Restaurants, don't ignore social media

Ian Ohan

Look out behind you: Don’t try to ignore social media. Conquer your fear or it will sneak up and bite your business from behind

Our customers today, many from the Y-generation, have an unprecedented desire for voice and engagement that transcends culture and commerce. Irrespective of your view on the politics social media is playing, it is a unique catalyst for raw expression and engagement, most notably in the far-reaching reverberations of the Arab Spring.

It was eagerly embraced by youth to spark dialogue and debate, organise and activate in an effort to garner influence and affect change. Efforts made by the establishment to neutralise the impact, and in some cases even the use of social media, had severe consequences. Social media’s relevance was not understood, its influence was underestimated and it was too powerful.

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From here it’s not such a big leap to the world of commerce, and the change is similarly undeniable. If you are in business today and you do not recognise the quantum leap that has already taken place in the global consumer’s requirement for a more egalitarian seat at the table, then you are in denial and your business is at risk.

We live in a post-recession, post-mass media world where your brand is not what you say it is, it’s what your customer, stakeholders and various influencers say it is. You had better listen and listen well.

Companies that have nothing to say, no opinion or are frightened of public criticism or debate should not use social media. Successful practitioners understand that it is not a direct marketing platform, but a means of earning trust and developing relationships that facilitates transaction, sometimes direct, sometimes not.

One of the most important roles of social media is its ability to provide highly sensitive, real-time customer feedback that at the most fundamental level, helps to guide your business strategy in an ever-changing world. It engages customers via social media in the most direct and transparent way, creating an ongoing public forum to exchange ideas.

At N_K_D Pizza we even install iPads in our stores, homed on our Twitter feed so we can respond quickly to operational based comments. It keeps us honest, focused on our responsibilities – living up to our side of the equation – and it acknowledges the reciprocal nature of the relationship we want with our costumers.

Your customers, like all people, want their opinions to be acknowledged – they want to be heard and now they have increasingly more tools to express themselves. Companies that resist or refuse to acknowledge the social media community will be shunned or ignored.
It is a 24-hour, 365 day a week, real-time effort: this is the investment, and it is significant but it is worth it.

For companies looking to quantify the financial benefit of social media, I suggest you don’t. If this is the litmus test for whether or not your company will use social media, you don’t get it and will never get there – it is akin to quantifying the value of your brand with financial performance. You do these things because it is who you are.

Ian Ohan is the GCC area developer and owner of N_K_D Pizza and a long-term resident of Dubai. N_K_D Pizza is the regionally rebranded franchise of the US-based Naked Pizza. Follow them on Twitter @nkdpizza and like them on Facebook.