LISTEN UP RESTAURANT BRANDS

by Annie Collins

The number of social media conversations happening at any given moment is massive, and it’s only increasing every day. In fact, Statista estimates that social media users around the world will grow to 2.77 billion in 2019. With the amount of conversations taking place, many brands find it overwhelming to sort through all of the chatter and clutter taking place on social media. Social listening provides the ability to take all of these conversations and turn them into meaningful insights and data for your brand.

What is social listening?

Social listening is the process of monitoring digital conversations to understand what customers are saying about a brand and industry online. It enables us to identify key topics of conversation that are of interest to our audiences, providing insight into their opinions, pain-points, interests and more. Brands can then use these insights and turn them into action.

Restaurant, food & beverage industry

The most commonly discussed industry online is the restaurant, food & beverage industry, which accounts for about 32% of brand mentions, according to Brandwatch. We’ve all come across a photo of our coworkers’ lunch or our neighbor’s review of a brand new restaurant on our Facebook feed. With passionate “foodie” fans and an increasingly informed customer base, restaurant brands face a rising obligation to listen, understand, and swiftly respond to their consumers’ opinions and interests.

Restaurant, food & beverage businesses are operating at the mercy of consumers’ shifting tastes and preferences, and in such a competitive industry, brands must have a keen awareness of these ever-changing tastes to be successful. Social media offers an immediate wealth of real-time insight and information that can be used for marketing, operations, and other restaurant decisions.

Understand your audience

It’s crucial that restaurant brands understand who their audience is, as well as how they think, feel and act. What do they care about? Why do they care about it? What are their habits? Are they fiscally conservative? Do they prefer healthy options? Understanding how your social media audience thinks and feels can often provide valuable pieces of information that lead to larger insights about your overall customer base.

Create content your audience cares about

With so much noise on social media, restaurants must not only stand out, but they have to provide content that their audiences actually want to see. By listening to real-time conversations, trending hashtags and popular topics, restaurant brands can identify ways to keep their followers engaged and gain new ones, as well. Using listening tools, brands can identify a list of topics and hashtags used when talking about their brand. For example, when working with a fast-casual restaurant chain, we’ve found that many of the conversations include discussions about recipes and grocery products. We’ve also found that people all over the world buy and ship our client’s products to prepare at home every day, so we decided to work in grocery-focused content each month. The content performs very well and raises awareness of the products sold outside of their restaurants. There is plenty of data out there to guide your content, you just have to find it!

Identify influencers and brand advocates

Word-of-mouth is one of the most valuable and effective types of messaging (especially in the restaurant industry) because it comes from real people, rather than directly from the restaurant itself. Today’s consumers are interested in true opinions from real people before they try a restaurant. Through social listening, restaurant brands can identify and engage directly with influencers and brand evangelists to share brand content, create their own branded content, share their experiences, increase engagement and ultimately drive trial to the restaurant.

Make informed business decisions

Start by listening to conversations regarding your industry. For example, what are customers saying about the quick-serve restaurant industry? New food trends? Customer service? Once you have a good understanding of your target audience and their opinions on the industry, then dive deeper into those brand-specific conversations. For example, what do customers say about your products? A specific store location? Certain LTOs and other in-store or online offers? Do they value speed of service or do they want a place to hang out and relax? Do they order their food online or would they prefer to order in-store? All of this data and real-time feedback can be used to guide and improve operational, marketing and financial decision making.

Consumer preferences are always changing, so it’s important to make social listening an ongoing practice and adjust your strategies accordingly. Social listening provides access to a virtual focus group right at your fingertips, whenever you want it. The restaurant brands that take advantage of this data and continuously adapt will be the ones who survive and thrive in such a competitive industry.

WANTED: SOCIAL MEDIA MAVEN CONTRACTOR

by Annie Collins

WANTED: Social Media Maven Contractor

If you are adept with all the major social media platforms and are capable of scheduling and executing content for our clients, we want to meet you. This is your opportunity to get in the game, learn and work alongside our experienced Social Media team.

POSITION: Social Media Assistant (Contractor Position)

REPORTS TO: Social Media Strategy Manager

POSITION SUMMARY: 

The Social Media Assistant is an integral part of the Social Media team supporting and working alongside the Social Media Specialist to deliver the highest-quality work for our clients. The Social Media Assistant needs to be a self-motivated team member who will be responsible to help for execution and scheduling of content for our social media brands. As well as perform the day to day tasks to assist the Social media team working toward the goal of advancement through consistently performing the roles and responsibilities of this position.

This individual will help support planning, maintenance, and accurate execution of social content calendar, ensuring alignment with brand marketing calendar, influencer activations, product priorities, and channel-specific needs.

Note: This is a short-term contract position through the end of 2018.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS:

Assist the Social Media Team with the day-to-day needs of clients, including:

  • Execution and scheduling of all content for our social media brands via Sprout Social
  • Actively monitor and respond to customers reaching out via social platforms (Community Management)
  • Create monthly recaps/reports of social content per client
  • Create paid social advertising recaps/reports per campaign
  • Assist with content creation/photography if needed
  • Assist Social Media team in other various tasks

QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Marketing or Communications
  • Familiarity with social media marketing in a brand/professional environment (not just personal use)
  • Great communication skills
  • Writing skills
  • Photography Skills
  • Positive attitude and willing to work hard in a fast paced environment
  • Proficient time management skills

 

*This is a short-term contract position through the end of 2018.  Please contact careers@brandience.com with a resume and cover letter. 

 

Facebook News Feed Is Making News

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Facebook recently announced a major update to its News Feed that has gotten the immediate attention of marketers and brands. After receiving feedback from its users, the social network announced that its big focus in 2018 is making sure that the time users spend on Facebook is time well spent. They’re doing this by putting family and friends at the core of the experience.

According to Facebook, on average, 1.37 billion people are considered Facebook daily active users, which represents a 16 percent increase year over year. While the number of users continues to increase, average time spent per Facebook visit has decreased. According to SimilarWeb, the current average amount of time spent on Facebook is 35 minutes per day, which is down from 40 minutes recorded just three years ago. With time spent on the platform and engagement decreasing, Facebook is taking its users’ feedback to create more “meaningful interactions.”

To sum up the announcement, Facebook will show more posts from family and friends, rather than brands and publishers.

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, explains the new update on his personal Facebook page:

“Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content – posts from businesses, brands and media – is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.

The first changes you’ll see will be in News Feed, where you can expect to see more from your friends, family and groups.

As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard – it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

He is also very aware of some of the immediate consequences for Facebook:

“Now, I want to be clear: by making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down. But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable. And if we do the right thing, I believe that will be good for our community and our business over the long term, too.”

Facebook shares immediately fell 4 percent at market open the day after it announced the major changes to its News Feed.

What does this mean for brands?

There are a few major takeaways for brands to keep in mind when creating social content for Facebook.

  1. Quality over quantity. We have been speaking about this for some time at Sunrise. It’s time to stop posting meaningless filler content on your social channels. Now more than ever, quality content will triumph over a high posting frequency. In fact, posting too often will only hurt your brand’s engagement. Focus on high-quality content that leads to conversation and engagement.
  2. Explore influencer marketing. And more specifically, micro-influencer marketing. With more focus on family and friends, there will be even more value in investing in influencers and word-of-mouth strategies.
  3. Avoid “engagement-bait” and “click-bait headlines.” Facebook has said that they will regulate and devalue any posts that directly ask for likes, comments, shares, tags, etc.
  4. Readjust your goals. Factors such as the number of reactions, comments, or shares will be less important, when it comes to Facebook’s algorithm, than the ability to create a conversation. Facebook wants to create “meaningful interactions,” rather than passive actions.
  5. Pay up. Paid strategies will be even more important than they already are, as organic competition only continues to increase. A good social strategy must include a paid component.

Facebook has always tweaked its News Feed algorithm from time to time, but this is a major change to which brands will have to adjust. The company hopes that these upcoming changes will encourage personal connections and bring back the social side of social media.

We’d be happy to help your brand learn more. If you want to get more specific, you can contact us here.