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I just had a very interesting conversation with a marketing manager at a regional chain a few days ago. She was pretty savvy about restaurant marketing in general and loves the notion of connecting online with her guests. She is in love with social media. In fact, she admitted that she is addicted to TweetDeck and that little tone that bleeps every time a new message arrives. 

It's a neurotransmitter that some researchers have linked our cultural obsession with social media –…

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This post continues my multi-part perspective on restaurant social media and social media brand management. The following is excerpted from my forthcoming book, Restaurant Social Media – Staying ahead of your customer.

 

TGI Friday’s restaurants have history. They were innovators and changed casual dining in the 1970′s. They brought us brass and plants and stain-glass in a well lighted high energy environment. They created happy hours and potato skins. They introduced…

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Social media is a force of change that is evolving how we work in the marketing suite. When I founded FohBoh 40 months ago as a restaurant social network, social media was a foreign language. Now, it is almost a language in it of itself with "experts and everything.” As with any profession, there are those more skilled than others, disparate philosophies, even early best practices based on varying levels of experience. I don’t believe any one possesses the dominant view,…

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Checking in at SXSW in was nearly a full-time job. This being my first time I was a bit overwhelmed. If you don't know, SXSW means South-By-South-West, a conference held annually for the past 25 years in Austin, Texas. It started out as a music festival and now, more than 125,000 people attend during its 10 days. This place is nuts. It's where Interactive, film and music intersect. Tech executives, geeks, musicians and movie stars collide with movie buffs, authors, fans,…

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I just had a very interesting conversation with a marketing manager at a regional chain a few days ago. She was pretty savvy about restaurant marketing in general and loves the notion of connecting online with her guests. She is in love with social media. In fact, she admitted that she is addicted to TweetDeck and that little tone that bleeps every time a new message arrives.

It's a neurotransmitter that some researchers have linked our cultural obsession with social media – iPhones,…

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I predict that the restaurant industry will have an incredible year in 2011. Even with commodity prices moving up a bit, more competition from grocery stores and “designer” C-stores and those pesky systemic issues that never seem to go away like  - unionization, minimum wage, healthcare, menu labeling, immigration, employee turnover and a scarcity of growth capital. This is baggage and just part of the deal. What I see has changed is attitude and a…

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2010 was a very interesting year for restaurants and restaurant social media. That means it was a pretty amazing year for us here at FohBoh. Why? Because it’s just starting to gel and we can see investment starting to take place. As a start-up, it’s always a good thing to be ahead of the curve. Be the “first mover”, as they say, but not too far ahead. There are also many advantages to being “second mover”. I’ve written about this before citing Google, Oracle,…

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This is an incredibly interesting concept: an economy fueled by dialog, by the crowd, via the Internet. We are using social networking platforms as the communications channel of choice. It's an amazing shift in human behavior that is real-time, all the time. Continue

Excuse me? When exactly did summer begin? Is it just me, or is life just moving a bit too fast these days? Are we missing our personal journey?…

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We all use them and in some cases don’t even realize it. The military, I think, invented them. I particularly love SNAFU (Situation Normal, All 'Fouled' Up). As a kid, I heard my Uncle Jack, a WWII veteran, used this one a lot with a slightly more… Continue

Greedy people really bug me these days. How can a person can talk about team, yet be entirely focused on his or her own agenda? What’s best for them is, well, all that matters. I’m not talking about taking care of your family or planning your retirement. I mean being solely focused, with maniacal passion, on one’s self-importance. …

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This can be a very long discussion, so I promise to keep it short, because I want this message to be concise, almost a mantra:

The goal of all this discussion, energy and activity regarding social media is to do one thing and one thing well - find your key influencers by listening intently and empower them to be your brand ambassadors.



"Find your key influencers by listening intently and empower them to be your brand… Continue

At least Ben Bernanke says it is. Feel any better?



Two indicators I find useful and telling are GDP and unemployment. But, I think unemployment benchmarking analysis will have to change a bit. Companies are learning how to manage their businesses more efficiently and that means fewer employees are required.



The GDP in Q3 2008 was around -2%, then Q4 plummeted to around -5.2% and we bottomed out in Q1 2009 at -6%. This resulted in a spike in commercial lending challenges… Continue

I enjoyed lunch yesterday with celebrated two-star Michelin chef, Laurent Manrique. Laurent recently left San Francisco’s award winning Aqua to pursue other culinary opportunities, including spending more time working on his winery in Spain. Chef Laurent is also a founding partner of Café de la Presse, a very successful French bistro located at the gates of Chinatown. Yes, location is important, but the Café is a big hit, especially for homesick visitors from Europe.



This was less of… Continue

If your time to you

Is worth savin'

Then you better start swimmin'

Or you'll sink like a stone

For the times they are a-changin'...



While Bob Dylan wasn't discussing social media when he wrote this song in 1963, it was a deliberate attempt to create a sort of anthem of change for the moment. I view social networking, which is a subset of social media, as a major shift that is just… Continue