Promoting Your Restaurant Via Social Media

For the past year my husband has been hearing about the build-out of an elegant restaurant in Beverly Hills (California) from the owner, who also owns the lunch place across the street from my husband’s law office.

And when I spotted a coupon from Groupon for the restaurant, which is Da Vinci at 9737 N. Santa Monica Blvd. in Beverly Hills, my husband bought the coupon to try out the restaurant.

We did so on June 30th to celebrate 30 years from when we pulled into Los Angeles with my parents as we drove our car across country, moving from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

Our dinner at Da Vinci was excellent, and we loved the beautiful result of the year-long build-out. Of course I told the owner that more people should know about his restaurant.

I explained how, if the restaurant had an account on Twitter, it would be easy for me to tweet about how good the meal was. This tweet would then encourage other people to visit the restaurant.

And when our waitress handed us two coupons for 20% off dinner for the next time, I told the owner that these coupons could actually be delivered through social media platforms.

I asked the waitress, who appeared to be in her 20s, if she is on Facebook, which she is. Then I asked her about Twitter. And I heard the same mistaken view that I hear from so many people – the belief that Twitter is just for people tweeting about what they ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

I explained to the waitress and the owner that those people are not using Twitter effectively. The main point of Twitter is to share worthwhile information with your followers.

(Now it would be considered worthwhile information if I tweeted about a good meal at Da Vinci, because most people are interested in good restaurant recommendations. But if I tweeted about what I made for dinner at home – unless I’m a gourmet chef and link to the recipe I used, this would be not considered information worth sharing.)

While beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, effective participation on Twitter does have a set of often unwritten guidelines. If you want to use Twitter effectively, it makes sense to learn about those guidelines and then follow them.

Because once you do understand the power of Twitter, I predict that there will be no turning back for you.