@Spirocks

Real time

Social Media Monitoring for Marketing

Where are you when your potential customers are talking?

Social media provides a chance to hear things you would never hear before, find customers you would never find before, and make connections that lead to sales you would never make before. The key is to be there to capitalize on the thought, comment, mention that your customer makes, when they make it. You have to have the system in place to make it possible, your finger has to be on the shutter to capture the moment.

Are companies really doing that? Yes.

Here is an example from today that will illuminate the way companies are using social media monitoring to build brand awareness and make connections with proven customers. Earlier I stopped by Whole Foods to pick up some Burrata Mozzarella, a creamy fresh mozzarella that is one of a kind. While there I checked in with Foursquare and tweeted my checkin as shown here:

What Followed that Tweet was a Retweet by the brand that I bought. Notice I never mentioned a brand name, just the variety of the mozzarella. So how did the company know it was theirs? I uploaded a photo of the package with my checkin. That means the company was monitoring twitter for mentions of Burrata (they didn’t follow me prior to this) and were aware of my tweet and the fact that it was their product, they then re-tweeted my post. That all happened in 40 minutes. Not bad.

As you can see a subsequent conversation took place about their product and who knows how many people noticed and didn’t comment.

Social Monitoring used in marketing

 So how do you do this cost effectively?

You need to use tools that monitor the mentions for you. You can’t spend all day watching, and you can’t pay someone either, unless you are GM or Verizon etc. I use Spoke Social which I am involved in developing. Here is an example of the monitoring screen that Spoke has for setting up the keywords and other parameters:

Spoke Monitoring Set-Up Page

As you can see I set it up to monitor for mentions of Brunch or Sunday Brunch, within 25 miles of my restaurant Evenfall, as I am going to be starting brunch there in October. So now each time someone mentions that term within 25 miles of Evenfall I will be notified and able to message them an invitation. Will they all come? No. Will they have an interest in brunch? Likely. Will it cost me much time, money, or anguish to do it. Definitely not.

This is the type of Marketing Use that monitoring tools can have.  They are most often used as a customer service tool to make sure that any disgruntled customer taking to social media and venting about your brand can be contacted and the situation rectified.

If ideas and examples like this interest you, you can subscribe for free here: (It would make me happy too.)

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What do you think? Is monitoring interesting? It is not expensive, in fact it is one of 40 features that spoke has for $15 a month. I am here to answer questions for you, @spirocks on twitter or in comments below. 

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Real Time Equals Success in Social Media

To Your Customers Social Media is about Right Now.

Let’s keep it that simple, remember this: To your customers social media is about right now.

When they are posting, commenting, and otherwise sharing it is about the moment. To fully take advantage of your marketing efforts, the content creation, sharing, and presence you have built, you have to be ready and able to respond and interact with them in the moment.

Here is one proactive example of what I mean:

Restaurants are uniquely positioned to leverage life’s moments, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and weddings all usually result in a dinner of some sort. Luckily those life moments are also one of the leading causes of traffic and visits on social media site, and as an active participant you can offer best wishes, freebies, rehearsal dinner menus, etc to the members of your online social networks.

Here is one reactive example of what I mean:

If you are an active content sharer online, meaning you share daily the photos, videos, menus, and specials that your restaurant creates, you undoubtedly get responses and comments from your social circle in response to your content. You clearly have someone interested in your place at that point, take that opportunity to interact with them and solidify the connection. Make sure they feel your humanity through the technology, there are plenty of robots online and most consumers are already immune to their automated responses. Be human.

So remember, to your guest (or potential guest) their participation in social media is about right now. The moment they are online and reaching out to you, that kind of pre-sale interaction has never been possible before in marketing. Take advantage of it, it may very well feel like a new responsibility for restaurant operators who want to be the best of their breed, but it is a responsibility that results in real profits.

Harnessing that opportunity in real time is one component of the GuestFeed service that I use for my restaurant clients on a daily basis, and I do it with proven results. Here is an example of that laid out for you: Case Study

Hopefully you find this helpful and remember: I am here to talk about what you are facing, at any time.

I am Spirocks on Twitter.

Example: Real Time Social Media Customer Relations

Recently I wrote a post about how your customers view social media as real time, and today I had a experience that serves as a good example to share: (name and face blacked out for obvious reasons)

Here you can see a customer and Facebook friend of Evenfall Restaurant, sent a Facebook message complaining about the name of one of the cocktails that Evenfall sells. You can see that at 1:19pm the customer was bothered enough to send an email about it, and by 1:35pm had a response from Evenfall. That is real time customer service, it wasn’t a day or longer, it was minutes.

Evenfall was able to reach out in the following way:

Now this customer may be so turned off by the name that she will never return, which is not at all what the restaurant wants, nor any of us at GuestFeed, but she did receive an immediate response. That response was not defensive, harsh, or untruthful. It provided an explanation and a link to more information. What the customer decides to do now is up to her, but the restaurant was able to demonstrate that it cares what she thinks without a shadow of doubt.

So social media gives you this opportunity, what you do with it is up to you. At GuestFeed we strive to take advantage of every one of these opportunities and drive the message home; The restaurant is listening, we care, we want every interaction with us to be pleasant, human, honest, and beneficial. We believe that the vast majority of people respond to that type of communication in a positive way.

If we hear back from that customer I will share that as well.

***UPDATE***

We did indeed hear back from the customer, and you can see the results of the real time communication here:

What do you think, have you had success with this? I am here to converse, or hit me up on twitter @Spirocks

I am Spirocks on Twitter.