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By Jeffrey Summers October 22, 2009

Since launching our new Social Media Marketing Programs for restaurant operators, we have been inundated with comments about how their current program isn’t working or how they have heard from ‘a friend’ that social media is this or that but probably isn’t for them. I tell some after listening to them talk about their business, that they’re right. Social Media isn’t for you because your business isn’t ready for it. “Why do you say that?” they ask. Well here’s why…

Two Major Social Media Execution Gaps

1. Social Media Is More About The Social But Your Business Culture Isn’t.

Just as creating and executing a great promotion to bring in lots of traffic can kill a bad business which has operational problems, i.e. out-of-stock issues, bad service, short staffed, etc… If someone wants to become a guest of yours, walks in and has an experience totally different than what you portray on your website, Facebook fan page or Twitter stream or other SM channel, you will lose them and create negative Word-Of-Mouth. It’s another type of ‘experience gap’ or the difference between what you promise (the guest’s dream date) and what you deliver (the guest’s nightmare) in terms of your social media efforts.

If your service model is broken, yet you talk about how great and engaging you are online, you are setting yourself up for failure. And if you can’t get other guests to talk about how great your service is instead of you, then you don’t have great service anyway!

So don’t start blaming SM for your execution problems.

SM is about engaging with people on a more personal level. It’s about building relationships with your guests – developing trust and ultimately loyalty. It’s not about continuing to treat every guest as a transaction or every employee as a number using a “take-it-or-leave-it” set of expectations. This is partially what we mean when we talk about being authentic or transparent. It has to be a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” set of expectations being set and then met or exceeded. This takes a different skill and experience set than you used or cultivated to market your business and yourself just a short while ago.

So if you’re not the engaging type or your business is a direct reflection of your inability to be engaging, don’t jump into a Social Media Marketing effort until you and your business is. And no, you can’t outsource engagement!

2. The Pieces Just Don’t Seem To Fit

You felt you and your business could use social media to drive your business to the next level. You understood you didn’t have the first problem talked about above. So you eagerly hired someone from that marketing company of that social media website you’re always on, who has had that cool looking page on that really popular website for months now. Only to not understand what they are doing, why they are saying the things they are saying or what they are promising on your behalf. Why do you have one of everything? And where are the results? Why isn’t anything being measured? Where’s the ROI?

This is because your “guru” doesn’t understand your business and how it fits into social media. Are your guests on Facebook or MySpace? LinkedIn? Do they post reviews on Yelp or CitySearch or another local review site? Do they tweet? Do they prefer email, direct mail or no mail at all? How about text messages? Online ordering? Do they subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed? Do you have a blog? What the heck is an RSS feed? Do you even have a dedicated website? What’s a marketing hub? The list is seemingly endless. Then there are the questions of the right combinations of all these things and more given your guest’s online and offline profiles as well as their existing relationship with your business.

So given all of this, how come the “guru” didn’t ask you any questions about what you do? How you do it? What your story is? What your business goals are? Not to mention if they know the difference between drop-off catering and takeout.

A social media strategy won’t do you any good if you cannot or have not already defined your target market and the means by which they prefer to get their information and communication from you – not to mention how their differing emotional attachments to your brand means different messages in different forms at different times. Are they relatively new guests who need more educating about who you are and what you offer or are they loyal, raving fans who need more relationship support?

It makes all the difference in the world when you’re trying to get your story out.

What other gaps or disconnects have you seen or identified?