Restaurant Job Board Blog

For any bar, restaurant or nightclub owner that thinks social media is a passing fad not worthy of their time, the numbers coming out of a recent study (2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study published by Opinion Research Corporation) should come as a wake-up call.

For starters, almost 60% of Americans currently interact on social media web sites and 25% interact more than once per week (2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study).

Also, you would think that the last thing people would want is to have businesses invading the platforms they use for communicating and socializing with their friends and colleagues. As it turns out, the exact opposite is true.

According to that study, 85% of Americans using social media think businesses should have an active presence in the social media environment. What’s even more interesting is that those users actually want the companies to interact with them while there.

It seems that users are actually receptive to the idea of your bar getting involved on social media platforms and interacting with them while there.

Out of the 85% of users who want companies to have a presence in social media, 34% want companies to actively interact with them and 51% want companies to interact with them as needed or by request.

So, what do your customers want your business to do on the social media sites?

• 41% would like companies to solicit feedback
• 37% would like companies to provide new ways to interact with the brand via social media.

These numbers could not be clearer: your bar’s customers are practically begging for bars like yours to get involved in social media…they actually WANT YOU TO MARKET TO THEM in this new medium.

Here are 5 things you need to know to market your bar/restaurant with social media marketing.

1. You want to stand out…be interesting and full of personality.
2. You want to build more credibility than your competitors.
3. You want to learn to promote…without it sounding like a sales pitch.
4. You want to learn how to grow your network fast…and without spending hours a day to do it.
5. You want to give your ideal target prospect the highest number of and most compelling reasons to think of you when they need a business like yours.

It’s a lot to learn, but with time and the right tools, you can really use this new medium to make your bar stand out from your competition.
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Brian Horn is an internet marketing consultant specializing in several niche industries. He is also the creator of the newly released “Promoting Your Bar with Social Media” system SocialMedia4Bars.com that walks bar and nightclub owners through the process of creating a social media marketing campaign.