Note: I have written a Post Full of Examples due to the popularity of this post here: Social Proof
You have heard it before: This is social media, be social. Interact with people who post on your wall, who tweet about their dinner the night before, and post reviews of your restaurant online. Doing so will encourage these positive members of you social circle to be more active with your business online, and create what is known as Social Proof.
Social Proof is magnetic, it make people want to be a part of what everyone else is talking about. You see it on a Facebook wall all the time, here is something from today:
Someone posts something about an event at a restaurant and people pile on, building credibility to the event, and a sense that one should attend to see what the deal is. Would it be good without the hype? Probably. Will it be better with the added bodies, minds, and buzz? Definitely. Does that add to the profitability of the night, and most importantly the thousands to follow? Absolutely. We build social proof for our clients all the time at GuestFeed.
Three things you can do to make this happen:
1) Post happenings, specials, pictures, and video in creative ways to spark conversations.
2) When conversations happen, make sure you do not neglect them, show enthusiasm for interacting with your guests, and always acknowledge their comments.
3) Be sure to monitor the mentions of your place online as best you can, take advantage of google alerts, twitter searches, and to a lesser degree the news stream on facebook. When they happen jump in and show that you are there, you care, and you want to make your place special to them. Seeing that someone is coming in with five friends for a birthday dinner… you could comment that you are happy they chose your place, and then when they are there do something to make it special (dessert martinis or something), and after they leave comment again saying it was a pleasure to host them.
I promise you will see a flood of comments from them, and when they do their entire social network will see that your place is obviously a good spot for birthday dinner.
THAT is Social Proof.
Lets build some right now. How about you comment or retweet this and see where it goes.
Comments
13 responses to “Build Social Proof for Your Restaurant”
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I like the term “social proof.” Nice blog.
Thanks glad you liked it. What do you use social for?
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Really enjoyed this post. I’ve done event work in the past, and have always been fascinated by the “buzz tipping point”. Even if the majority of your audience feels positively about your brand/event/etc, they won’t share their opinion until a certain line has been crossed, so to speak.
You’re 100% right about how content has to be creative to attract attention and discussion. I’ve always found that adding intriguing elements (such as a secret guest for a concert) gets people talking.
Cheers,
-Kevin
Yeah I have been meaning to update this with more compelling examples, this
comment may just motivate me to get there. Thanks for reading. -Spiro
Great stuff. I learned the concept from radio consultant E. Alvin Davis in the early 80s and have used it as a radio programmer ever since. Keep up the excellent perspectives!
I would be interested in hearing more about that JJ how did they apply it?
We’ve used it to illustrate how powerful social proof can be in attracting and keeping listeners. For instance, how often do you hear a radio station throw out, “playin’ this BY REQUEST”. Well, WHO requested it? LOL Or, “sayin’ hi to Gail at work today”…where does she work. Point being if you did a, “wanna say thanks to Gale Miller, working hard today at the Office Max at Springhurst Village” actually means something, it connects with Gail (and those who know her and sounds authentic on the radio (vs. the generic “by request”). Once you make your listeners fans of the station, their spreading the word and telling others about how cool we are is much more likely to encourage those others to check us out, thinking being TV spots and billboards are nice (and, we’ll take ’em!) but a person telling a friend directly, “hey, I found this really great radio station and…”.
Make sense?
Absolutely, I totally agree that is a very similar idea and one that has
been in practice much longer. Thanks for putting it in writing here for
everyone to read. It helps to have examples from media we all grew up with
to explain how emerging media can be used in similar ways. Have a great
day.
Really really align with a lot of this. It’s funny Spiro, because here in the Lehigh Valley (PA), a lot of companies are a bit unaware of how to really “do” this social thing the right way. They don’t treat their twitter conversations like the ones that take place on their phones and I definitely agree, they need to.
Listening, like you mentioned, is huge. I just found this awesome tool called Twilert, that is exactly like Google alerts, for Twitter. Rocks!!