This is the type of article and lowest common denominator thinking you get from people whose only expertise in the restaurant and hospitality business is from eating out a lot and staying in a few hotel rooms. It’s like hiring a plumber to do your electrical work.

Fortunately, I’m a big fan of yours Andy but stick with the big-picture thinking or industries you know.

As for the comments: Coupons and gift cards? Are you serious?

Continuing to treat the guest as a transaction or just pretending to understand the guest experience is not the recipe for future success in our industry.

I consult with many consumer-serving local biz including restaurants and do rec Twitter-based contests (describe 5 successful examples at How We Partner) yet know that most brick and mortar biz owners don’t even attempt to get emails or track spending so they can coddle their top 5% biggest spenders….

Kudos for these ideas Andy

When that happens they spread the word. But there are of course things that can be done with the new tech and social networking medium to add to that experience.

We are posting short videos of our chef making a “special of the week” and our bartender making a “drink of the week”. We’re posting these out on You Tube, and linking them into our Twitter announcements and FaceBook status updates. The comment will be “See this week’s special concoction. Come in for the real thing and mention where you saw it and receive $$$ off!”

Just my two cents, but I’m a new restauranteer and very new to this social media stuff (granted marketing degree hanging on the wall) and I have more savvy ideas than this site.

another way restaurants can better market themselves is to use a “word-of-mouse”. They can actually tap into their best patrons who will leave recommendations for their restaurant on Diningverse. This will propel their restaurant listing to the top of the local area where their restaurant is located. The recommendations will be also automatically sent to the patrons’ friends (or Diningverse buddies) who can then visit the restaurant or add it to one of their lists (personal directories). The options are boundless. Additionally, the restaurant can also post their full menus, photos and anything else they would like everyone to see (all in one place in a nice, simple, easy to use, standardized format). The best thing is…. Diningverse is for local, independently-owned restaurants only (so that people have an easy way to find the local dining gems). There are about 10,000 local restaurants across the US now listed on http://diningverse.com with a ton of recommendations.