Daniela Bolzmann

I was recently invited to Cal State Fullerton to speak to a graduate class taking the first social media course to be offered by CSUF. What I decided to present was my role as a Community Manager and how that may affect business in the near future. My goal was to use Prezi, a tool I have never used before, to give a visual representation of this role while using a tool within a tool within a tool. A fast paced real-life dive into the role of a Community Manager. Up until this day, the course had been mostly theory and having mostly come from corporate backgrounds many of the students had never heard of this position nor had they ever heard of about 95% of what was presented including but not limited to the tools, terminology and concepts.

One of the take-aways that I learned from this presentation is that for this particular type of audience I need to go at a slower pace and explain the detail more thoroughly (laymans terms). But for the purpose of sharing my experience I have created these Screenr vids in 2 parts to take you through my presentation with them. I do apologize if the pace is too fast but I had 5 minute time constraints to abide by in Screenr and well, C’est la vie.

PART 2

Inside the Mind of a Community Manager, an infographic by Get Satisfaction.

Evan Hamilton: Why Community Managers Won’t Exist in 5 Years

Klout for Community Manager by Community Managers, by Mike Handy and Daniela Bolzmann

Buffer App Tutorial

My good friend, Matthew Gallizzi, founder of NotixTech and a mobile wiz recently had an overwhelmingly rewarding experience at a local coffee shop. Watch his video and follow along as he shares how Foursquare check-ins, bragging rights and Mobile all played a part in creating a memorable customer experience which gained a local coffee shop some extra exposure.

Some Important Take-Aways:

• Mobile Check-Ins are not going away, they are growing exponentially with the rate of smart phone growth
• Mobile Check-Ins by customers generate impressions to ones brand, Facebook Page and Website
• Rewarding for check-ins creates brand loyalty
• By the end of 2011, there will be more people with smart phones than with non-smart phones

Have you had any rewarding experiences checking-in at local restaurants or retail spots? Would love to hear about your Mayorships, Rewards and experiences good or bad, please share.

Scheduled Tweets are nothing new but BufferApp.com has found a way to make it human and unobtrusive from my daily activities. My Buffer App discovery happened with a single tweet a few weeks ago by @evanhamilton in which he said:

With an A.D.D. impulse I was immediately intrigued by this as I am with mostly all new tools that come through the twitterverse or like minded social media peeps. I instantly saw uses for this tool in my professional life and shared this enthusiasm with Evan who then introduced me to Joel, the founder behind this new favored tool of mine. After testing buffer for a week I became a paying customer and its only fair that I share why I am so enthusiastic about this new tool. So here is my review and a short tutorial for my clients who will be introduced to this tool from now on.

Why Buffer Works for Me:
At Work, my daily routine as a community manager consists of checking google alerts and reposting positive sentiment to our twitter account. For the accounts I manage at work I can get many google alerts per day. It would not be efficient for me stop what I am doing and repost when the alerts come through in real-time. I check every morning and post the great ones, at times that can be overwhelming for our followers and is not a good practice. In comes BufferApp, a tool that allows scheduling of tweets in 1 swift click. The power behind this tool is the chrome browser extension which makes adding tweets a breeze.

Note: I am not saying that this is all we tweet from this account, nor am I saying that scheduling tweets is a smart practice but for this activity it is the perfect solution. Tweeting great alerts from fans is our way to show support for those blogging about our brand. And because their are many people managing the Twitter account I can be sure that I am not the only one managing the feedback that comes in from the scheduled tweets.

Why Buffer Works for my Clients:
As a social media consultant I manage multiple accounts on a daily basis. Buffer allows me to add scheduled tweets for my clients as I am going through my daily activities and find something that might work for them or their brand. Buffer also allows me to show clients how to add their own tweets without having to use or learn how to use a Twitter Client like Tweetdeck that can be overwhelming for a newbie. For many of my clients I set up google alerts, so again a great way for them or myself to easily tweet their alerts by adding them using the Buffer extension.

In total I created 11 promotional videos, 9 of which were interviews with chefs, foodies and even the Mayor of Newport Beach, Michael Henn. We also ran a cross-promotion with Spa Gregorie’s in which (15) $100 gift cards were given out to Facebook fans who completed a series of clues. Below are the videos that we launched leading up to restaurant week.

Interviews

Long Promotional Video

In addition to the normal friends, family and the like, what I am especially thankful for this Thanksgiving is a my awesome loyal clients, amazing new job and new friends that I have met via social channels. A couple weeks ago was offered by a new friend Kyle Lacy an offer to submit a guest post on his blog available here: 6 Tips for Successful Cross-Promotion of Restaurants
In return I am giving another new friend Houston Neal a guest spot on my blog. Tis’ the season to give and I am happy to share space on each others blogs to help spread knowledge sharing.

Mobile commerce is driving the next major shift in retail. Cell phones are ubiquitous among consumers and smartphones are soon to follow. Retailers that can learn to harness mobile technologies now stand to gain a competitive advantage, especially when the economy flips. But, with new tech startups emerging on the scene every day, it’s tough to cut through the PR noise to find apps that really help drive marketing initiatives and sales.
Geolocation Apps (e.g. Foursquare, Gowalla) – Geolocation apps help retailers get increased exposure on social media and the web. Every “check in” gets pushed out to a user’s social network, which not only includes other Foursquare users, but Twitter followers and friends on Facebook. This exposure helps build brand awareness and ultimately generate more sales.

ShopAlerts – Developed by Placecast, ShopAlerts will deliver SMS text messages to consumers’ mobile phones when they enter inside the “geo-fence” or virtual boundary of a business. This has potential to be a sales-driving machine for retailers. Couple this technology with existing customer purchase information and ShopAlerts could be used to upsell and cross-promote merchandise. For example, a sporting goods store could send you an alert to pick up an extra pair of socks for the running shoes you just purchased.

Group Buying (e.g. Groupon) – Group buying websites have been hugely successful. Groupon has already won the title of “fastest growing company ever.” Their success can be attributed to adoption by both consumers and retailers. Consumers love it for the deep discounts. Retailers love it for the increased foot traffic – and sales – they’re getting at their stores

To continue reading, visit: 5 Mobile Technologies Retailers Should Be Using Now.

If you are a student in Southern California, this is something you should be taking advantage of:

The 140 Conference is coming to Los Angeles on October 4th and 5th and the creator, Jeff Pulver, is giving free entrance to the first 150 students. The #140conf events, take place all over the world and have taken place in: New York City, Los Angeles, London and Tel Aviv. These events explore the effects of twitter on a wide range of topics including: Celebrity, “The Media”, Advertising, Politics, Music, Education, Public Safety and Public Diplomacy. The conferences were created by Jeff Pulver with the belief that it takes just one person to make change and that giving speakers a platform to share their beliefs can effect others for the greater good.

Here is the link to the #140conf LA student registration page, at the bottom there is an option for FREE student tickets.

The format of the conference is fast paced, in order to provide a platform for as many people as possible to share their thoughts and engage in conversation. The #140conf events provide a platform for the worldwide twitter community to: listen, connect, share and engage with each other, while collectively exploring the effects of the emerging real-time internet on business.

Being of Peruvian descent, growing up with home made Peruvian food and having worked in a Peruvian restaurant through college I am naturally a lover of Peruvian cuisine. When a friend mentioned that a new Peruvian restaurant had opened within minutes of my office in Costa Mesa I was eager to try it out. DX Peruvian Restaurant quickly became my go-to for a Peruvian fix, so much so that I am the Mayor of DX on Foursquare.

Soon after, I introduced my parents and it was my mom who pointed out that they were on Facebook. Then, I came with friends from SMMOC, who pointed out a discount on Yelp. On another occassion, I woke up and decided to check my Twitter stream and there was DX Peruvian wishing everyone a Happy Peruvian Independance Day and while there was no offer given, it was still enough to get me to recruit my co-workers to have Peruvian with me for lunch that day. This string of events involving social media marketing at DX Peruvian prompted me to ask the owner Rashad to share his experiences marketing his new restaurant. My hope is that his experiences may help some other restaurant owners looking to use social media. Here is my Q&A with Rashad:

Daniela: How many hours do you spend per day/week using social media?
Rashad: not much really, a few minutes here and there daily for FB and twitter, I try to make it part of my routine, when things come up, or come to mind I post them instantly, I also reply to customer comments if needed as I see them. I use an iphone so I do most the updates from there – makes it easy. Also I snap photos & post them instantly as I see interesting things.

Daniela: How do you market your restaurant online? (ie: social sites, website, daily discount coupons, online ads, etc?)
Rashad: We are Off & on online due to budget, We signed up with yelp for a year and that was the biggest mistake and waste of money ever.  We use search advertising with google, and we advertise some on facebook, which I found very effective at targeting a specific demographic. We do some coupons off and on, online and in print, primarily to promote trial and build habit.

Daniela: Have you noticed anything significant as a result of using social media? (increases in business, increase in website traffic, increase in online engagement)
Rashad: Hard to tell, facebook helped early on because it allowed us to reach a niche clientele (Peruvian & south American) quickly, Yelp brings people in for sure, but that has nothing to do with anything we do, it’s customer driven. I can’t say with certain about google, but I do see the clicks so… What I can tell you though is that facebook and twitter allow us to stay top of mind with our core customer base, they also help build brand loyalty. Something that would have been probably impossible to achieve for a small business without them.

Daniela: Have you learned any tips worth sharing with other restaurant owners?
Rashad: Don’t try to be everything to everybody. Find your core customer group and go after them. Social Media, facebook, twitter, and google in particular will allow you to reach them very effectively in way that in the past was probably on available for larger brands with economies of scale.

DX Peruvian Restaurant
3930 S Bristol St
Santa Ana, CA 92704
(714) 424-0014
www.dxperuvianrestaurant.com
www.facebook.com/dxperu
http://twitter.com/DXRestaurant
New to the South Coast Metro area, DX Peruvian Restaurant is an authentic Peruvian eatery with the best Peruvian chefs north of the Amazon.
Our food is our number one priorty — it is flavorful, delicious and unpretentious — guaranteed to bring you back for more! Just about everything we sell is made from scratch. We make our own dough, our own sauces, and our own desserts. We use the best quality ingredients and buy all produce fresh from the local markets — all to provide our customers with an unforgettable dining experience. Come try one bite of our heavenly empanadas, lomo saltado, and alfajores and you will be craving us again and again.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how a local favorite restaurant had been mismanaging their Facebook Fan Page by setting it up and forgetting about it. They had received a customer complaint and weeks had gone by and no one had responded to the post. Well, there was finally a response. To my surprise the owner responded and completely mishandled the situation. Instead of turning this negative complaint into a positive and asking the customer for another chance the owner put all the blame on the customer, in the eye of the public no less.

The lesson here is that while all business owners probably want to put blame on the customer it is bad business to do so. Having a level-headed person managing your social media accounts is key. Just like you wouldn’t have your PR or marketing person insulting customers, you should make sure that you social channels are properly cared for as well. Would love to hear you response to this owners way of handling the situation. How would you have handled it?

Transcription

Joe Land (Customer): I went to 333 for the first time in May. Obviously I was wearing the wrong clothes and driving the wrong car. The “valet parking attendant” and the lady that seated me had an indifferent attitude to my presence. The waitress was ok, but did lack a genuine happy attitute. The food was good, but a little over priced. This S. California Native will not come back to 333 again.

Jeff Reuter (Owner): Joe, I seriously don’t think that any perceived reaction from the Valet, Hostess or Waitress had ANYTHING to do with what you were wearing or driving – it was most probably 100% YOU that they were reacting to! 333 is a local beach hangout that receives every conceivable type of person, dressed in every possible type of clothing and driving every car made. You admit the food was “good”, but over priced????? What int he hell were you expecting to pay sitting in a 10 million dollar restaurant on the water in Newport Beach; the average price for food is 12 dollars?!?!?!?!?! For a “So. Cal. Native” you are obviously completely out of touch – stick with the drive thru’s…