It Takes Time

Recently BCV was thrilled to have one of its first clients, Piccolo Sogno featured in a Mashable story on how restaurants can and are utilizing social media.  The article brought out a lot of things Piccolo Sogno does right such as respond in real time to clients, use rich media to drive interactions, and use social media as a way to develop real relationships with customers.  However one thing the article forgot to mention was that a strong social media presence simply takes time.  It doesn’t happen overnight, it doesn’t even happen in 3 months.  Piccolo Sogno has been utilizing Facebook, Twitter, and foursquare for well over a year.   I can promise you in the first 4 months the level of interactions and the level of trackable ROI was not nearly as high as it is today.  Piccolo Sogno also has a number of components that translate well to social media.  For example, Tony and Ciro care deeply about the experience each customer has at their restaurant and that comes through across any medium.  They value when someone posts on facebook or tweets at the restaurant and in turn want to take the time to thank the person and get to know them.  In their latest video they share a recipe and invite fans and followers to test it out and call with any questions.  (They also have the best and most authentic Italian food bar none, but that is my subjective opinion)

The point is this if you’re a restaurant and you view social media as an ad buy, a groupon, or something that needs to pay immediate dividends instead of taking a longer term view you are going to be deeply disappointed.  If you value your customers and want to cultivate a community of people who believe in what your trying to do, social media is a great tool.  It’s just going to take some time