social media

Marketing

Applebee’s new marketing strategy: customers’ photos

To boost engagement with its “neighborhood” and generate some social media buzz, Applebee’s, the country’s 10th largest chain by sales, will turn over its Instagram feed to its customers for the next 12 months, Adweek reports, relying in a big way (although not solely) on user-generated content—read: free content—to populate the page.

Marketing

Inside Arby’s social media fishbowl

Managing social media can be overwhelming, but at Arby’s headquarters in Atlanta, the three-person social media team handles the task in-house—literally.

Effective communication usually defuses conflict. But not necessarily in the current-day restaurant business.

An IPO may not be in the cards any time soon, but if you’ve set your sights on growth through unit expansion you’re facing a whole new set of challenges than simply having a great concept and executing it well.

CHICAGO (July 15, 2010 - Business Wire)—Based on a model developed in the 1960s by researcher Everett Rogers, Technomic hasfound that consumers who are...

When McDonald’s held a massive nationwide job fair earlier this year, it hired 50,000 new employees—in a single day.

There are different approaches to take with your promotional videos collected on branded YouTube channels. You can simply show off your TV commercials. You can interview guests. If you’ve got big bucks, you could produce your own high-concept entertainment (see McDonald’s Bite Size Video Project). But a tactic open to every concept is the behind-the-scenes video, and as a way to extend your brand and connect with the customer it is still one of the best. Here are five who do it the right way. Click the restaruant name to see for yourself.

Instead of fighting the growing trend of restaurant customers posting photos of their menu orders, Felipe Donnelly, owner of Cómodo, a four-month old Latin American eatery in Soho, New York, has embraced it, using the photos to create what is being called the first Instagram menu.

Busy times are restaurants’ bread and butter. But a busy restaurant often means hungry guests are kept waiting. If operators manage wait times properly, though, they can create positive feelings in guests and boost business. Here are some skills to work on.

Join the editors of Restaurant Business and social media mavens from the industry for breakfast on Tuesday, April 1 from 7:00 a.m. until 8:30 a.m.

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