While they haven’t yet reached the importance of traditional media (at least, not for most demographics), websites and Facebook pages are vital points of contact for many restaurants and bars these days. Today, I’d like to offer a couple of tips about how to use these two important online marketing tools.
Should You Concentrate on Facebook or Your Website?
Are you getting very much customer interaction on the Web? More and more of us are these days. But it’s important to identify where that interaction happens.
That’s why it’s important to see if your website or your Facebook page (for example) gets the most more interaction. Quite often, it will be Facebook that gets more interaction!
If you don’t have a webmaster, you can easily install analytics on your site with Google Analytics. Their website is at http://analytics.google.com. (Of course I’m no Google spokesperson, but their analytics platform is the easiest way for most of us non-technical types to get accurate reporting about what our websites are doing without having to deal with unnecessary technical issues.)
What to Do with Your New Knowledge
Knowing where your guests interact online is just the start, though. What do you do with this knowledge?
If guests are more prominently looking at your Facebook page, then make sure you are interacting back on a regular basis. Put all of your major events, as well as new drink and dinner items, on your Facebook page as soon as they are available. If you have daily specials, post them there as well.
Even if you don’t have daily specials, it’s important to post to Facebook every other day or so, if that’s where people are finding you. And consider posting links to your website on a regular basis!
If more people are looking at your website, consider adding a blog or other interactive features. And don’t forget to put “Like” and “+1” buttons for people to share their love of your establishment on Facebook and Google Plus, respectively.
If people are visiting both your website and your Facebook page relatively equally, then just keep doing what you’re doing!
Jim Balis' Blog 