Author: Paul Segreto

Founder & CEO of Acceler8Success America | Accelerating the American Dream Through Entrepreneurship | Entrepreneurship Advisor | Franchise & Restaurant Growth Strategist | Entrepreneur | Speaker & Author

Questions That Decision-Makers Ask About Social Media

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The following is a recent discussion in one of the Social Media groups on LinkedIn. As always, I’ll keep the individuals anonymous and only identify by their Linkedin description. The discussion was started by a Digital Marketing Consultant. Not only did he ask the question, he provided his answers as well.

questionsFive Questions Your Boss Will Ask About Social Media (and the answers)

1. Isn’t social media just a new type of ad?

No it’s more than that, it’s actually a whole new way of reaching clients. If you think of ads as one technique used to communicate your value to prospects, social media is a whole new channel to do this. Yes you can still communicate your value but rather than trying to cram it all into one sentence (as you would with an ad) you have to be a bit more patient.

2. Isn’t all this social media stuff expensive?

Well yes and no. From a cash investment perspective, most of the top online social media services are free of charge to register with. However, to really make an impact through these tools you need to spend a lot of time on them. You have to explore, see who’s talking about things related to your company and try to open up a dialogue with them in a non-creepy way.

3. But I hear it’s all a fad anyways

Certainly various social media services will come and go and some will be a bit more gimmicky than others, but the underlying principle of social media, transparency, is hard-coded into the very DNA of the world wide web. If you can build your social media ‘muscles’ on one tool you’ll quite easily be able to transfer this skill set and mentality to other tools.

4. It’s all very well to make ‘friends’ online but SHOW ME THE MONEY

There are clear cut and well documented examples of companies making money from social media. But it doesn’t quite work like a typical print/online ad. You’re not likely to get a flood of business from your first blog post, your first message on Twitter or your first video uploaded to Youtube. But as you start developing a base of followers you can really start to leverage the power of social media. Imagine having a few thousand online users following your every uttering on Twitter, or subscribing diligently to your blog updates. These become powerful channels for launching new products, promoting special offers and even testing products.

5. Ok, so I guess we’ll need to hire some guru to get us set up?

By all means if you can hire one of the multitude of talented social media gurus and specialist agencies. But I think you’d do just fine with a couple of diligent, friendly and passionate members of staff. After all, you and you’re staff know your product and your clients better than any guru. Also, in the world of social media, an authentic, if perhaps clumsy approach trumps a polished but scripted approach. People can usually see through that quite quickly and your credibility will drop dramatically.


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Employer Social Networking Policies: Part II

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The following was written by franchisEssentials Guest Author, Megan Erickson of the Dickinson Law Firm as follow up to Employer Social Networking Policies that we reposted on this site last week. As you may know, Megan is the author behind the recently launched Social Networking Law Blog.

In response to last week’s post, one of our readers commented, “I look forward to your further insights in this area. It is something that “MUST” be thought out by companies today. They really have two choices. A policy of engagement in the Social Networks or staying out altogether. And if they engage they need to seriously engage their employees and impress upon them how being active in social networking sites means that they are a representative of their company and that in the long term their actions will affect the company’s rep in the world.”

Employer Social Networking Policies: Pre-Drafting Considerations, Part II
by Megan Erickson of the Dickinson Law Firm

As [recently] noted, I plan to write a series of posts addressing social networking policies in the workplace. In [recent post] post, I discussed some things an employer may want to think about before drafting social networking policies — including some things to keep in mind when starting with a sample policy. I’ll build upon that by offering a few considerations here for employers to ponder as they begin thinking about drafting, updating, or maintaining a social media policy. This list is by no means exhaustive, but is meant to help employers focus on personalizing social networking policies (and hence, make them more effective).

* Don’t be afraid to take care of some groundwork before involving an attorney, but focus these initial efforts on identifying the company’s business interests, needs, goals, and expectations as they relate to the policy. This will make your lawyer’s job much easier, and may save your company time and money. For example, if you want to encourage social media use among your employees for marketing purposes, your policy will set the parameters within which your employees operate. The framework for such a policy will significantly differ from an employer whose primary goal in establishing a policy is something else (such as the protection of confidential information).

* Brainstorm how the policy should address both: (1) online activity which occurs on company time or using company resources (i.e., blogging at work, Facebooking on company laptops, etc.), and (2) online activity, regardless of when or where, which may have implications for your business (i.e., complaining about work on personal blog from personal computer after-hours that discloses trade secrets).

* Thoughtfully consider how far the restrictions should go. Keep in mind practical considerations. Not only do many studies suggest it’s not good for morale or recruiting to ban all social networking sites or Web 2.0, an all-out ban will be difficult to enforce. Take a realistic approach, and bear in mind ad-hoc policing could easily lead to selective enforcement issues down the road.

* How do you monitor employee technology use? Federal and state privacy laws should shape your policy.

* Consider quirks of your particular workplace technology that might present special considerations. For example: Do employees have company-issued web-enabled cell phones? Do you want policies addressing text messaging? Pagers? Off-duty conduct on company laptop during non-work hours?


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Franchise Success: The New Formula

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Recently, as I was preparing for the Frantelligence Webinar series with Franchise Business Review, Lizette Pirtle, the author of various blogs including Small Biz Franchise and International Expansion Experts, contacted me to discuss franchise client support, and being able to provide information to her franchise clients. I could immediately tell that she had a definitive passion and desire to help her clients and provide them the resources necessary to continue to build their brands.

franchise success the new formulaSince then, Lizette introduced me to her new blog and book, Franchise Success: The New Formula. Clearly, Lizette is an expert in franchise operations and training at franchisee and franchisor levels. Her more than 20 years franchise experience is expansive covering daily operations, marketing, communications and training. She is passionate about designing franchise operational and training systems that allow franchisees and franchisors achieve the success they seek. With a knack for breaking concepts down and creating efficient and effective processes, Lizette derives tremendous joy in assisting her clients discover and implement their vision. A preview of the book confirmed my thoughts about Lizette’s passion and desire. The book is a definite must-read for anyone in franchising.

Would You Like a Complimentary Copy?

To download a complimentary copy of the book, please click HERE. Once you’re directed to the “Get the Book” page, scroll down to the “Do You Have a Gift Code?” section and look for the “Courtesy of Paul Segreto of franchisEssentials” link. Click the “Download” button and when prompted, type in the case-sensitive Gift Promotion password, “franchisEssentials1” to receive your complimentary copy. All we ask is that once you read the book, please let Lizette know your thoughts, comments, suggestions or stories HERE.

Would you like more than an e-copy? If so, the actual book may be purchased on Amazon.com!


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Local Business Listing, Search Engine Rankings and Mobile Devices

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The following article has been submitted by Guest Author, Melih (“may-lee”) Oztalay. Melih is CEO of SmartFinds Internet Marketing, an internet marketing company known for developing very creative marketing strategies. Before starting SmartFinds, Melih ran one of the Detroit Metropolitan area’s premiere Internet Service Providers (ISP), SpeedLink, from the early 1990’s where he served for nearly a decade as President and CEO. In the new century he has pursued taking the creative and marketing services from his experience in the 1990’s to businesses via SmartFinds Internet Marketing. franchisEssentials is honored to have Melih as one of its Guest Authors.

local-listingLocal Business Listing, Search Engine Rankings and Mobile Devices
by Melih Oztalay, CEO at SmartFinds Internet Marketing

There has been an ongoing difficulty for small local businesses to benefit from the Internet. Particularly if they are completely dependent upon the local market. Yes, those businesses still do exist and will continue to exist. As technology has been developing, there is an answer for the local business. It comes in the form of the major search engines having free local listings.

What Are Business Local Listings? In summary this is your free yellow page listings by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Do you still need to advertise with the Yellow Pages? This need is definitely dwindling. The upcoming generations are using the Internet and their mobile phones. Most probably are not familiar with the hard copy yellow pages. Baby-Boomers are a growing group of mobile device users…and certainly EVERYONE is using the Internet.

Why Use the Local Business Listings? There are a number of reasons why the Internet local business listings are important to the local business.

1. Listings can show up in search results
2. Helps advertise business for free
3. Helps promote any discounts, offers, promotions
4. Displays on Mobile maps (e.g. iPhone)

The benefits help to increase your exposure through the Internet with this free listing. It can help you reduce your yellow page costs and makes sure you can get in front of your customers when they need you through the Internet or their mobile devices as they are around town.

Additionally these local listings help give you the opportunity to get more information in front of your customers than the yellow pages can ever offer. This would include your menus, your products, services, photos, videos, coupons, offers, promotions to mention a few.

Did we mention this was a free listing? Did we also mention you can update this listing anytime you want? And, lastly, you get statistics about your statistics. Now we’re confident the yellow pages cannot provide statistics. The benefits far outweigh the costs from the hard copy yellow pages.

Do you need your own website? No. Would it benefit you? Possibly, but dependent upon your business. Your free local business listing could be your website. The reason for having your own website would be because the free local business listing is not allowing you to add everything a customer may wish to see.

Like everything else on the Internet, it is best to work with a professional firm that can help get this setup for you. You have to be sure to have the right keywords for your business, along with knowing how to get the listing up to date so it benefits with immediately. Once the local business listing has been updated you can either maintain the information yourself or continue having a low cost monthly fee to have it maintained and monitored for you.

Monitoring your listing is very important as customers have the ability to post reviews about your products, services and business. Of course their ability to review you are not limited to the local business listing and include everything from Angie’s List to Complaint Boards on the web. While this may sound like a negative, you can turn customers with problems and complaints to long term relationship. You have to address their concerns and have them reach out to you instead of the Internet with their emotional frustrations.

Whether you are a single store, have multiple locations, are a franchise or a bank with multiple branches, you will want to learn more about local business listings. Learn more about Local Business Listings and submitting them to the search engines and other local related business websites and directories at SmartFinds Local Business Listings.


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Employer Social Networking Policies

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social media and the lawThe following was written by franchisEssentials Guest Author, Megan Erickson of the Dickinson Law Firm. Megan recently started Erickson’s Blog on Social Networking and the Law. The blog addresses legal issues relating to social media and Web 2.0. Megan states, “This blog is in its early stages, so I hope you’ll continue to check back as I add content and get a chance to make improvements.”

Rush Nigut, who publishes the blog, Rush on Business, recently posted, “Now that’s a blog that will have a never ending flow of posts. She already has an interesting array of posts… This is one blog I’ll be sure to follow.”

Employer Social Networking Policies: Pre-Drafting Considerations & Dangers of Sample Policies
by Megan Erickson of the Dickinson Law Firm

Employers often want to know more about permissible or effective social networking policies for their employees. Of course, there’s no such thing as a “one size fits all” social media policy for employers, but I think readers might find it helpful if we took some time to address important considerations involved in drafting, updating, or maintaining a policy addressing employees’ online activities. With that goal in mind, I’m going to begin a series of entries specifically tackling some of those issues.

Pre-Drafting Considerations

These issues arise even before the policy drafting begins — so that’s where we’ll start. The planning stage of an employer’s social networking policy defines the later effectiveness of the policy. It may be wise for information technology personnel, human resources professionals, other internal company decisionmakers, and legal counsel to sit down together to determine the employer’s business interests, needs, goals, and expectations under the yet-to-be-drafted policy.

Sample Policies or Model Guidelines: Don’t Forget to Assess the Company’s Unique Needs

It’s important to keep in mind that although model policies or sample guidelines may offer some helpful “nuggets,” those policies derive from unique business considerations – which may or may not align with the business interests of other companies. For example, many employers look to the IBM Social Computing Guidelines – one of the first publicly available social media policies. While I do think IBM’s policies are lovely, all the attention given to IBM’s guidelines (and model policies in general) easily distracts employers and discourages them from carefully analyzing their own unique objectives.

As a technology company, IBM has been motivated to actively encourage employee use of social networking. Other employers probably do not have the same motivations. More than 10 years ago, when most employers were trying to limit employees’ online activity, IBM was encouraging its employees to use, learn, and participate in online activity; the company continues to advocate its employees’ participation in Web 2.0. The overarching business interests of a technology company like IBM (i.e., promoting use of online media for marketing and business reasons) may conflict with the overarching business interests of other employers (i.e., perhaps a greater need to protect proprietary business information).

In sum, if human resources professionals at Acme, Inc. look to a sample policy for drafting guidance, they should always bear in mind that the fundamental principles underlying IBM’s (or anyone else’s) guidelines may not best serve the interests of Acme. At the risk of sounding very “lawyer,” I now point out the obvious: social networking policies, as with most employment policies, require individualized attention and should be specifically tailored to the needs of each employer.

Sample Policies or Model Guidelines: Quality Control

The other problem with examples found online is quality control. Googling “social networking policies” may give an internet user a list of results, but it generally doesn’t disclose things like: who drafted the samples, the employer’s jurisdiction and applicable law, or the business interests driving the policy. In other words, the policy could have been drafted by an idiot, it might address too much or too little, and Company A may be focused on helping its sales team effectively use Facebook as a marketing tool while Company B just wants to keep its associates from divulging confidential financial information on MySpace.

Without properly assessing the business interests and concerns the employer wants or expects its social media policy to address, the resulting policy will be of little value to the employer. Before drafting any guidelines, employers should focus on the fundamental framework for and guiding principles behind their anticipated policies.


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The 5th Annual Franchisee Satisfaction Awards

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FBR awardsThe Franchisee Satisfaction Awards sponsored by Franchise Business Review are the industry’s most prestigious awards, honoring excellence in franchising. Each year, Franchise Business Review conducts thousands of independent surveys of franchisees across the industry. The Franchisee Satisfaction Awards recognize the leading franchise companies with the highest levels of overall satisfaction among their franchise operators.

Franchise Business Review presents awards to the top rated franchises in 17 industry categories: Advertising & Sales, Automotive, Business Services, Child Services, Cleaning & Maintenance, Financial & Tax, Food, Health & Beauty, Home Services, Pet Services, Real Estate, Specialty Retail, Senior Care, Services, Sports & Recreation, Technology and Travel & Hospitality. The top franchise within each category is also honored with a Best Franchise in Category award. Additionally, franchise companies are recognized in other categories including investment level, overall system size, most improved satisfaction, and Franchise of the Year.

Since 2005, nearly 500 leading franchise systems have participated in Franchise Business Review’s annual Franchisee Satisfaction Awards. 150 of those franchise businesses have been recognized for their system’s excellence, as rated and reviewed by their own franchisees.


FOR MORE INFORMATION

REGISTER HERE


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How will the CIT bankruptcy filing affect your business plans for 2010?

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After struggling for months to avert bankruptcy, lender CIT Group has filed for Chapter 11 protection in an attempt to restructure its debt while trying to keep badly needed loans flowing to thousands of mid-sized and small businesses.

“Analysts warned that the bankruptcy could add to the uncertainty around loans for the nation’s small businesses, especially retailers, which make up a significant portion of CIT’s clients and are already struggling with tight credit markets.

CIT is the financier for about 2,000 vendors that supply merchandise to more than 300,000 stores, many of which are gearing up for the critical holiday shopping season. They rely on the lender to cover costs ranging from paying for orders to making payroll. Any disruption caused by bankruptcy could wreak havoc on their operations, Joe Alouf, a partner with Eaglepoint Advisors, a crisis management company that is partly owned by Kurt Salmon Associates.”

READ THE FULL STORY


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The future of promoting franchise opportunities – out with the old and in with the new, or revisit what worked years ago?

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franchise brandsI strongly feel the days of promoting franchise opportunities through expensive trade shows and cost-prohibitive print advertising are rapidly becoming things of the past. Sure, franchising has experienced a great run and will most likely remain the backbone of small business. However, the current state of the economy has created a necessity to explore more cost-effective methods and processes in marketing franchise concepts as franchise growth objectives continue to be on the forefront of franchisors’ minds in the United States and abroad.

Besides being cost-effective, today’s franchise sales and development efforts must be technologically advanced to attract a more sophisticated, educated (and cautious) franchise candidate than the franchise industry has ever seen before. A trend that is sure to evolve as an increasing number of transitioning, highly-skilled and educated business professionals and corporate executives explore franchising as a career alternative while already successful street-smart entrepreneurs investigate franchising, perhaps for the first time, as part of their diversification and expansion strategies. All have embraced new technologies as a way of networking, sharing information, communicating ideas and exploring opportunities…including today and tomorrow’s franchise opportunities!

What are your thoughts about the future of trade shows? print advertising including brochures? new technologies that can be utilized in franchise development efforts? franchise brokers? in-house sales and marketing teams?


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Growing Your Franchise in Today’s Climate – Now Available On-Demand

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According to research, 70-75% of new franchisors fail over a 10 year period. Do you know the key factors that lead to a franchise succeeding or failing? Do you know the impact of strong communications and accountability on franchisee buy-in and therefore on franchise growth?

VIEW WEBINAR HERE

THIS WEBINAR HELPED ATTENDEES:

*Learn the most important factors in franchise success or failure
*Explore key societal trends that will affect franchising in the next 12 months
*Get concrete solutions to improve communications and accountability with your franchisees
*Discuss best practices around effective communications in the franchise marketplace and how these can be implemented in the areas of social media, franchisee communications, and operations management.

Attendees left with concrete tips they can implement as well as an understanding of how they can strengthen their franchise operations and a renewed understanding of the critical importance of good communication in franchise development.

VIEW WEBINAR HERE

THIS WEBINAR WAS ATTENDED BY:

Franchise company owners

* Presidents and CEOs
* Vice Presidents, Directors of Business Development, Strategy, Marketing, and Operations

This webinar was considered ideal for Franchisors who are in rapid growth, considering rapid growth or experiencing growth challenges, and who want to increase franchisee satisfaction and improve accountability within their franchises.

VIEW WEBINAR HERE

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Katryn Harris, President, CEO & Founder, Open Box Integration Inc.

Since 2005, Katryn has been working with franchisors to implement best practices and help them grow their franchises faster and better. Clients appreciate her pragmatic approach and how often they hear the question: ‘What are you trying to accomplish here?’ She sees a huge opportunity for many growing franchises to take better advantage of tools that improve communications, automate accountability and measure and improve brand consistency.

Katryn has spoken at international conferences and written articles for online sites, blogs and magazines. She enjoys the challenges and rewards of working with small and growing franchises as they develop their growth plans and set themselves up on the path to franchise success.

Katryn Harris has been involved in management and organizational development since 1996. She has experience creating and realizing strategic plans, controlling finances, managing and training staff, and ensuring organizational accountability. Katryn founded Open Box in 2004 with the vision of setting people free to do what they do best.

Blog http://growfromhere.com
Twitter http://twitter.com/katrynharris
LinkedIn http://linkedin.com/in/katrynharris

Paul Segreto, President, CEO & Founder, franchisEssentials

Paul Segreto, President, CEO and Founder of franchisEssentials, a Division of 21st Century CEO, brings unique perspective, entrepreneurial spirit and extensive industry experience to franchise marketing and development. For over twenty years he has exclusively served the franchise industry as consultant and coach, senior-level corporate executive, activist, multi-unit franchisee and area developer.

Understanding the franchise sales process from lead generation through franchise award, and the importance of forming an interdependent relationship between franchisee and franchisor, Paul has successfully developed and executed marketing and development strategies for franchisors across a variety of franchise segments. As franchise candidates and consumers have become more sophisticated and technologically advanced, Paul has embraced Web 2.0 technology and social media marketing, and has identified both as essential to future franchise growth at all levels.

A recognized franchise and small business expert,, Paul frequently serves as a guest speaker / topic leader for focus groups, strategy and sales planning meetings, training sessions and industry panels. He is frequently called upon to utilize his expertise in the development of articles for industry newsletters and blogs, and training programs for companies and organizations within the industry.

LinkedIn http://linkedin.com/in/segreto
Facebook http://facebook.com/paulsegreto
Twitter http://twitter.com/paulsegreto

Judy Brooks, Co-Founder, President & CEO, Blo Blow Dry Bar Inc., and Managing Director, Head Company Inc.

It was 2006, and Judy Brooks was in her 4th year of building out ProActive ReSolutions a company that works with organizations to build respectful workplaces. ProActive had opened offices in Vancouver, Sydney (Australia) and Edmonton and was at the height of developing the team, when a shiraz-fueled conversation between Judy and her daughter, Devon, posed a very vital question: “Why the heck can’t women get a great, affordable blow out in this city!?”.

The first Blo Blow Dry Bar location was born June 6th, 2007. The concept was simple: no cuts, no color — just wash-blow-go. Blo opened three locations in under a year, including one in the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver. Since opening, Blo has received over 100 franchise requests from around the world and had over 85 editorial features. Being first to market in the category of Blow Dry Bar has had its advantages. Blo’s cheeky brand has been aggressively built. Blo has a big vision and Judy is working with the young team to capitalize on the success with a well-developed growth strategy.

Blo recently merger with Melonhead, Canada’s biggest kids cutting stores, to form Head Company Inc, a company Building Brands with Brains.

In the last 6 years Judy has sold a company she founded 15 years ago, launched two new ones, and has had the pleasure of working with a number of small businesses as an advisor.

Website: http://www.blomedry.com/
Email: judy@blomedry.com

VIEW WEBINAR HERE


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Twitter [and other Social Media] Tips

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twitter imagesThe following is from a recent post on the Practical Cafe blog. The post provides answers they’ve given to numerous direct messages, emails and general queries concerning Twitter and other social media outlets. They don’t claim they’re the “right” answers or all inclusive advice, just that they’ve worked for them and some of the restaurants [businesses] they’ve helped.

ENGAGEMENT

I’ve been coming across quite a few statements lately from “professional marketing” firms/people who claim that Facebook, MySpace and Twitter (ie: all social media) is “just another form of advertising”. This is absolutely wrong.

First, the consumer “owns” your brand in social media (not you); meaning you have no control over what is said. You can follow the conversation, try to mitigate damage and take praise, but you can’t shut people up. There’s an old adage in the restaurant biz; one person complaining about something inside a restaurant means there are seven people who left, never said a thing about the same problem, but told all their friends about their “negative” experience. Social media has now boosted that ratio by a thousand fold. Your naysayers can reach more people faster and more easily than they could before and they can say it over and over again with the click of a button.

Second, social media is a forum to engage your consumer, not to press them into buying your product. What does this mean exactly?

Read below:

DO) Engage. Twitter isn’t advertising, it’s socializing. Just like you do in your dining room, social media is a means to interact and communicate with your customer. You ask questions like you do with your regulars: how’s the wife/husband/kids; your offer them something special because they always come back and they TALK about your business outside of it; you make sure they’re comfortable; you give them asides and information which might be relevant to their visit; their life; their concerns.

Hence, if you’re plotting out tweets like newspaper copy then you’re not getting your message through. (Actual Tweets follow)

Thursday, Open at 2pm, Happy Hour Till 5pm, Enjoy Delicious Food, Drinks & Sports until 1am.

The message above is considered nothing more than spam in the social media world. It’s something that can be read on your sign as I’m passing by to someplace that makes me feel comfortable, welcome and appreciated.

The message below draws interest, piques my curiosity, makes me want to pause, maybe even stop in and have a look around:

Think there’s only one way to make guacamole? Think again. Here’s 10+ New Takes on Guacamole (with a link added)

This also draws interest:

Truffles and creams and caramels, OH MY (with photo link)

DON’T) Post your drink/food specials at 7:51 am. They’re not getting read. Twitter & FaceBook feeds are like the feed on the stock exchange, it just keeps going. You want your message to be in front of people when it’s relevant and you’re hitting your targeted customers. If like most restaurateurs you have time constraints, then use a service like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to help you track, plan and delay-post tweets. (I use Hootsuite). Or, plan for the same “message” to go out at multiple times during the day so that you’re engaging with a wider audience.

TWITTER PUBLICITY/FOLLOWERS

DO) Register your Twitter account in a Twitter Directory like: WeFollow, Tweeple Pages, TwitR, MyTwitDirectory, TwitStates, and connect with LOCAL followers. The best source I found (so far) to find local people is Twellow. (Some will disagree with this as this is where the spam bots hunt.)

DON’T) Auto-follow or fall for the “gains 100s of followers in a day” scams. Customers are not cows, you can’t herd them in, fill up the trough and stand there thinking you’ve accomplished something. But, as a restaurateur you know this already. Besides that you’ll end up with lots of followers in the ilk of spam bots and xxx porn sites that are trying to feed into your stream; not exactly the image you want for your customers. Add to this that unless you are a national chain, a follower in California is useless to announce a lunch special to if your based in Miami. The lesson here: IT’S NOT THE NUMBER OF FOLLOWERS; it’s the quality, their location and whether or not you’re engaging them. (That’s why it’s called social media.) If your followers think you have a great thing going, then they tell their friends, who tell their friends, and so on; just like that old shampoo commercial.

GENERAL TWITTER ETIQUETTE

DO) Fill out your bio, add your logo and your URL, so I can find your website quickly if I want to. Also, put links on your static website to all of your social media outlets. Your website gives me detailed info, your social media is meant to let me TALK to you.

DO) Learn the lingo. Here’s a quick reference guide I like at WiredPen.

DO) Respond to, and answer, complaints and questions ASAP, if not immediately; just as if they were sitting in your dining room (because they might be). Set your phone to collect and monitor your tweets if need be.

DO) Throw some humor into your posts. Everyone likes to laugh and humor is just as infectious online as it is in the restaurant.

DO) Admit mistakes. Shit happens, and every restaurant owner/manager knows it. When this occurs fix it. The thing to remember in the age of social media is that your business is constantly on stage and in the spotlight. It used to be that consumer influence was small (pros call it word-of-mouth) but now, everyone can reach around the globe and write things that can damage your biz or make you a superstar. Don’t try to control that buzz; follow it, learn from it and try to create it instead.

DO) Get involved in a cause, a nonprofit, or an event that’s local to your community. Here’s a source for local charities: http://www.charity-charities.org/

DON”T) Set up your account to auto-reply me with SPAM when I start following you. What this tells me is that you are only interested in my money and not my business, my input, or my conversation.

DON”T) Give away stupid things like say, a Frisbee, to try and draw customers in. If you want to give something away make it pertinent to your biz or something people want, like a free taco, or a drink, dinner for two, or a trip to the Bahamas. Make a contest out of it. Be creative. Coupons, discounts, freebies; their all great for the short term, but you still have to watch the bottom line. You can’t pay your vendors or your employees with spent gift certificates, and you don’t want to devalue your brand to the point where people expect the discounted price all the time.

DON”T) Tell me about your problems with your roommate, staff, ex, your coffee run to (wherever), your man/woman problems etc. Simple rule: If you wouldn’t talk to a customer in your restaurant about it, why are you broadcasting it?

DON”T) Hire an in-house social media “expert” whose only qualification is that they’ve been on MySpace since they were 12. If someone else is running your social media, then monitor it. What’s your ROI? What were your expectations to start with? Are they asking questions and building something you can work with later? Are they in contact with the key people who make the decisions in your organization and are they putting out current, pertinent and useful info to your audience.

DON”T) Post a link and say nothing about it. That’s spam which says “Trust me, just click here.” Yeah, OK. Can I have a Frisbee too?

DON’T) Protect your tweets. This is a business. Locking your tweets is equivalent to only allowing current customers to see your marquee or your website. (To unlock your tweets go into settings and uncheck the “Protect my tweets” box. Then press: Save.)

DON”T) Connect your FaceBook and Twitter accounts then start spamming your followers with junk from FaceBook like Mafia Wars. I didn’t connect with you to have my email filled with invitations to create a mafia empire. If you do connect your FaceBook account, then set up a business account and NOT a personal one for your business.