Julie Footner - IT & Marketing Manager

 

 

 

 

You can’t seem to open a newspaper or listen to the news these days without hearing some kind of reference to social networking.

Typically it’s Stephen Fry updating his Twitter site with his latest movements or a disgruntled Premiership footballer announcing that he’s been dropped, before incurring the wrath of his manager for ‘tweeting’ out of turn.

The breadth of social networking sites out there is frankly staggering, amongst them: Facebook, BEBO, MySpace, Linked-In, YouTube, Blogger, Twitter, WordPress and Flickr. Each have their own nuances and separate tribe of users, but as an operator of a licensed business or a number of businesses, you’d be forgiven for asking:


“What does all this mean to me?”

Let’s start by putting this social networking phenomenon in perspective against some more traditional forms of media:

- Radio took 38 years to get to  50 million users

- TV took 13 years to get to 50 million users

- The Internet took only 4 years to get to 50 million users

- The iPod took even less time, just 3 years to get 50 million users

… since its launch, Facebook reached 100 million registered users in 9 months and according to reports, is now growing at over 600,000 users  per day. It now has over 300 million users.
 
The answer to the question “What does all this mean to me?”

Well, social networking is a quick and, more importantly, free means of promoting your business to an audience
 
As operators of a leisure business, the likes of Facebook and Twitter allows you to run the likes of Focus groups. If you’re unsure about what to stock, say Coke or Pepsi, you can ask your customers and get feedback. Tell followers or members of your group about events or promotions, even post vouchers online for them to download. But beware, each medium has its very own set of rules. For example, start blatantly ‘selling’ on Twitter and soon your account will be suspended.

As these products develop, so do the uses. Keeping on the subject of Twitter, one of the latest products to launch is Twellow. Twellow is marketed as Twitters answer to the Yellow Pages online, so if you run a restaurant, you might want to search for, and follow, those people that supply fine food or catering equipment. There are also some new features, for example, there is a section within the product called ‘Twellowhood’. Twellowhood allows you to search for those using Twitter in your geographic location, or an area you’d like to target. So a pub might want to search for all businesses in say Bath and then follow them with a view to promoting an ‘Express’ lunchtime offer.

As a rule, look at social networking as having a friendly chat with your customers, not hard selling – get the tone right and it will work for your business and remember there is
a fine line between giving out a steady stream of useful information and driving them mad with constant noise.

At Fleurets we are successfully using the likes of Twitter in tandem with our Buyer Alert, On market and PR, to ensure pubs are marketed to the right audience via the right medium.
 
Happy tweeting!

You can follow us on Twitter at  http://twitter.com/fleurets