http://www.nrn.com/breakingnews.aspx?id=369526#
Social media is a trend that has started and sky rocketed in the foodservice industry. Many people are surprised to see that social media is doing so well for large restaurant chains down to small family owned restaurants. The marketing company Vitrue says, “that it’s all about the relationship with your guest.” By using social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, restaurants are bonding with their customers on a new and different level, but this is because they are keeping up with technology and the times of individuals today.
The top three restaurants who are benefited the most from social media is Starbucks as number one, Subway coming in at two and McDonalds coming in third. All of the large chain restaurants have grasped onto the kick of social media and run with it. Social media has shown results compared to quick service restaurants as instant gratification. This is a reason why it is so popular and hot trend at the moment.
Not only are restaurants using these sites to advertise their products and specials, but they are also including an interactive sense to the marketing pitch, an example of this was done by a smaller burger chain called Krystal. They had an advertisement called “The Krystal Giveaway Show”, this show was, “a live broadcast online, where the restaurant’s fans could answer trivia questions in real time by posting responses on Twitter and Facebook.” This is great because it gets the customer involved and it encourages people to come and check out the actual restaurant.
It is crazy to see how much of an effect this trend has had on the foodservice industry. When these sites were created many people felt they were a waste of time and not useful. Now though, marketers are proven those people wrong and made something out of nothing, to be in their favor. I also think it is awesome how people can even begin to think of these ideas of using social media as a marketing tool.
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I have to agree that restaurants are greatly benefiting from social media. Being able to make a personal connection with your customers is highly important when it comes to customer service. When you make the effort to reach out to your customers and community you then create a base of loyal customers who make it their regular.
ReplyDeleteJosh's article was very interesting to read. I did not realize that Starbucks was the top social media king of the new year. On Twitter alone it reads that Starbucks has over 240,000. However it is good to read that each one of them is using social media to there advantage. Half of the Top 10 alone are fast food restaurants.
ReplyDeleteSocial Media is becoming intertwined in our lives and our childrens lives. In the future babies will be able to Tweet from inside the womb; ok maybe not that bad but you get the idea. But getting back the food service industry is a growing entity and is will continue to be until a better technology is invented, then we'd all be out of the job.