Marketing
Social media done right
If you do it right and allow folks to message about your brand freely, while you monitor and offer input along the way, social media gold—brand awareness, allegiance and sales—awaits. So how do you do it right? In the world of social media marketing, if you love your brand, you have to set it free.
Daily deals work—and not just once, Technomic finds
A new consumer-behavior study refutes many of the criticisms routinely leveled by restaurateurs at daily-deal services like Groupon and Living Social.
In April, T.G.I. Friday's released its own mobile payment app. While many foodservice operations have embraced mobile apps for location services, coupon offers or linking into reward programs, proprietary mobile payment apps are still somewhat unchartered territory. In the quick serve arena, Dunkin Donuts just released its own mobile payment system, and Starbucks partnered with Square for its system.
Ruby Tuesday’s narrowly averted cheese-biscuit apocalypse demonstrates how social media’s role is evolving from marketing to operations. The chain has spent several years working through a major brand refresh, migrating from a down-home bar-and-grill to a more upscale-casual concept. To that end, the company decided to phase out the free cheddar biscuits given to diners, testing the new program in one area where the biscuits went AWOL. The reaction was telling: customers had a fit, sharing their displeasure through social media.