — these days, Clinton fights off heart disease with a vegan diet, as he explained in a CNN interview last year. President Barack Obama, criticized in his first campaign for smoking the occasional cigarette, is a rail-thin man who has been photographed eating hot dogs with British Prime Minister David Cameron and cheeseburgers with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Restaurants honored with a presidential visit can and do relish the stories long after the final flash of the camera. Now, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is pushing for an end to the photo ops, at least the ones that depict hot dogs, burgers, cheese steaks and other processed meat products being consumed. (read more…)
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