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Instagram Used for Small Business Marketing

Spiro Pappadopoulos

Instagram is a powerful tool for your business, three reasons:

  1. It is simple to use for both the business and the consumer.
  2. It is visual and addictive.
  3. It is integrated with all the big players on the social media landscape.

So why isn’t every business using it?

Most likely they are unaware of how useful it can be. So today we are going to take a look at how it can be used by examining one of the best at using it. Ronnie Fieg.

rf nh pack

Ronnie Fieg, owner of KITH NYC, which is in Ronnie’s words:

 I tried to create a friendly and personal environment with the highest quality footwear and attire for any occasion. I want people to come into the store and leave with a dope pair of shoes, and a feeling that they are a part of something special.

Ronnie Fieg is an Instagram Luminary, Here is Why:

His use of Instagram is a three pronged success. First, his focus is clean, it is approximately 90% shoes and accessories and 10% lifestyle.  His followers know what to expect and a simple scroll through his images delivers. The second prong is the quality of his images, as a designer that is to be expected, but the originality of his images reflect his devotion to the shoe culture that he is an ambassador of and the urban backdrops and features of his images resonates with his audience and lends veracity to his visual messages that are lost on so many corporate accounts. Thirdly he isn’t hyping shit, his products are exclusive, original, unique pieces that he has hand picked or created. That prong may sound the most daunting to learn from, and it should, marketing can not solve any issue that a shitty product creates. What your business needs to find is the message that is unique to itself. What makes you better, brighter, more effective? What do you offer that people should want even if they don’t know it yet?

Ronnie Fieg knows that answer.

rf strip

His followers, which number north of 39,000 as of today, are living proof that there is an audience for marketing on Instagram. It isn’t in your face deals and promos that I am talking about, it is eye catching imagery, unique subject matter, and the use of the system to let it it be known that his shop has something you might want. Today, for a limited time. Find him on Instagram at RonnieFieg.

As for you and your business. First know your value, then frame it and share it.

I am @spirocks on Instagram.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: instagram marketing

Restaurant Marketing Cheat Sheet

Spiro Pappadopoulos

Here are some quick hit tweaks to your online presence that will get you found:

  1. Info people want should be front and center: Menu – Hours – Address – Phone Number. All on mobile ready pages. Get it done.
  2. Check your info on the big referrers, Google Local, Yelp, etc I recently found one of my places had a wrong phone number on Yelp.
  3. Think like a customer when you write blog posts, what are they looking for when they search? “Rehearsal Dinner Locations in Malden”
  4. Photos have been shown to drive trafic and are particularly powerful with Food. Always Use them.
  5. Talk about why you love what you do, not how cheap you are willing to sell it.
  6. Make sure your brand has a message and stick to it, don’t try to be everything to everyone. Be your brand.
  7. Respond to customer requests and issues, make them right, let them and others see you are responsive.
  8. Monitor your reviews for fake competitor driven ones, Yelp is particularly bad for this.
  9. Share whats new on a regular basis, don’t put a hard sell on it, just share it.
  10. Remember that you are not just selling food, you are selling a social experience and/or a service just as much.

You can get a lot of bang for your online marketing buck (and time) if you use these tweaks to adjust what you already do. It doesn’t all have to be technical and complicated, its still human interaction.

@spirocks on Twitter 

Filed Under: Food and Drink, Mobile, Uncategorized Tagged With: restaurant marketing

Why I Decided to Close Evenfall

Spiro Pappadopoulos

It has been nearly a week since I closed Evenfall and I have been asked many times why I did. Truth is there is no way I could explain it all verbally when I see you at Sauce or around town so I figured I would write it out here.

Evenfall was a passion of mine for 8 years and closing it was a difficult decision, I loved the fact that we didn’t give in to the suburban dining doldrums and catered to the people that loved us, not those who didn’t understand us.

So why close?

It was a combination of a lot of things but the most crucial were the following:

  1. We signed our lease in 2004, in the midst of an economic upturn, when the economy faltered in 2008 the lease started to become less attractive financially, in the four years that followed the economy is much the same but the lease was getting more and more expensive. I was unable to renegotiate the terms and that was a factor in deciding to pack it up. As time went on the cost to be in that building was eating more and more of the cash flow, and I was unable to change that.
  2. The Haverhill Licence Commision made it very difficult to continue to invest in Haverhill. In 8 years we had just two liquor violations, both were as a result of police stings where they sent in a minor. We failed two of the many they operated. The first one resulted in a three year probation during which time we could have no violations, and we did not. The second one was four years later and at the Hearing commissioner Gerald A. Sewell told me that if Evenfall ever failed again they would make us close early for a month. I told him that would put us out of business and he said that I should consider another line of work then. — That was enough for me to seriously consider leaving Haverhill alone. Evenfall was not a dis-functional bar like so many in Haverhill have been, and the treatment and threats from Sewel were unfair. His words and the commission’s actions did far more to hurt the 25 employees who work paycheck to paycheck than they hurt me.
  3. My father passed away in March, and left a void at our Andover restaurant Andolini’s, that I was eager to address in my home town.
  4. I opened Sauce in Andover to a great response and ethusiasm. With plans to roll out the concept into new locations on my mind it was hard to convince myself to re-invest time and money at Evenfall and in a city that would talk to a business like Gerald A. Sewel does.

Thank You

I want to take a moment to thank all the loyal regular customers, and the amazing staff members who worked at Evenfall over the years. I will never forget the countless good times we shared together and I wish you all the best.

I would also like to thank the Haverhill Police Department for the way they handled themselves with regards to the stings, they were doing their job and they did it with compassion. Our bartenders never wanted to serve a minor, they made mistakes, and the police showed great understanding with the shaken and crying bartenders when they failed the sting.

Why Be So Blunt?

It may seem uncouth to mention Mr. Sewel’s name, but I honestly think he is a detriment to the city, and as a member of government he is open to criticism. The trouble is that those who would typically complain (like me until now) are under his thumb. Imagine having hundreds of thousands of dollars invested, tens of thousands in monthly overhead, and dozens of employees relying on your business for their livelihood, and having an out of touch bureaucrat tell you: “We are closing you early because you can’t appeal it like if we shut you down for a whole day.” All the while instituting an unwritten rule that if you ever have an alcohol violation again, even half a decade later… you are subject to unknown and nearly unlimited early closings. It’s insane that nobody sees how destructive that is to the culture and economy of the city. It is bad enough that people have been stabbed, shot, and killed in Haverhill… we don’t need out of touch backhanded government too.

So that’s it, Evenfall is closed for good and those are the major reasons why. Hope to see you all soon at one of the other restaurants!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Say Thank You

Spiro Pappadopoulos

One of the most powerful things you can do is to say thank you when it is appropriate. It is a tenet of the human connection to show appreciation, and receive thanks when appreciated. The most successful people I know are the most thankful, with their customers, with their employees, with their good fortune.

Say Thank You

Recently I saw a friend, Kim Ring, promoting a Social Media and PR conference she was an organizing member of, it featured local media, a corporate PR, and independent PR professional talking about ways to get your story heard and not piss off the press in the process. Not only was I interested but I always mean to run into Kim so I signed up and went.

It was a fun Saturday afternoon excursion, an interesting topic, and a chance to support and be a part of what she was doing.

The next day I got an email from Kim

Subject Line: Huge thank you

Hey babe,

I just wanted to reach out and thank you for constant support. You are such an amazing person and I’m so honored that I get to say i know you.

Its a good feeling to be appreciated

There is no denying it, and the thanks I received made me feel great. I can’t explain it but she has always been real, like super real say what she wants real, but our connection as friends grew and became stronger just because of that email.

Every day you have a chance to grow like that with people of your choosing, if they go a little out of their way to show support for you. Say thank you. Its not a burden, and if you treat it that way just stop reading now and go here: MTV.com

So Kim thanks for your hospitality at the conference, the way you lightened the mood, and shared your PR wisdom with all of us. Most of all thanks for the email, it made me feel good.

That’s my advice for this week, Say Thank You to the people in your world that deserve it.

THANKS KIM

If any of you have a company who is looking for an independent PR professional that will tell you what you need, and what you don’t. Someone who is an expert with a portfolio of clients willing to sing her praises, check out Kim on Twitter @ringprgirl and take a closer look at Ring Communications.

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Best iPhone Twitter App

Spiro Pappadopoulos

Every month millions of new people buy an iPhone and millions more join Twitter. So the obvious question gets asked: What is the best iPhone Twitter App?

The Answer is TweetBot

What makes it the Best iPhone Twitter App is the combination of all the features you wish you had already.

  • Multiple Time Lines that you are a tap away from switching between. Use your twitter lists to divide who you follow into groups for specific instances. I have my favorites for friends and others I like to check alot, a sports list, a local news list, and a national media list for example.
  • Gestures make life easy in Tweetbot, just swipe a tweet in your timeline to the right to see a whole conversation, and to the left to see all the replies to a tweet.

  • Tap an icon to see the profile info, double tap the tweet to see the tweet detail, customize a triple tap action.
  • Multiple Twitter account support, and switching that is a tap away.
All these features and more in a slick, smooth, easy to use App that just works great. It is the best iPhone Twitter App out there, and they are continuously making it better with frequent updates. Once you get Tweetbot you will not miss any other iPhone Twitter App you have ever had.

BTW: I am not affiliated at all with them, other than using it all day

It just kills me when I see people using cumbersome, poorly designed Twitter Apps, sometimes I want to lean over to a stranger and say: “Excuse me, but you do know that Tweetbot is the Best iPhone Twitter App right?
You can find me on Twitter @Spirocks, say hi. Online home for Tweetbot is here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

 

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