Umami Burger: Social Media Marketing Done Well
I’m writing this in a post Hatch Burger euphoric state of mind, so forgive any rambling thoughts or typos: I’m in heaven.
My trip to famed Umami Burger would not have even been a thought in my head, had it not been for their social media efforts, specifically on Twitter. It all started when I posted a pin from my Pinterest file “Say What?” about a Knork – Spork’s knife/fork cousin. Umami picked up on my tweet and responded (assuming they were monitoring the keyword “Knork”), proudly announcing they now had this freak of utensil at their restaurants.
Their tweet triggered something in me. For those of you who are fortunate to have enjoyed one of LA’s top burger spots: You know what I’m talking about. I got to thinking about Umami, more specifically, my favorite menu item: the Hatch Burger, which is topped with roasted green chilies and house-made American cheese on the best brioche bun around … I digress.
A couple of tweets later, they had me converted into a paying customer, as I was calling to place a takeout order. My world soon came to a screeching halt, when, after several rings, I got the machine. Umami happened to tweet me as this was happening, I responded that I was disappointed they were closed on a Monday. They immediately switched from Marketer to Customer Service rep, tweeting me their La Brea location’s hours, verifying that I used the correct number (I had). I called back – something I wouldn’t have done, had they not been in communication with me via Twitter at that very moment. This time: success. Ten minutes later I was at Umami, checking in on Foursquare; my food, fresh and hot from the kitchen, waiting for me at the counter. Another 10 minutes later, I was home, posting a pic of my burger to Instagram. Another 20 minutes later, I’m writing this blog post.
Granted not everyone Umami tweets will be like me: an existing, enthusiastic (and hungry) fan, who is extremely tech savvy, influential online and boasts almost 13,000 Twitter followers. But they managed to catch me during a perfect storm, and from their social media marketing and customer service efforts, converted me into a paying guest. In turn, I shared my experience across several social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and WordPress – embodying what interactive marketing is all about: reputation management, engagement, advertising and the coveted word-of-mouth marketing.
Umami didn’t get me just from this one interaction. They do an excellent job of having a presence across many platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, Tumblr, Flickr, and beyond – posting updates and quickly responding to customers online. Their consistently engaging posts have planted many seeds over the past few weeks – today’s tweet session was the tipping point. And I’ll be back; not only because I love their food, but they keep reminding me via Facebook and Twitter just how good it really is.
By Gretchen Schneider, Principal, Interactive Marketing. Gretchen lives and breathes all things social media. Based in Los Angeles, she oversees the interactive division for treadsocial, working with brands and personalities to strategically market themselves in an integrated, engaging manner online.
Google + for Brands
A hundred days after Google + gave brands the boot, they are welcoming businesses back with open arms. Today Google launched Google + Pages, allowing brands to establish their own pages to market their goods and services to its 40 million users. While Facebook boasts more than 700 million users, brands may be reaching a more captive, less saturated audience on Google +. Unlike Facebook, Google + Pages can add users to their circles, but only if the user adds the page first.
I just set up our company page (add treadsocial to your Circle … you won’t regret) and it was just like setting up a regular Google + profile. The only things I found confusing were:
- 1. Switching between my Profile and the company Page.
- Managing photos is terrible.
- I’m unclear as to whether or not you can create a branded url.
Should be interesting to see how this all pans out. Personally, I love Google +, but the thought of managing yet another page for another brand is giving me a headache. How do you think Google + Pages will impact brands online?
I’m going through changes …
I feel like much of Facebook’s more than 750 million users are singing Black Sabbath’s classic ballad today. Not since bin Laden was killed have I seen a single image posted on Facebook so frequently. This time a lot less political and a lot less serious … this someecards.com greeting.
As everyone knows, Facebook made a total overhaul of its features, settings and functionality this week. Users now have to select which “stories” they want to see in their feeds, sort out their friends into categories (forcing me to come to grips with the fact that of the 956 Facebook friends I have, I would only consider less than ten to be “Close Friends” and the rest, depressingly, “Acquaintances”). This is all meant to enhance the user experience, make us choose the news we want to see and share. I’m kind of enjoying the lifting of whatever algorithm they had on my account (I realize I could lift it myself, but I’m lazy like that). I’m finally seeing what all my friends – close and acquaintance alike – are doing via my feed, or through the ticker feature in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
I’m also seeing brands’ posts again. All the brands I have “liked” over the course of my four years on Facebook. And as someone who represents brands on Facebook, I’m happy to know others are experiencing the same. I am, however, curious about what will happen once users get over the initial shock of all the Facebook changes and start organizing their “stories” – btw, stories??? Facebook, you’re making me sound like an elderly redneck woman talking about her soaps … I digress.
As much of an uproar Facebook has caused today with its new bells and whistles, guess what? It’s not over yet. Expect more announcements (i.e. changes) tomorrow as Facebook rolls out more music and entertainment sharing features at the f8 conference.
I love you Facebook, but please, slow your roll. Let us breathe, take in, and enjoy your new features before your next massive transformation.
Until then, sing it with me “friends” …
By Gretchen Schneider, Principal, Interactive Marketing at treadsocial. Gretchen lives and breathes all things social media. Based in Los Angeles, she oversees the interactive division for treadsocial, working with brands and personalities to strategically market themselves in an integrated, engaging manner online.
Social Media Week LA #SMWLA
Social Media Week Los Angeles (SMWLA) is part of an international, multi-city event “connecting people, content and conversations around emerging trends in social and mobile media.” SMWLA kicked off this morning with a welcome from Michael Terpin, city host of SMWLA, and founder/CEO of SocialRadius followed by a keynote address from Robert Tercek, President, General Creativity and host, THIS WEEK IN MEDIA.
Tercek offered a great overview on social media’s impact on all of our lives, whether you have a Facebook account or not. It’s true. How we receive, process and delivered information has been completely revolutionized by social networks.
I, for one, am looking forward to hitting several events all week and getting actual FACE-TO-FACE time with like-minded people! I’m also hoping to be inspired and learn more, more, more.
Click here for the schedule of events. If you aren’t located in one of the hosts cities, no worries. You can stream the sessions from your computer.
And stay tuned for more updates from BuzzRocket!
Facebook, Skype announce partnership
Group chat. New design. Video calling! Oh my! Mark Zuckerberg today announced via livestream on the Facebook Live page several new apps to come. In typical Facebook fashion, they kept us all waiting. At least the Facebook Twitter like comment thing was entertaining.
Onto the good stuff … Without question, the most exciting was the announcement of the partnership between Facebook and Skype as Facebook will today launch Video Chat, a near seamless video chatting app accessible through your buddy list. Within 20 to 30 seconds, users can download a plugin and start chatting with their Facebook friends. Sounds like it will function like AIM video chat, which has been around for several years.
There were many questions about the business side of things; how Skype would benefit. Skype CEO Tony Bates pointed out that Facebook and the video communications behemoth have a “shared vision of what communication can be” and that this partnership would get them to their goal of 1 billion users.
Other announcements included todays launch of group chat. Zuckerberg pointed out that more than half of Facebook’s 750 million users are utilizing groups. The new Group Chat feature will make it so you can have ad hoc chat. Also announced was a new design, which will make it easier to see who’s online with a fullscreen Facebook view with a visible sidebar buddy list.
Ben Parr of Mashable asked if group video chat was on the horizon, to which Zuckerberg replied, “I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Are you Google ready? Tips on using social sites to optimize your SEO
There are many reasons for a brand to establish a presence on social networks: Customer Relations, Reputation Management, Engagement, and (what we consistently recommend to clients) to increase search engine optimization (SEO). This helpful blog Optimizing Social for SEO: A Three -Step Beginners Guide was recently posted on MediaPost. Here are their tactics that we found quite useful.
- Claim your social profiles. It’s vital to grabbing your brand name across all social networks. Having a presence on social sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will instantly increase your visibility on Google by taking advantage of their SEO.
- Connect your profiles. The blog suggests that after you have claimed all your profiles, to connect them on Google Profile through a few easy steps.
- Establish a Google company ID.
- Then fill out all the information you can on your Google Profile including all of your associate’s social media profiles.
- Engage on social media. Follow others and engage with them across your social networks. “After you’ve told Google via the Google Profile what your social media profile IDs are, Google can then make the connection with who the followers of those profiles are — and thus connect them with the social circle.”
12 tips on getting started on Facebook Pages
You’ve finally realized it’s time to get set up a Facebook Page for your brand. And why not? With Facebook’s nearly 700 million users and its updated Pages features, which make marketing a breeze (compared to the olden days…), you’re a fool not to. Having a Facebook presence also takes advantage of their SEO, which will help pop you to to the top of the list on most searches. In fact, Bing have deepened their relationship with Facebook to take “social search” to new heights.
So where do you begin? Here are a few tips on where to start from your friends at BuzzRocket.
IMMEDIATE
- Establish a Corporate Social Media Policy, which will advise your associates on how to behave online. Example: Bashing the company online is a fireable offense. Click here for a more complete rundown from BusinessWeek.
- Establish Brand Standards that your associates must adhere to when posting anything on your social properties, or if they are discussing the company on their social sites, they must speak within the brand/communications standards.
- Set up the Twitter app on all Facebook Pages so that all Facebook Posts automatically get posted onto the respective Twitter page. (We recommend this for the less tech-savvy folks out there. Once you get used to using Facebook and Twitter, you should get set up with a Twitter client like Hootsuite, which will track your tweets, and offers invaluable analytic information.
- If you are a location-based brand, make sure you list your page as a “Place” so users can check into your branded Page.
- Sign onto Facebook as your Page and “Like” all the Pages of the brands you work with, or with whom you want to stay in contact. Once you do this, those Page’s posts will appear in the newsfeed and make it easy for you to keep up with what they are posting.
- Suggest your Page to your friends. Do this via Facebook and by uploading your e-mail lists into Facebook.
- Identify strategic partners and develop a network on Facebook and request that they send out a message on their Facebook Pages welcoming you to Facebook and suggesting that their fans “Like” your Page.
ONGOING
- Post frequently. At least once a day. We would suggest 2 posts a day. Say you’re a restaurant operator: Mix it with informative (daily lunch/dinner special), engaging (ask a question: We’re featuring Brancott Sauvignon Blanc this week! What’s your favorite white wine varietal?) Post images with people from your establishment. People like seeing people.Post Events and Images
- Post sales, specials, news
- Answer all questions fans and followers ask on Facebook and Twitter on a daily basis
- Link comments back to other pages (This feature has been disabled over the past few days. We’re hoping it returns!)
- Reshare and comment on other Page’s posts that make sense for you. If you are a coffee shop and your local newspaper posts something about the best lattes in the city, you can comment on their post as the coffee shop, which increases your visibility and further markets your brand. RESOURCES – Facebook changes almost on a daily basis. We suggest keeping up with things online since most info out there goes bad quicker than a bottle of red left uncorked overnight.
Social Media Monitoring – Who’s using it and how?
Once again Flowtown has created an informative chart: This time on social media monitoring tools. Anyone working in social media has to quantify their work, and we’re always looking for the most accurate way to do so. This is an interesting look at what’s out there, who’s using it and how. We found it most interesting to see that the majority of people using Twitter have just one account, and 23.4 percent are on Twitter solely for personal use. Click here for the full report.
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