Brian Gatti, TableSites.com

Ah, social media. It's awesome! Who doesn't love Facebook? You connect with your friends, your colleagues, your clients, and potential customers. And you can play Farmville (or Castleville or Whateverville) for hours on end. And then there's Twitter, which is like the Attention Deficit Disorder kid in the social media classroom. Millions of tweets blasting by, all begging for your attention. Then there's LinkedIn. Then there's Google+. 

What…

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve got a great idea for a Facebook status update, but it would be better to post it TOMORROW instead of RIGHT NOW? Never fear, Facebook offers a simple (yet, somewhat unknown) tool that allows you to schedule posts in advance – or even back date them. Today,…

by Aprons & Smocks

A new feature on Facebook called Graph Search has the potential to be a big influence on restaurant referrals and word-of-mouth. While this Facebook function is still in the beta testing stage, experts believe it could be a powerful partner with search engine optimization strategies. Furthermore, Graph Search might even become a fierce competitor with Yelp.com.

The Way Graph…

One question I get a lot when I talk to restaurant owners about social media is “Will Facebook get me on the first page of Google?” My answer is always the same: yes and no. Let me explain why.

First of all, I want to make clear that SEO/SEM (search engine optimization/search engine marketing) is a whole industry of its own, and it’d be simplistic of me to say that by having social media pages, you’ll rank higher in searches. SEO is complex, and it involves a lot of algorithms,…

If you are wondering what will happen with social media in 2013, you are not alone. Everyone is wondering what Facebook will do next or if a new social network will surge. While no one can really foresee the future, there are some trends that will probably be stronger in 2013.

The first trend I want to…

[INFOGRAPHIC]

by ERIC MELIN on JANUARY 8, 2013 [reposted from Spiral16]

When is the…

Not sure which Social Network to use or wondering about the differences between them all? No worries, we’ve created this helpful Cheat Sheet for you. Feel free to download it and share it with everyone!

Click here to download: www.loyalrewards.com/SM_Cheat_Sheet_MT.pdf…

Now get used to it, they aren’t going anywhere. 

Take a step back for a moment.  Look at the devices you use in your personal life: phone, tablet, computer, all of them?  Compare that to 10 years ago.   A bit of a difference isn’t it?  Now let’s compare that to the way you manage your restaurant or retail company, is there a difference? How many times do you use your devices to find a business, rate a business, or purchase from a business on a mobile device or computer? …

Connecting with your ideal customers through your content creation is easier than ever.  With Facebook, niche forums and other social media platforms, your potential clients are telling you everyday what they think and what they want.  You just have to listen.

How do you know what content to create on your website that will…

It is well known in the restaurant industry that one of the most striking differences between independent and chain restaurants is the sense of urgency placed on analyzing financial information. Chain restaurants tend to have faster reporting at the end of financial periods, along with more frequent reporting and analysis. Additionally, they tend to monitor (and take action on) a greater number of key performance indicators. Those factors give chain restaurants an edge at squeezing…

As an enthusiast of social media, I can tell you that to promote any business these days you need to include social media into your strategy. It is a fact that people spend more time these days hooked up on their facebook or Twitter accounts than ever before, making it the best…

After creating and uploading a nice cover picture for your business page (see the article "Facebook Timeline Design: how to make your page look nice" to learn step by step), you should work on your profile picture.…

Where do you draw the line on cheapening your brand with discounting?

Short of handing out the store to get them in the door, where do you start and end?

Recently I have had many conversations with marketing mavens in the restaurant biz that have all had the same issue on their mind as they head to bed…

Facebook changed all Business Pages to the new Timeline design on March 30^th - so now what? Now, I'm going to teach you where each feature is and how to use it, so you don’t need to waste your time trying to figure things out!

To start, let's get an overview of the new Timeline design. As the name says, the Business Pages will look like a timeline and everything will display as such.  The first big change is called Cover Picture.

The Cover Picture is a big photo that…

Last week, for the third year in a row, I attended the single best conference on Marketing, HR, Social Media, Social Good, Social Chat…etc…Called the People Report Summer Brand Camp in Dallas Texas.

Let me start by saying I am not going to sit here and give you a play by play on the amazing stuff you missed.…

Hello I’m Ty Sullivan the Director of Truths in Customer Service or as I like to say “DT’s in CustServ”.

You know, we always have customer service “guru’s,  “Jedi’s”, “Lords of Sweetness” telling us how to properly coddle guests when they have had an “incident” or “very disappointing”…

I have always believed in signs. I have also always believed that if we all spoke the same unspoken language we could dance around wars and confrontations. I also believe in aliens and fairies but that is another story.…

The one constant that will always exist in the Restaurant Industry is that there is never enough time in the day to get everything done. It is this very reason that we started the Restaurant marketing division of our company.

While this…

A buddy of mine has been dating. He’s newly returned to the dating scene since his divorce and he’s trying to figure out how to feel less awkward.  He, like many people, turned to online options.  It’s been a running joke for us for…

Last week I wrote about the big, exciting changes that facebook was making to their business fan pages.As I mentioned at the end of my article: As with all exciting upgrades, there is always a downside. In this case, it has to do with the disappearance of the default landing tab. You will no…