The power of blogs

On this particular afternoon, Five Guys Burgers and Fries (a national burger chain in the United States) did not know I was coming in for lunch. The employee who took my order was also unaware that later that evening I would be carefully detailing every aspect of the experience on my restaurant blog, greeneggsmarketing.com.
 
While Five Guys is famous for its juicy burgers it also offers quite a remarkable hot dog with an unlimited amount of toppings. I was so impressed with the service and quality of food that I wrote up a post for my blog. A few days later I start receiving an enormous amount of hits from the fiveguys.com website. Much to my surprise, Five Guys put an excerpt from my post and a link to my site on the home page of its website, therefore driving their thousands of customers to read the review.
 
Why would a national fast casual restaurant bother putting a link to a blog on the front page of its website? Because Five Guys, unlike many other restaurant concepts, understands the influence of blogs. It recognises the power of word of mouth marketing and how blogging amplifies it to levels never before imagined.
 
Blogs first started as an online journal for people to document their life and their world. However, today blogs have grown to become a mainstream method to receive and share news about the products we love or hate. As of 2008 over 364 million people read 184 million blogs in 81 different languages all over the world. Generally speaking this accounts for 77% of the people who use the internet, according to technorati.com.
 
For years we have all known how positive or negative word of mouth marketing can change our brand forever. Consumers believe people they trust and they are hungry for information. Therefore, when consumers have a memorable restaurant experience they tell people. The difference now, however, is that what was once a single conversation between two people now can be amplified, shared and broadcast to thousands of people everywhere.
 

 
Blogs have sharing and social media tools built into them and engagement points for readers to write to each other, share their opinion and give feedback. Five Guys especially grasped this concept and chose to take the initiative and amplify the positive message further by broadcasting it on own website.
 
In addition to generating positive awareness about brands, blogs also have enormous influence over purchase decisions. Roughly 80% of blogs focus on product and brand reviews and 50% of readers use blogs to help them make purchase decisions, according to Buzz Logic, the social media marketing firm. As you might imagine, the opportunity for restaurant brands to leverage the power of blogs is simply extraordinary. Blogs offer restaurants a unique opportunity in helping spread their story, drive footfall and grow brand awareness in their local markets.
 
Restaurant brands can sit around waiting and hoping that an influential blogger will come to visit their restaurant and write a positive review or they can actively seek out bloggers. In order to truly make an impact using the world of blogging, restaurant brands need to re-think their approach to traditional PR and marketing tactics. It will require determination, patience and focus; however the reward will be well worth the effort.
 
There are three key areas to focus on when developing a blogger outreach strategy:

1. Find the right people Blogs are useful tools, however unless it is a blog that writes about the area your restaurant is located in, it will not be very effective. Actively seek out bloggers who write about your local restaurant community and also have a good following of readers. You can search for blogs using blogsearch.google.com. Once you have found some local bloggers, check how often they update and how many comments/readers they have. These elements are essential in understanding if they will be worth your time.
2. Deliver a world class experience After identifying the right bloggers to focus on, contact them via email and invite them to your restaurant. I recommend hosting a ‘blogger roundtable' at your restaurant. Hosting a blogger roundtable allows you to connect with multiple influential bloggers at once. During a blogger roundtable you should invite a handful of the bloggers you have identified into your restaurant for a special evening. Owners and/or managers should sit down with bloggers during the roundtable, walk them through the menu and let them try a variety of products. This method of execution ensures that bloggers will have personal contact with the manager and will also have a deep understanding of the restaurant offerings, prices etc. Even if you do not execute a full-blown blogger roundtable, a personal invitation for a blogger to have dinner at your restaurant will go a long way.
3. Measure and monitor After the blogger roundtable event is over be sure to check the blog site often. You may even want to ask the blogger to send you an email once they have written an article about your restaurant. I also recommend asking the bloggers you invite to provide you with information about how many readers they have etc. If executed properly what you will find is that partnering with influential bloggers can bring a positive impact to your restaurants. Brand awareness will spread, positive word of mouth will be amplified and ideally there will be an increase in footfall. In today's environment that revolves around "being connected" and sharing with one another, we have no choice but to re-imagine and re-think the best approaches to leverage online tools to drive profits at our businesses.