By now you’ve probably heard about the, um, difficulty the world’s biggest fast food brand had during a recent stab at targeting a new Twitter hashtag. We’re big proponents of bars and restaurants making use of hashtags whenever possible, but the recent McDonald’s fiasco illustrates that social media is done well only when it’s done right.

In case you missed the story, here’s a quick rundown. Last week McDonald’s unveiled a promoted hashtag it hoped would get Twitter users telling positive experiences at the restaurant. They called it #McDStories.

But instead of sharing warm and fuzzy memories of time spent enjoying Big Macs and McRibs, Twitter users began flooding the stream with negative tweets.

Everything from detailing the food’s nutrition shortcomings to recounting foreign objects customers found in hamburgers made their way into the stream. It also became a hub for jokesters to take their best shot at poking mean-spirited fun at the chain.

The headline for the Forbes.com story was “When A Hashtag Becomes A Bashtag.”

The situation got so bad so quickly that McDonald’s pulled the promotion from Twitter after just a few hours. “Within an hour, we saw that it wasn’t going as planned. It was negative enough that we set about a change of course,” said a representative of the company.

To McDonald’s credit, the chain got back on the horse almost immediately with another hashtag. But the damage had most certainly been done. A full media/internet cycle blasted the company with “they don’t get it” blow-back.

The issue here is that McDonald’s didn’t do a good enough job analyzing how its own brand is perceived by the general public. By asking for “stories,” they opened themselves up to the full spectrum of anecdote: positive and negative, real and fictitious.

And while the company said recently that only about 2 percent of McDonald’s tweets that day contained #McDStories, the negative publicity of those tweets was enough to drive the coverage in newspapers, blogs and in social media.

If you aren’t a regular user of Twitter, you may be confused as to why you’re seeing more and more words prefaced by the “#” symbol in your daily life. On the screen during your favorite TV show, in advertisements of various types — the practice is seemingly growing at an exponential level.

The “#” indicates a hashtag, something used by Twitter to organize dialogue on the social networking site. With millions of 140-character messages sent each day, hashtags are a way to group tweets based on subject matter. Events are given a specific word, sports leagues establish “official” hashtags for teams, and celebrities designate themselves with the moniker of their choosing.

Last year, for example, a hashtag appeared for the first time during a Super Bowl ad.

Mississippi State’s football teams placed a hashtag in its end zone last month. Earlier this year the late Canadian politician Jack Layton criticized a policy of the country’s Prime Minister by saying “That’s been a hashtag fail on this issue.” Hashtags are on the rise and they seem to be bridging the gap from offline to online.

So the question then becomes how can you make the most of this social media phenomenon in your advertising/marketing strategy?

Twitter users search via hashtags they hope will take them to a desired piece of information. In the case of your bar/restaurant that means key words that will help them figure out what’s available in a certain area and pick a place to visit.

So a hashtag like #restaurant is a good place to start. The name of your city or the kind of cuisine in which you specialize can also be useful, as well as anything unique to your location like #vegan or #glutenfree. Try and think in terms of the umbrella subjects under which you could be found.

You’ll find it useful to regularly search those hashtags yourself, as you may come across people trying to find restaurants just like yours:

Create search columns for yourself (most third-party Twitter apps make them easy to use/edit) and whenever you log-in take a look at what is being talked about in the hashtags related to your business.

Hashtags should be a part of how you tweet about big or regular events that draw in customers: #wednesdaywings, #margaritamarch, etc. It will help direct the conversation and provide an easier way for customers to generate pre and post-event buzz among themselves.

Outside of Twitter, you should make sure to connect hashtags with your promotional efforts whenever possible. The name of your bar is an obvious choice, but you might also think about a signature drink, menu item, even a unique part of your building’ design. Basically anything that people will immediately associate with your business.

Since the goal is to bring people together around a topic of your choosing, the question is how best to draw them in. You’re trying to pull people from off of Twitter back onto Twitter.

The hashtag(s) should obviously be included on your website and various social platforms. But try and think of other places to put it. Newspaper and magazine ads? TV spots? Your cocktail napkins?

You’ll also find that hashtags will be useful as monitoring tool. If you make sure to include hashtags in all of your tweets, it can be a easy way to go back later and look at old conversations.

Make sure to spend some time with hastags and do a little experimenting. See what competitors you respect are doing take a look at knowledgeable tweeters in other industries. In the process you’ll find your own niche and be able to build this component of your social marketing efforts around your best asset – your personality. #goodluck

Due to the great response to our last webinar on Facebook Strategies, (see below) which was attended by almost 400 bar and restaurant owners, we have put together a similar webinar focused on Twitter strategies that bars and restaurants can easily use to attract more customers and build loyalty among their current customer base:

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Join Barry Chandler, founder of Interactive Hospitality and TheBarBlogger.com for an online training experience designed to help bar & restaurant owners attract more customers by leveraging proven strategies on Twitter.

Date: Monday October 3rd 2pm EST, 7pm London/Dublin time

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/818241121

Over the course of an hour or so, he will demonstrate in depth:

1. An overview of Twitter and what it means to bars & restaurants
2. Understanding the Twitter language, terms and commands
3. How to know if Twitter is being used in your town or by your customers
4. How to add twitter into your current marketing strategies
5. How to grow your Twitter following
6. How to leverage Twitter to see what your competitor’s customers are saying about them
7. What content to post, when to post it and how often to post it
8. How to attract new customers in the door using simple twitter strategies
9. How to use Twitter to improve your customer service
10. How to use Twitter to resolve complaints through Twitter
11. How to leverage Twitter to allow you proved amazing customer experiences: the WOW factor
12. How to track & Analyze your success with Twitter
13. What tools to use to manage Twitter most efficiently in your bar/restaurant

    Much much more…

Barry will also answer all of your questions during this live online event. You’ll be able to see Barry’s computer screen as he demonstrates different examples and covers each point in depth.

All you need is a computer with speakers to watch and listen or if you just want to hear the audio, you’ll be able to call-in and listen too.

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/818241121

Feedback from previous webinars:

1. “Shouting” specials at your followers

There is a tendency among businesses new to Twitter to simply use their account as a way to announce daily happy hour specials or menu changes without interacting with their fans. This is a mistake.

While communicating ‘what’s going on’ is one of Twitter’s most natural functions (How else will we know whether Lady Gaga slept well last night?) it shouldn’t be where you stop. Twitter is superior to Facebook as far as the opportunities it provides to listen. To take full advantage of Twitter you have to be engaged in a give-and-take.

Monitor what your customers are saying and answer their questions. When a customer follows you, follow them back. An easy way to figure out whether you’re doing Twitter the right way is to analyze your tweet stream: If the number of one-way broadcasts dwarfs the replies and RTs you send out, you’ll need to find more balance.

2. Ignoring unfavorable tweets

This advice will remind some of a recent post where we talked about about not deleting Facebook comments. And for good reason: The same philosophy is in play here.

When some yahoo talks negatively about an experience he or she had with your business, human nature will push your towards anger and avoidance. But decisions based on those emotions are not in you best interest. Taking a patient and gentle approach to this one unhappy follower is one of the better PR/marketing functions available via Twitter.

You are taking the time to assist a single customer, and this will perhaps help you to keep them as a customer. But more importantly you are providing others with the opportunity to see how highly you value customer service.

3. Over-posting

Yes, we just criticized you for not being active enough on your Twitter account. But social media is like ice cream — delicious when used correctly in moderation.

We want you to be interacting with your followers, but we also want you to make sure you aren’t annoying them. Being an active Twitter user is okay as long as what you are posting is relevant. Consistently ranting about personal issues may turn people off.

Also keep in mind that if you send out 20 tweets in a matter of minutes it is going to clog up the timeline of your followers. It’s possible there are Twitter users out there who don’t want to read that much from your business in such a short period of time. Don’t end up on this site.

4 Not following customers

This is along the same line as not being involved in the two-way component of Twitter. We’ve noticed businesses that don’t make a point of to follow current and potential clients, or don’t follow customers who have chosen to follow them.

Just like in point No. 1, this is wasting an opportunity to read what your base of current and potential customers is saying about you and then offer direct feedback if questions should arise.

Something else to consider: We’ve seen instances where customers seem almost thrilled at being followed by a business, particularly one where they are a regular patron. Even the basic electronic friendship gesture of following a person’s account can pay dividends. Someone who tweets he or she is fired-up their local pub is following them is the kind of person who will tell friends to give you business.

5. Connecting your twitter account and never updating

This probably falls under the common sense category, but if you’re guilty it can be crippling to your social media efforts.

Few things are worse for a business’ social media efforts than to link a Twitter account to its various online operations – home website, Facebook page, etc. – and then ignore it. When a customer clicks on your Twitter page and sees you haven’t posted anything in a month the message is very clear . . . and very damaging. You don’t care about connecting with your customers, so why should they return the favor?

Interactive Hospitality accepts 10 new clients each month. Not every business is a fit, but if you’re passionate about your business and your customers, you could join the growing list of customers taking their business to the next level. You can apply for a spot here.

There are few things as stressful and time consuming as opening a new restaurant or bar. You are essentially balancing the pressure of moving with what is a major change in your business. Free moments are going to be few and far between.

But don’t use that easy excuse to ignore the opportunity to build the foundation of your social media presence. It may seem to be low on the priority list as you are wrangling vendors and eying budget, but this a critical time for the social media component of your marketing strategy.

Getting your business linked to the major social media platforms – Facebook and Twitter – provides an opportunity for potential customers to feel as if they’re a part of this process. That kind of connection will naturally lead them to become invested in your efforts and you could eventually find them among the first people in the door when you open.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help when it comes to hours, menu or even design. The biggest decisions will obviously be decided by your vision and your budget, but giving your potential customers input when it comes to more minor aspects has benefit. At the end of the day these are the people you’ll be expecting to make the purchases; why not ask them what they want?

You may want to put in seven pool tables because you love pool, but a quick poll of your social media followers might let you know that no one has any interest. Perhaps someone might tell you another bar just opened doing exactly the same thing.

Another thing to keep in mind is that social media can have a secondary effect: Free recruitment. Don’t be surprised if your marketing efforts pay dividends when the new GM needs to fill-out the dining room or kitchen staff.

Use the time building up to the launch to share photos of the construction, menu items, new hires, etc. Get your soon-to-be customers bought into your business, not just as customers but as friends and people who are going to make your business great once you open your doors.

Once you have a launch date in mind, start a countdown. 14 days out, share 14 great things about the new business. 13 days out, mention that 13 is unlucky for some, but lucky for you because we open in 13 days etc…..

Above all, use this opportunity the right way to build anticipation and excitement. By the time you open your doors, you’ll have customers lined up outside the door with their friends in tow, already familiar with your business and ready to spend their hard earned cash.

What could be better than that?

Interactive Hospitality accepts 10 new clients each month. Not every business is a fit, but if you’re passionate about your business and your customers, you could join the growing list of customers taking their business to the next level. You can apply for a spot here.

So you’ve finally become familiar with the world of social media. You’re monitoring Foursquare check-ins, interacting with Facebook fans and cell phone-tweeting with speed and accuracy that would make a high school sophomore envious.

Just as important as your technical savvy is making sure you maintain a tone consistent with that of your business. Social media is a conversation and you need to be sure you’re using the right language.

For starters, make certain to match your overall language and sentence structure to your personality and your audience. This may sound obvious, but there is sometimes a tendency to get overly ‘markety’ when using a keyboard.

If you run a small bar and most of your social media followers know you personally, speak to them online the way you would during happy hour. Use the same nicknames; make the same jokes; keep the same basic sensibility. If you’re the one writing the posts, make sure they know it’s you.

In cases where the social media writing doesn’t come from a single individual you’ll want to keep a close watch on the way your authors write.

A college bar can get away with Twitter posts full of LOLs and IDKs on Twitter, but that won’t fly if your New York strip sells for $50. And even if you do battle for Michelin stars, you should still avoid anything resembling advertising language. You may like the idea of formality with a more upscale clientele, but the result will be sterile and contrary to what social media is all about. Even the upper crust lets its hair down on social media.

Just about everybody uses social media these days, but the way they communicate is still connected to factors like age and economic status. Gauge who your message will be reaching and plan accordingly.

Social media should be thought of as a back-and-forth, not a broadcast. Before you hit “submit” make sure to ask yourself if this is something you’d say to a customer in your bar or restaurant. If the answer is ‘no,’ think about a re-write to something that sounds a little more human.

Interactive Hospitality accepts 10 new clients each month. Not every business is a fit, but if you’re passionate about your business and your customers, you could join the growing list of customers taking their business to the next level. You can apply for a spot here.

From time to time in this space we will highlight work we are doing with clients as we utilize social media to generate more business. We hope it provides a sense for what can be achieved when tools such as Facebook, Twitter sand Foursquare are in the right hands.

Restaurant and grille Adobe Gilas is a small chain with two locations in Ohio; one in Dayton and another in one of suburban Columbus’ biggest shopping draws, Easton Town Center. It has a Mexican-infused menu and places heavy emphasis on happy hour, cocktails and a party atmosphere.

For years both of the Ohio locations have been rather well established offline. Recently they approached us hoping to grow that brand online by making use of social media. In less than a year Adobe Gilas has become a serious digital participant, very quickly doing some of the right things to engage customers in what was for them a new medium.

Here a few examples of what Adobe Gilas has been doing in recent months to expand its presence on the web.

Social Networking Party As the name suggests, Adobe Gilas put together an event with an eye to its online community.  The evening was one specific night out, strategically planned to take place simultaneously at all of the locations.

The principle was a simple one: Like every business, Adobe Gilas has customers who walk through the door unaware of its social media efforts. This was a night to both honor the online community and “educate” the offline customer base about what they were missing.

Each location projected a Twitter feed on the wall, allowing customers to write messages containing Adobe Gilas and view them with their friends. There were giveaways and drawings for those who that night checked-in on Foursquare or became Facebook friends for the first time.

A particularly popular component was having servers wear t-shirts emblazoned with a QR (quick response) code to become a Facebook friend. Hold your smart phone up to the shirt and – presto! – you’re a fan of Adobe Gilas. Connecting personal interaction with staff and the inherent fun of technology proved to be a big hit.

Another place where Adobe Gilas shined was in marketing the event. They took pictures of their employees holding signs promoting the event and posted them on their Facebook page. This brought a visual component into play, targeting the eye in a process than can occasionally get dry with exclusive use of text.

Fan questions Here at Interactive Hospitality we talk quite a bit about the conversational component of social media – i.e. you’re speaking with the customer instead of talking at them. To that end Adobe Gilas has been making a point to post questions to their Facebook fans. One that have answers.

Something as simple as “If you could drink only one beverage for the rest of your life, what would be?” begs for response from a bored 9to5er.

It’s a way to get customers spending a few additional seconds of their lives thinking about your brand, even if you aren’t talking about yourself. They will begin to feel that interacting with the restaurant is a part of their daily routine.

Adobe Gilas is winning here because they have gotten off the bench and gotten their hands dirty (so to speak). They’ve taken steps to connect with more clients through social media, then once they are in the fold they make sure not to forget about them.

Interactive Hospitality accepts 10 new clients each month. Not every business is a fit, but if you’re passionate about your business and your customers, you could join the growing list of customers taking their business to the next level. You can apply for a spot here.

New technology can be scary. Not quite “My son brought Snooki Polizzi home for Christmas dinner” scary, but it’s definitely an arena where apprehension occasionally rears its ugly head.

In an effort to assuage those icky feeling with regards to one of social media’s biggest and most valuable platforms, we’ve decided to provide a quick tutorial for Twitter. It won’t have every answer, but it’ll be enough to get you up and tweeting with limited cries for your mamma.

Profile

When you first sign up for a Twitter account you’ll select a handle. The account will be based out of a primary landing page, called a profile, where twitter’s users will end up when they type in the full URL – twitter.com/MyCoolBar.  There, visitors will be able to view your timeline and read a few pieces of information about you.

Take advantage of this. As a business you’ll want to provide more insight as to who you are, as well as telling them where to get more information – your main website, Facebook page, etc. You are now ready to write 140-character updates from your account.

Follow

Twitter is built around following. Users select accounts they wish to follow, meaning tweets from those accounts are automatically viewable to them in a list of tweets known as their timeline. That list is updated in real-time with every new tweet from users you follow.

Almost all tweets are publicly accessible, but only those from the accounts you follow are automatically sent to your timeline. It is absolutely critical that your businesses is eventually able to build a healthy tribe of followers.

Retweet (RT) Put simply, retweet is Twitter’s name for sharing another person’s tweet so that your followers are able to view the message. Here is what it looks like:

Clicking the “Retweet” button will automatically place the tweet you’d like to share in your composition bar, prefaced by ‘RT,’ a space and the original author’s account name. You are able to write in front of the RT, adding a comment about the post you are sharing.

Hashtags Prefaced by the ‘#’ symbol, hashtags label topics as a way to categorize twitter subjects with wide interest. Some people will search for information this way, so placing a hashtag in your tweet will allow it to appear in such searches.

“@” This symbol is used to signify the official name of an active Twitter account. Your name on Twitter isn’t MyCoolBar; it’s @MyCoolBar

A Twitter search of your account name will reveal every time you have been mentioned in a tweet. That could either be a full retweet of one of your posts or a mention of you in passing – i.e. “Went to @MyCoolBar last name, love the new patio.”

Conversations If you see a post to which you would like to respond, simply click the “reply” button. This will bring up the account of that tweet’s author and place your cursor after the name. In this case you can think of the account name as “Dear so-and-so,” with your message following afterward:

Something to keep in mind: Messages where the first character is the ‘@’ of a user’s account are only visible to users who follow both the sender and recipient of the note. If you want to compose a tweet that will appear in your followers’ timeline make sure a character of some kind appears before the account. i.e. “@BarFly is a great tipper!” won’t be seen by everyone, so go with “What a great tipper, that @BarFly!” in cases where you want to share wit the masses.

-Direct message (DM) Is pretty much what it sounds like. It’s a message that can only be viewed by the party receiving the note. DMs can only be sent to users who are followers of yours.

-Sharing links Given the character restriction on Twitter, it might be a good idea to shorten URLs when you want to share a site with your followers. Sites like bit.ly and tinyurl will do this automatically for you.

As you move forward you may want to experiment with additional functionality provided by third-party clients. For now, just dedicate an an hour or two to dipping your toes in the water. It won’t hurt . . . much.

Interactive Hospitality accepts 10 new clients each month. Not every business is a fit, but if you’re passionate about your business and your customers, you could join the growing list of customers taking their business to the next level. You can apply for a spot here.

We know there are still restaurant owners and managers out there making the same crotchety back-in-my-day comments about Twitter and “tweeting.” And while those jokes may still be funny in the right setting – a retirement community, for example. (We kid, we kid.) – the bottom line is your business simply can’t afford to ignore social media’s 140-character juggernaut.

Here are a few tips for figuring out how your establishment should be taking advantage of Twitter. Notice the word “whether” didn’t appear in that last sentence. This isn’t a choice, people.

Twitter tutorials and FAQs are available in thousands of places on the web, but here are the bullet points. Users post 140-character updates (“tweets”) about whatever they choose, usually from their cellular phones. Those tweets are instantly viewable by anyone who chooses to connect, or “follow,” the user’s account. Some news organizations, businesses and celebrities have built massive Twitter followings, providing an immediate and highly powerful form of communication.

(Don’t believe us? Ask your tween what Justin Bieber had for lunch yesterday.)

And while you must follow a person to have all of their tweets sent to you directly, Twitter’s enormous dialogue collective – 200 million tweets per day from users representing 13 percent of all online Americans – is a searchable gold mine.

Say you want to know what customers are saying about your business at any given moment. Simply go to Twitter search (twitter.com/search) and enter the name of your establishment. Try common misspellings and creative uses of punctuation. That search can be modified to target specific cities, locations and entire phrases. Even in more passive usage form Twitter can be a tool to monitor and tweak your customer experience.

The more proactive among you will want to set-up an account and start following customers. Users who write comments about you (both positive and negative) are the first place to start, but there are other tactics to employ.

Does you primary competition have a large following? Don’t be afraid to follow their followers. They’ve done some of the hard work for you and have established the level of local Twitter participation.

Is there a shopping mall or movie theater near your location? People who frequent those spots are obvious potential customers and there is no reason you can’t harness that following.

Keep in mind that in a perfect world you will be taking all of these steps. But once you’ve done your due diligence you will determine what level of involvement make practical and financial sense. If for some reason you find no Twitter presence in your community you will at least have established your area isn’t ready.

Either way, you’ll know where you stand. Information, however brief and riddled with “LOL”s, is power.

Follow Barry on Twitter right here: @thebarblogger

Whether you realize it or not, your customers and potential customers are being influenced about their choice of dining/drinking location by factors that you may not be in control of.

2010 brought social networks like Twitter & Facebook more into the mainstream than they had ever been and 2011 looks to be an even more prolific year for these networks. Add into the mix location based services such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places, coupled with review websites like TripAdvisor, CitySearch and Yelp and you may find you have your hands full keeping up with everything online.

You have a few options. You could choose to ignore these websites and dismiss them as a fad or you could pay attention to the conversation that is ALREADY taking place out there about your business. And it IS taking place. To prove this to yourself, all you have to do is Google the name of your business and the search results will most likely yield a set of reviews with star ratings as part of the results. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

The mobile savvy user now actively reviews your business while there, taking pictorial evidence in the process, leaving a tip about what was good, what wasn’t good, all the while blasting this information out to his/her legion of friends and followers.

If you have watched the fascinating short video Social Media Revolution (and I strongly recommend you do), you’ll know that 78% of us make our purchasing decisions based on recommendations. But what recommendations are your customers listening to? Are they positive or negative? Could the $5000/month print marketing/advertising budget be destroyed by a handful of negative reviews? Not only is this possible, but it’s happening every day of the week.

Check out this infographic from early in 2010. I guarantee that the numbers have only gone up since and will continue to do so:

With so much information available to prospective customers, the onus is now on you, the business owner to convince them through your online efforts.

Follow these steps to help influence prospective customers:

1. Encourage satisfied customers to review your business online.
2. Regularly search review websites for comments about your business. Even better, set up Google Alerts to notify you when a mention is made of your business.
3. Stop being “Salesy” in your Tweets and Facebook posts. No-one uses social networks to be pitched at constantly. Ask yourself if the customer was sitting across the bar counter from you, how would you talk to them. See? It’s different isn’t it? Well it shouldn’t be. Be social online as if the audience was sitting in front of you.
4. Engage with negative reviews by thanking them and asking if you can help make it right for them. If necessary take the conversation to the telephone for added brownie points and quicker resolution.
5. Be an active participant on the social networks where your customers participate. It might have been MySpace five years ago, but it’s most likely to be Facebook today so keep up to date and earn their trust and business on THEIR terms, not just yours.

It’s time to take back control of the conversation before someone else does.

If you would like to schedule a complimentary online marketing/strategy call with Barry Chandler who will review your current online status and opportunities and give you actionable ideas to improve your marketing, then click here now.