The Mistakes Restaurants Make On Social Media and How To Fix It!︱Restaurant Roundtable S02E01

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I got woken up on Saturday morning about twenty minutes
after you posted that the chili and the breakfast burrito
were back by my husband who said happy breakfast burrito
at Joyous to all who celebrate it's back.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Let's go get up.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Restaurant Round Table,
a podcast four Chefs by Chefs. My name is B. J. Lieberman,
and I am the chef and owner of Chapman's Eat Market,
Ginger Rabbit and here eights here in Columbus, Ohio.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
And I'm Shanika Shepherd.

Speaker 5 (00:29):
I'm the co owner of Marlow's Cheese Steaks located in Columbus, Ohio,
alongside with my husband Jamar Shepherd, who couldn't be here
today because he's down the New Orleans celebrating that big
wind at the Philadelphia Eagles head against the Chiefs.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
I'm Kate Choop and I own hay Cake.

Speaker 6 (00:47):
I'm Sharbaro, I am enjoy us, and I'm going to
hear a Columbus hier and.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
We will get to introduce our special guest today in
the second. But first, Kate has some statistics Therida.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Today's topic is an interesting one given does that say
that of us restaurant diners choose to visit a place
for the first time based on social media influence.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Since running your social media accounts can feel like another
separate job altogether on top of our already full time job,
we're so excited to share our insights with you today
and introduce you to our special guest to help answer
the question, what's the secret to making your restaurant the
talk of the town in twenty twenty Five's our special
guest today to talk about social media is Chad Rosenthal.

(01:31):
Welcome to the restaurant Table. If you could tell us
what you do and specifically how social media helps shape
your business.

Speaker 7 (01:39):
Yeah, Chad Roseenvhalt just flew in from Philly Gobert. I
watched it on my couch last night. Yeah, I own
and operate like you said, maybe some other restaurants. I'm
in a whole rebuilding thing, so I don't know what
my restaurants are right now. My newest spot that I'm
the chef in the kitchen is called Mary. It's in
a suburb of Philadelphia called Handler.

Speaker 8 (01:59):
Use a ton of social media.

Speaker 7 (02:00):
We use Instagram mostly, but use it a ton too,
you know, for our business, and that's what I do. Yeah,
I've been owned restaurants for eighteen years. I've done a
ton of food network work. Started out in the barbecue world,
you know, and uh, you know, I guess we'll.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Get to talk about that today. So for the main
course and where we start to get into the media
to topic, we'll break down some real strategies and experiences
that we used to put into practice at our restaurants.
So the first question for us today is what social
media do we use around the table and how does
that affect our business. We've talked about this a little
bit before, but I personally, personally and not in my

(02:38):
personal life a big fan of social media. But for
the restaurants, we mostly use Instagram as our as our
social media platform. We have a presence on Facebook, but
not a big one. Shanika, what do you guys like
to focus on?

Speaker 2 (02:51):
So we use Instagram and Facebook.

Speaker 5 (02:54):
Engagements are important to us, and we actually do it
more engagement on Facebook than we do want Instagram, which
shots a lot of people. So when it's time to
you know, boost posts, will boost them on Facebook because
that's where we get the most direction.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Historically, I have used or I have done social media
for multiple restaurants or businesses, and I focus a lot
more on Instagram than anything else. This year's been complicated
because I'm having a complicated relationship with social media and
I'm really trying to figure out how that works. I
know that there are several people leaving platforms. I don't
know that there are stats yet that will tell us that.

(03:37):
I don't really know how to reach some of the
people that are trying to check out at that, including me.

Speaker 6 (03:44):
I think I primarily use Vine. It's the best. I
remember that Instagram became our social media kind of traction zone,
but I started from a background of I like just
pictures and taking pictures, So I think initially when it
opened up, wasn't aware that it was a social media app. Actually,
because my name is Avatur on social media, it was.

(04:05):
It had just come out for Android back in the day,
and I thought it was a editing app, And then
when it opened it, I was like, why would you
ever want to share pictures with anybody? We had like
flickers and stuff for them, and then but it seems
to be the best integration for us for ease of
use and audience to like, you click and you see
this stuff. It's also backed with Metasuite, so for business analytics. Obviously,
Facebook and Meta gives you a lot more, which I think,

(04:28):
and then Instagram gives you like the attention. You know,
we just do a hybrid of those two. But we're
up into anything at this point. So you know, Chad,
how to use Instagram in your business or social media.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
I since the.

Speaker 7 (04:38):
Yeah, Instagram is well, we use Instagram. It's all connected
to Meta, you know, to Facebook. But I never look
on the Facebook, and I should.

Speaker 8 (04:47):
I don't do a good job of it. I'm in
a suburb of Philly.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
I feel like I only have Facebook so my mom
knows them alive. You know.

Speaker 8 (04:53):
It's like, I feel like Instagram's a little younger.

Speaker 7 (04:56):
Facebook's a little older, and I am in a suburb
where it's a lot of it's not You can't be like, well,
you know Philly, and you know Philly. It's not like Fishtown, right,
so you can't be overly cool, right and even.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
Have a cool restrat I wouldn't know how to do
that if I try it.

Speaker 7 (05:11):
They're yeah, we started the same way, just taking really
cool photos of being a chef of your food, right,
and then you learn that pictures aren't.

Speaker 8 (05:19):
Cool anymore, and now you got to do reels.

Speaker 7 (05:20):
But yeah, at all, Like I said, my new spot, Mary,
which is this little forty seater, I have no phone.

Speaker 8 (05:25):
We do have a phone number. There's actually just no
phone and that's because I forgot that.

Speaker 7 (05:29):
We opened it so quickly out of a pivot, out
of the pandemic, we got to put a phone in it. Yeah,
so now we just we literally we have an email
address and you know, obviously a link to a we
used to toast for reservations.

Speaker 8 (05:41):
We're still new, but it works for us.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
How what aspects of social media do you find difficult?

Speaker 7 (05:49):
Just finding time when we have all we all have
so much to do, finding time to like really sit
down and you know, reels.

Speaker 8 (05:58):
I don't know if you've figured it out from.

Speaker 7 (05:59):
The first like three minutes of this, how adhd I am.
It's like you gotta find a cool song it's trending,
right then you got to like make sure your video
is cool and you cut it down and you gotta
make sure there's something stupid in the background. It's like
putting all the pieces together. You can't just like be
quick with it, right. It takes and it takes time.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
So it's just finding the time to like make it happen.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
So do you manage your own social media?

Speaker 3 (06:20):
I do, and I don't like I do the best
job of it. But I've tried in the past, given
it to like someone younger.

Speaker 8 (06:26):
That works for me. It's but it's it's it always
takes well, what do you want me to say? You know,
what are you looking to do? And it takes fifty
more questions. I'm like, I'm just gonna do it.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
So I you know, I don't know if I do
the best job of it, but I do do it myself.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Now, how much time do you devote to it.

Speaker 8 (06:40):
As much as I can?

Speaker 7 (06:41):
I think the right way to do it is to
really get to schedule it and you know, really being
consistent with what you're doing.

Speaker 8 (06:47):
And I don't think I do a good job of that.
I think I need to do a better.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Job of that.

Speaker 5 (06:51):
So when we first ope it, I was doing it,
and then you know, we were new to being restaurant owners,
and then there were other things it we had to prioritize.
So we ended up hiring someone which was good. Fast
forward to present, you know, the lens of the landscape
of social media has changed so much. So to your

(07:12):
point about the reals and everything that goes into that,
that's something that we lack.

Speaker 7 (07:17):
It's hard to For me, it's hard to hire. I
think it's so important to have ownership. You're the owner
of the restaurant. It's hard to like relay that ownership
into your social media when you hire someone and keep
it feeling.

Speaker 8 (07:30):
Also, I try to hire someone once.

Speaker 7 (07:32):
I feel like when you're in your restaurant and you
see a cool dish, or you see someone cool come in,
or you see someone's birthday and they're having this cool moment, it's.

Speaker 8 (07:39):
Hard to get that stuff and you get this generic feeling.

Speaker 7 (07:43):
That was always my problem with keeping it feeling, keeping
it feeling like you want it.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
To feel like authentic.

Speaker 8 (07:48):
Yeah, and you need Bradley Cooper.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
For your social media. Is the purpose of it to
drive reservations?

Speaker 8 (07:58):
Are we talking about my personal or the restaurants?

Speaker 3 (08:01):
I think that That's another question I wanted to ask
is how do you tie the brand and your own
like personal brand together they separate. Is it something where
like you are such a part of the fabric of
your own businesses that they're together.

Speaker 7 (08:13):
Like they're together and separate, it's hard to like, you
gotta yeah, sometimes I'll put them together. I have a
bigger reach than the restaurant does because it's fairly new
your first question obviously, yeah, driver, it's a very small place.

Speaker 8 (08:26):
Can only you know, we have forty seats.

Speaker 7 (08:27):
We can turn them three times, so it's like great,
if we can get one hundred and twenty covers like
book through social media, awesome. I try to work some
staff into there doing some cool, fun things to show
we have a.

Speaker 8 (08:37):
Cool team, and it's you know, obviously show.

Speaker 7 (08:40):
What's on the menu, if we have any specials, if
something cool happen.

Speaker 8 (08:44):
I have such a small team. I have six people,
so I have.

Speaker 7 (08:46):
Like one one dishwasher, yeah who does prep work, and
he's awesome. You had a birthday the other night, so
it's like but finally, like cool ways to like show
that stuff, right, That is what I know.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
So I definitely want to follow back up on how
it affects your cover is but avish are you have
an interesting relationship with social media in that you are
both your restaurants like face and also your restaurants have
their own accounts, including a secret menu account, So how
do you use social media? And like, what's the like,
what purpose are you trying to achieve with social media?

Speaker 6 (09:17):
I think we're just now finding purpose this year. So
I mean, it's there's some shits to that. When you
start the thing, it's always marketing, budget whatever. You know,
you have these ideas of a way that's supposed to go,
and somebody will say this is what you should be doing,
this is what we want. And both Kate and I
have some experience in this, and I won't say where,
but you know, because we work together in some places

(09:37):
in the past. And it's a challenged because and to
your point, as an owner, if your voice is taken
from you and your voice is that of the kitchen,
or your voice is that of pastry or something, and
you don't get to express that voice, it comes off
on social media completely that way. Like you there's no
way you can hide that. It's just kind of one
hundred percent of that way. So we kind of snuck

(09:57):
our way into it.

Speaker 8 (09:59):
Sorry, social media you.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
Know exactly to do.

Speaker 6 (10:02):
So that's what you call an authentic moment.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yes, exactly for anybody they are now making social media
poste while we're talking.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
So I'm ash, are you trying to drive reservations with
your social media? You're trying to give general knowledge about
your secret menu? Like what is the ultimate goal of
you posting on social And I think the goal is
in what you just said. You said social media, right,
So we're using social media. It should be social media.
It's its own thing, right, everything that's it's enabling afterwards

(10:34):
ads reservations that's secondary.

Speaker 6 (10:36):
Actually, So if you start with the social media part,
then you can shape it however you like, right, But
if you don't have a good social media, then with
the hex point, like if nobody's if you take a
perfect picture, I nobody looks at it. And your goal
is obviously, if it's social, you want me to look
at it, right. I think people aren't focusing on that
so much. They're just like, hey, you know, this is
what I want to have a million followers and my
question to everybody that does it, and we don't have
that many. But I think our ratio is right where

(10:58):
we can see how our engagement is. Most people that
cutter stuff that coming into a restaurant and say hey
I saw that special, that's we have something to say
to them. So who if you have something to say,
then you build up that way. It makes a lot
more sense to me and saying I want to make
a viral video that's going to hit for two weeks
and then it'll caper back to maybe I got a
thousand extra, which is so great, but it's so hard
to retain that because inside you get greedy. You're like,

(11:18):
I want more likes, you know, I want more followers.
It's every single person. It's literally a dopamine. Yeah, I
mean yeah, psychologically it's designed to do. That's a that's
a platform, but we try to use it for the
way that's like, hey, is this expressing us to our
truest form, Because an absence of that, you have the
media you have been used talking about you, you have papers,
you have publications. Social media is your chance if you
want to be an owner to express yourself to the world.

(11:38):
To start with that, I think, and then go from there.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
How about UK, what's your what's your purpose of social
media when you use it?

Speaker 1 (11:45):
I used to own a space that really worked hard
to help other food businesses, and it was a lot
of telling other people's stories for them or helping them
tell their stories while also showing the process of opening
a business, and it was a really time consuming thing
and I invested a lot of my energy and time

(12:08):
into it. And I thought that was wild and fun
and it was almost therapeutic at the time. But I
found it really difficult to let that go, Like there
was definitely a point where I needed to hire somebody
else to do it.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
I couldn't get the voice to feel real. It didn't
feel like it was in the moment.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
A lot of it is just being in there and like,
this is a thing that stands out to me and
I want to share that. I also felt like there
was no distance between me the person and this thing
that I had done, and I really struggled with that.
I think I've said that multiple times over season one.
Social media is difficult because I want to tell the

(12:46):
story of the business, of the food of me, but
I also want to figure out how to be a
private person.

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah, I have a complicated relationship with it as well.
I'll never forget right. When we opened to As, I
had my personal account that was public, and then we
had the Chapman's account, and on my personal account I
posted something somewhat political and somebody literally wrote, shut up
and cook h on my thing. I was like, you
know what, I don't there's my personal life. So I
brought my personal account private, so I don't do anything

(13:15):
for the restaurants on my personal account. And I honestly
don't know if that's like the right thing from a
business standpoint, but I do feel like there needs to
be a separation of those.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Try years approached me and talked to my kids, and
I was like.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Oh, this isn't okay.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Yeah, And it's not that my kids were like a
total big part of the initial social media, but I
think if you let any detail about your life, how
you have to be prepared for people to have opinions, comment,
try and engage with it.

Speaker 4 (13:42):
And that's hard.

Speaker 7 (13:44):
If you look at my personal I have nothing. I
don't let's see my family, don't see my kids. I
just stay away from that and the political that's a whole.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Other talk saying that your personal account is more of
a business account than like your actual person do in
the food world, so it had out a purpose more
than just like so a lot of it can be
I mean, listen to the same thing.

Speaker 7 (14:06):
As your restaurant, my new one, Mary, it's me in
the kitchen with a soouo chef.

Speaker 8 (14:10):
We two, that's it.

Speaker 7 (14:11):
So it's you know, I put it online and then
you what's that call when you collaborate, Oh, collaborate the
restaurant all but I think it it's your way to
show people this is what it feels like here, not
just like we have a shot and a beer special
and a burger tonight.

Speaker 8 (14:26):
Because you've seen those social media accounts where it's literally
like AD it looks like ads, ads ads.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
It's yeah, it's like.

Speaker 7 (14:32):
This is really cool and it might not be for everyone.
And then that's social too. They know, doesn't look like mine.

Speaker 8 (14:36):
I don't want to. I don't want a dark, candle
lit restaurant like I. You know, I wish my audience
was more engaged. You brought up engagement. I think it's
so important my audience went.

Speaker 7 (14:44):
I had like fifty sixty thousand, and it was a
lot after I did Food Network shows and thirteen years
ago I was on Food Network Star and at that
time that was like their biggest show.

Speaker 6 (14:53):
It is no longer on the air.

Speaker 7 (14:54):
But then I after that, I started doing work with
Home Shopping Network and QVC, and I got a ton
of followers, a lot of these followers. I mean, their
demo is mostly like women that are like between like
forty and seventy in the middle of the country. And
that's great and I love you all, but they can't
help my restaurant ambler, right, And so you know, I

(15:15):
had to build a new following.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
So I have a mix of like a ton of locals.

Speaker 7 (15:19):
In the Philly area that you know, love me and
my food and the things that I do, and so.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
I try to utilize that for reach to.

Speaker 8 (15:25):
Connect to the restaurants, which I think is so important.
I want to be one of the people.

Speaker 7 (15:30):
That just like takes a picture and says something really
witty and then just lets it go.

Speaker 3 (15:34):
Then it goes viral, and then.

Speaker 8 (15:35):
It goes viral. But then you spell something wrong. Yeah,
I said something stupid.

Speaker 6 (15:39):
That is my uh.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
I do have a burning question that I've been thinking
about since we chose this as a topic, and this
might just be anecdotal on my part, so I want
to hear what everyone else I say about it. For Chapman's,
we do a lot of special events. We do a
lot of things that we change in the way that
we normally communicate that with the public is through Instagram,
social media, and it was in like twenty twenty one,

(16:01):
twenty twenty two. If we are going to do like
a Burger special, if we're going to do a guest
Jeff dinner, we would make one post on social media
and we would just sell out. It would be immediate, yo, right,
No other thought process went in through it other than that.
Recently it's been way harder. I don't know if it's
us being less popular or if it's social media behaving differently.
And that's kind of why I wanted to ask you guys,

(16:21):
if you've seen anything like that or I just suck.

Speaker 8 (16:26):
You don't know the combination.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
I think TikTok just kind of helped show how much
of what we're seeing is an AD, and sometimes that
just feels exhausting and you scroll past it. A lot
of people get their news through the app, and the
news doesn't make it feel great right now, I'm sure
you past it, but when you're scrolling past some of
those updates, I find it really.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
Disconcerting them to see the ad.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
I do think that Joya's does a really good job
with their social media because it feels like you're being
invited into like a home or unity that you've signed
up for. It just feels welcoming in a way that
doesn't feel like an ad. It feels like, well, there's
going to be some very punny stuff there. There's also
some like ask an engagement, like what would you like
to see?

Speaker 4 (17:11):
Kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
I think it's hard and I see again, I see
a lot of people taking social media hiatuses, and so
I'm not sure if there's just like the people that
we're showing up before, or maybe trying to get their
information some other way.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
I don't know what that is. I'm not helpful on
this one.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Sorry, either.

Speaker 5 (17:27):
It could just the time that we're in now compared
to you know, the twenty one and twenty two, Like
people they were dying to get out, like they're like
I have to be here, I have to be here,
and then.

Speaker 2 (17:39):
There are other options.

Speaker 5 (17:40):
And then when you have people going, they're getting like
inundated with this one?

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Has you know this place?

Speaker 3 (17:45):
Has?

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Does this place as this?

Speaker 3 (17:46):
Where?

Speaker 6 (17:46):
Do I?

Speaker 2 (17:47):
You know? I have to pick one? Where am I
going to go?

Speaker 8 (17:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (17:49):
How about you, Chad? You see any changing behavior of
people on social media one way or the other.

Speaker 7 (17:55):
I at a restaurant that I opened a beautiful barbecue
spot that I open like a week before the pandemic,
and the area just went like this. So you know,
I was either like let this thing fail or try
to do something. And I did this thing called the
Lucky Well Incubator, and it was a chef incubator for
like those folks that are in that like pop up
scene where you know, the chefs would be doing really

(18:17):
great things, but then they would they would you know,
pop up at a brewery or distillery or all this stuff. Well,
I gave them my kitchen I was, and I had
an application process and we brought four of them in
and it went. It went really great. But the only way,
all the money that they were bringing in were flowing
right back to them. For them, it was great. You know,
one guy, his spot just was up for a Beard
Award and like it went really really great.

Speaker 8 (18:39):
I feel like all that whole world has slowed down.
And I think you're right.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
I think it's like, you know, people were buying like
cocktails and like.

Speaker 8 (18:45):
Soda bottles, like all you know that crazy stuff.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah, and it's yeah, it's slowed down a little.

Speaker 8 (18:50):
In my specific restarten Ambler.

Speaker 7 (18:52):
It's it's still kind of hot because again, I'm in
a suburb of Philly, so you're.

Speaker 8 (18:57):
A little act with Yeah, the community.

Speaker 7 (19:00):
Yeah, it's a little bit easier I think to do
some cool things whether you're in downtown Philly where there's a.

Speaker 8 (19:06):
Thousand places you can go.

Speaker 5 (19:07):
Yeah, And I have a question I wanted to circle
big too about the no phone.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
I need you to go a little bit deeper into
the no.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Phont So my no phone's a little different than your
no phone.

Speaker 7 (19:17):
And I haven't even been to your spot, but you
have a cheese steak spot, right, no phone won't work
there because you.

Speaker 8 (19:21):
Got to you gotta.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
We don't take out, we don't take phone orders.

Speaker 8 (19:25):
Oh, so get rid of your phone.

Speaker 6 (19:26):
Get rid of it.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
I was like, I just like, do you get emails?
Like what did you have a phone?

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Like? Yeah, it's it's curious. So I have a staff of.

Speaker 7 (19:34):
Six people, right, I have like a general manager okay, chef,
a sioux chef, a dishwasher, and a couple front of
house staff that do everything.

Speaker 8 (19:41):
Well, can you greet you at the door? I have
no host hostess.

Speaker 7 (19:45):
And it's a really low lit, like sexy little spot. Right,
there was nowhere to put a phone on a host
of stand so the phone would be back in the office.

Speaker 8 (19:53):
No one would hear it anyway.

Speaker 7 (19:54):
When I've had a problem in the past, I used
to have a much bigger barbecue spot called the Luck
You Well, it was allowed.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
It was a blues club and a barbecue spot. It
was always loud. I had two hosts of hosts at
the drawer.

Speaker 7 (20:05):
They could never hear the phone anyway. It never got answered,
and that's when people got pissed off. Now I can
at least say I don't have a phone, I could
just phone. We do check emails for reservations, and we
have a reservation system through Toast that we connect with
our social media, you know, like link in bio make
a reservation, and you know, we do get a lot
of emails, you know, like I have a gift card,

(20:25):
but if you need to call someone about something, you
just do it from your personal cell phone.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Like we have people who will put like an allergy
that we can't accommodate in their thing.

Speaker 7 (20:34):
We write them back through Toast tables if it's yeah,
I mean if it's like a private.

Speaker 8 (20:39):
Party or stuff.

Speaker 6 (20:39):
And yeah, we use social for some things. But what
I find is challenging with connecting with our audience. To
your point is you have to have a back and forth,
a conversation with voice and tone. Because of an absence
of those, people will assume the work skate scenario generally
because they don't trust businesses as much these days. Yeah,
I guess what you see on these same platforms. It's like,

(21:00):
this is how you hatch, you put leer? Why are
you spending so much in a restaurant. These are the
same videos at go viral that we're trying to use
as our assets. So I encourage a diversity. I don't
think it hurts to do one, but I think it's
faragne specifically to exclude my parents because my parents don't
know how to use the internet, so sorry, who know
they came from before the generation. To exclude them this
actual becoming my restaurant because they don't have any Instagram.
I think that was challenging for me to accept them.

(21:21):
That's because initially we didn't have one, and my staff
is on board because they like, I don't want to talk,
you know, nobody wants to talk.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
Now.

Speaker 7 (21:27):
So I have a phone line, right, there's no phone
connected to it. Yeah, but I did set up my
voicemail and the voicemail says thank you for calling.

Speaker 8 (21:35):
Mary. More open four nights a week.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
If you have any questions, please please email info.

Speaker 8 (21:41):
At Mariambo dot com.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
Obviously, if we get to the point where they.

Speaker 8 (21:44):
Don't understand through email, which.

Speaker 7 (21:46):
Hasn't happened much, which is interesting, obviously we make calls
or if we're booking out a private party or renting
this space, or if there's a serious allergy, or if
there's a wheelchair accessibility thing.

Speaker 8 (21:56):
But it does.

Speaker 7 (21:58):
I'm trying to simplify everything in the stress because I've
had a ton of.

Speaker 8 (22:01):
Restaurants that were not simple.

Speaker 7 (22:02):
And then also if you have a lot of seats,
which I don't but I did in the suburbs, it's
hard to find staff. So you have to hire kids, right,
kids at the local high schools that are your hosts
and hostesses and you And to get back to your
point about like voice to voice, if you have a
seventeen year old high school kid, that's great and she's

(22:22):
the best. Ever, it's very hard to talk to No,
it's very hard to talk to an adult that's coming
out to spend a lot of money on a meal.
The conversations don't work, so I'd rather get that stuffy
email and if I have to make the call, it's
small enough.

Speaker 8 (22:35):
I'm guessing you have a bigger restaurant, you open more.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Nights and four nights a week.

Speaker 6 (22:39):
And we started off about before we I mean honestly
and on the other side of things, when we engage
in social media together at one of our restaurants and
we opened have the secret kitchen menu page, which was yeah,
even though on the order from there, like our fear
was like Somebody's going to come and be like, how
come I can't how come big on it? And I
didn't get it. The idea I think initially was that
we wanted stuff in small amounts that we could easily
sell out, so if somebody was to come to the

(22:59):
rest of the day that was already sold out by
seeing this thing in practice, we had to print out.
I think then we made this. Yes, we're like now
I'm seeing if we still carry it forth and we
have it at Joyas and right now and then we'll
do it as like an incubator or tester. So we'll
put a dish out there and the churn over is
so like we were saying you know how you're saying
emails are pastor in this case, it's not the case.

(23:20):
Soon as they post on social media, within twenty minutes,
someone will show up and our staff isn't prepared. Sometimes
it's like what you post and you didn't tell us,
so it's caused. And it's just always impressive to see
that it goes both ways. Certainly, maybe it doesn't get
one hundred that other people, but I guess fifteen number
regulars and they're like, yeah, you bought the chili back,
like what what, where's where's the chili?

Speaker 4 (23:39):
And totally I got.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Woken up on Saturday morning about twenty minutes after you
posted that the chili and the breakfast burrito were back
by my husband who said happy breakfast burrito at Joyas
to all who celebrate it's back.

Speaker 4 (23:54):
Let's go get up.

Speaker 6 (23:56):
It's like an energy too, Like you know, it's its
own personality, so I think we treated its And to
be fair, you two hundred thousand followers you on Instagram,
it's not you as a person. It's it's an identity
that you create, so you have to not get too
attached to it. Every single person that gets to a
certain peak and social media. You immediately know that you
have to disconnect. You can to a do you realize
you have to there's a present presentation that you're making,

(24:18):
just like an after You might know from the movies
the room, but you haven't even talked to them. So
it's very challenging to see when you go through that.
I would I never received any training of that, but
once I got back from top shift, they don't tell
you what to do. Once it goes like you like
I was trying to respond to every single person, it's impossible.
It's literally impossible to do. So it's uh, you learned
these things I think along the way, but you always
have to remember like it isn't you. It's maybe a
part of you, but it's not the whole picture. And

(24:40):
that's a picture. Like when you take a picture and
you have a good picture, you share the good picture.
You don't want to show the bad picture for your business, right,
maybe for your personal you can have it. For your business,
you want to show the good stuff. So that's the
best usage in our opinion for like our businesses.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Well, you brought up something really interesting that I want
to follow up on, and I think it applies to
all of us in a way, but you were saying
posting something that maybe your staff didn't know that you posted.
Or for me, I actually have a social media team
that we set like our calendar, and I definitely want
to dig into that about who how you guys manage
your calendar too, But like, sometimes we'll post something on

(25:13):
social media that our team isn't ready for, or they'll
put out a special and they don't tell me about
it quick enough that I can get it on our
social media thing. So how do you deal with basically
everyone getting the knowledge of what's going on and this
like amorphous thing that like doesn't have to do with
the business but affects the business like social media, because
I've found it really difficult to communicate with our entire team,

(25:36):
like what's happening in our like outward facing world that's
going to affect our inward facing world. Like have you
found that to be a constant problem or like I
wouldn't call it a problem.

Speaker 6 (25:47):
I think it's a misunderstanding or a lack of proper communication.
And it's hilarious because we just were talking about how
we have access to the world in our pocket ran
now and even with that because it's not a person
to person and stuff because you use hohonebase or whatever.
Oh I didn't check them out. Oh I didn't check
my text on marketing. You know, everyone always has a
reason as to why, and it's a valid reason. And
if you listen to the reason, it's because it wasn't
discussed together and there was probably some uncertainty, right because

(26:09):
they're now representing something that's the digital realm, and it's
the digital realm, it's permanent.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
So you don't want to be made to look a fool.

Speaker 6 (26:14):
By forgetting about as special that wasn't there, and so
they'll get defensive or say something like that. But what
we do now is we'll say, okay, before we can
go live on this post, we'll reach out to the managers,
and then the managers will be responsible to reach out
to everybody else, and then everybody else will go. So
the whole team is more or less informant. There's always
going to be one or two, but if you have
one person that can make up the difference. That's on site.
Just like if you're doing like health, if you have
a health department certificate and one person has it, they

(26:36):
can deal with or work with inspector, same sort of
idea with social media. I think you have to take
it just as seriously because you want big results, you
have to you have to treat it as such like
the scheduling. As you were saying, that's the one thing
that people don't get is you have to be consistent.
You can there's pages that just pust a picture of
an egg every single day and it's the same egg
and the same angle, but it goes to every day
for a year and they have like a million followers
and it's like it's there that it works is they
want you to have attention towards the product, right, that's

(26:58):
social media, it's attention to economy. So we know that
as a baseline. So how do we use it for good?
And I think the way that we can use it
for good is to share with our audience because like,
there isn't that to give them time to look to
add We're using it to say, hey, you got to
click on this thing anyway, so why not' you think
positive for something that's like, hey, it can give you
the in on our business. And as long as you
stick to those two tenants, like the rest, you can
be yourself completely and that's encouraged. But if you avoid

(27:21):
those and years go, hey, I want to focus on
this other video that got a million likes. How are
you going to make five of it? You make one,
it's not going to be enough. It's not going to
carry a business to the end. It might, but you've
seen just as much as you've seen people succeeding social media,
you've seen really successful people failing like weeks months. In
my eyes, it's not sustainable until you like understand what
you're kind of getting into. And it's like it's such
a powerful tool, but I think it has potentially be

(27:43):
abused and we shouldn't look at it that way.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
I mean, I know, you do your social media on
your own. You have a schedule you try to keep
up with, or you.

Speaker 8 (27:49):
A little bit more.

Speaker 3 (27:50):
I had a little Vietnamese sandwich shop.

Speaker 7 (27:53):
It was called Rosies that for a year. I loved it,
but it was literally I got out of my large restaurant,
which was the barbecue spot that I had for thirteen years.

Speaker 8 (28:02):
I wanted to keep a couple of people employed while
I was building my little spot.

Speaker 7 (28:06):
So I opened this spot called Rosie's, and I did
hire a team and They were great, and it was
very we're gonna do this. We're gonna do you know,
some guest stuff, We're gonna do some uh employee stuff.

Speaker 8 (28:17):
We're gonna obviously do your special.

Speaker 7 (28:19):
We had a me of the day am I, you know,
like it was like I guess walked in and we
had this one wall said like bomb me and I
had a and then we had a mini me for
the kid had. It was catchy, but I don't I
still feel it got by hiring someone else that is
not in the restaurant on a semi daily basis, it
didn't feel authentic to me.

Speaker 6 (28:41):
Do you think that there's a pathway to allowing correction
or like teaching someone how it like I do?

Speaker 3 (28:47):
And it really is it sounds like, you know, I
think if it's someone on your team.

Speaker 8 (28:52):
I had a firm and you know, they were like.

Speaker 7 (28:54):
A New Jersey and they would come in and we'd
take professional shoots and you know, maybe we'd do some
video shoots and things like that, and then you.

Speaker 3 (29:01):
Know, they would post it daily different stuff.

Speaker 7 (29:03):
It just felt very like, okay, today's the day when
we need the post about this, and then we'd you know,
text the whole staff, they don't have a good picture
of this, and it just started feeling like Not's just.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
The thing that I noticed and maybe I'd love to
hear if other people have had this. The more produced
the content I would put the more, the less engagement.
And also it definitely didn't hit with people. I would
think it was so exciting, like this is beautiful, and
people just didn't enjoy it as much. In some ways,
I feel like Instagram is more like the candid photo

(29:37):
than the professional I will hire.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
Sorry, you're speaking to something that drives me crazy. Where
we have found that the candid photos perform much better,
they drive engagement much better. So our social media team
has tried really hard to make these things feel not produced.
Our staff has serious opinions when we post something that's
not like a professional photo, like both come in. I've

(30:00):
like overheard them be like that post today was pathetic,
and I'm like, but.

Speaker 6 (30:05):
Even backing up to Stephen Moore, in the fact they
saw the post and there commenting on it is more
engagement than even caring abody this year, So the point
of it, right is right. So you see these shak
your account to see this comment, It's like I didn't
know that this person was this, or like, can you
tell me you know, uh, what was what was Michael
Jordan's whatever. It's it's an obvious fact, and they're saying
it like they don't know, because someone's going to hit
the like and then comment on it, and that continues

(30:25):
the chain. And that's how memorious attention to comy. Right,
you know, whether it's good or bad, that it has
potentially be abuse that way, but if somebody discussed it,
it's succeeded as a post correct. They don't actually have
to click anything. They stop their phone and scrolling and
it's moving. That's how reels work, right, because if you're
watching it, if you stop it, you're watching it, even
if you're not looking at your screen. If you stop
scrolling for one second and you got two seconds of attention,
which is that every second is the white bet real,

(30:46):
you've already got the engagement.

Speaker 8 (30:47):
The most engagement you can get is like, yum, we're.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
In a special last week and post about it online.
People specifically came in to get that dish, but because
it was a special one, we had no more small batch. Well,
we get to have our professional photographer with their DSLR
come in. We took an iPhone photo and that's what
it was. And like, that's what my point is. When
it feels more authentic that we didn't overproduce this thing

(31:10):
and says, hey, this is what we're working on today.

Speaker 6 (31:14):
When it comes to social media for your business, because
you're going to have perfectionist sub tendencies that prevents you
from getting onto posting the schedule. So you just have
to get over it. And also remember on the other
side of.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
It stuff it's attacking me.

Speaker 6 (31:23):
It's social media. So if you think you're so important
that someone's going to remember what you posted fifteen seconds
after they saw it as post as the semon is
got to and fifty times. Like if you even just
compare it to or three or five of us, we
all have someone's going to scroll see it and they're
going to go on their day, right, So what you
need to capture it just make you make a very
good point. Show what you want to show, don't show
what you don't want to show. Just show it and

(31:44):
put it out there and if it sucks, it keeps
going forward.

Speaker 7 (31:49):
The best photographer in Philadelphia come in and take like
barbecue photos and you know, I think they're great for
your website, for websites and stuff like that.

Speaker 8 (31:57):
But but and then you're.

Speaker 7 (31:58):
Like, this is the greatest picture I put it on
my Instagram, and then like you get no light.

Speaker 6 (32:02):
And you can't be mad about it because it doesn't
really like that's your own ego saying this is the
greatest picture on Instagram. You think Instagram doesn't have some idea,
but the greatest pictures for Instagram, Like it's it's already yeah, yeah,
well iPhone is is good.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
Have you guys a messed around with meta ads at all?

Speaker 8 (32:15):
I haven't.

Speaker 6 (32:16):
I had to learn more before I get.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
It a digital marketing team, and this is something that
we've recently gotten into that I think is a cool
thing to just share because I'm obviously totally inept when
it comes to social media. But my luckily the team
that I hired isn't. It's really interesting because essentially what
you do is you set up a purpose of this
ad you say, and it'll ask you what do you

(32:38):
want to do with this? It's really it's interesting how
it all works. And then over the course like three months,
you get all this data and then you can then
you actually start really being able to run the ad
the first three months or a total data collection time.
We've seen a ton of new followers off of this
trial period that we're going through with like the learning
and they call it the learning phase for metads folks

(32:59):
at home, if you have a business, it's a really
interesting thing to go through this, this meta process of
understanding your audience a lot better.

Speaker 6 (33:08):
Yeah, I think one of I have some I would
say probably higher engagement chefs who have become one would
say a social media influencer before I was kind of
a term and they were speaking about when I was
asking him because you know, I had to be curious,
and he was pushing into his like make sure you
activate meta right away. Is like I use so I
used TikTok and Instagram to do these things and it's
got me, you know, like all the collaborates I may

(33:30):
want is in a career path. Actually, but he said,
the Facebook or the meta suite is what you want
to engage in actively because it's designed as a marketing
tool for the demographic of people like you were saying,
your grandparents, your parents, like my mom, she will be like, oh,
I saw this ad for this thing that you can
put on the dog and his joints will be healed.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (33:47):
Remember your parents when he just watching commercials And to
your point, KEPC, like that is your audience, ye or
less on?

Speaker 3 (33:52):
My dad orders stuff off of Facebook ads all the time. Yeah,
so clearly it's working.

Speaker 6 (33:56):
Yes, yeah, we can INCLI really want to, but it
does a very good job getting what it wants to
get done. And we know the marketing is the purpose
of adapt So for our businesses, why not tap into that.

Speaker 3 (34:06):
People love you when you're being our authentic self or
making fun of.

Speaker 6 (34:09):
Somebody else, which is my So.

Speaker 7 (34:12):
Authenticity I think is so important with I kind of
hit it on the head and I want to check
out your Instagram when I leave here. But it's not
there's no there's like there's a restaurant in Philly and
fish Down called Middle Child.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
They like best like breakfast sandwich, like in the country.

Speaker 7 (34:27):
I think they want to think it's insane what they
do on social media. It's really authentic. They get in
trouble a lot on it. They say whatever the hell
I want to say. More people like it than not.
But they're in fish Down. It's like a super hipster area.
I'm in the suburb of Philia. I need to kind
of like be cool without being too cool, you know,
right for us.

Speaker 6 (34:46):
It's easy, I think what it sounds like cool interrupt.
Everybody is aware this is with social media. It sounds
like you need to know your audience because it sounds
like you know your audience, sounds like familiar audience. So
if you know your audience, then the next step is
to connect with them on social media, like going at
pust what would be appropriate for your audience. Yeah, I
think that seems to be maybe the best pathway of
growth for sustainable growth rate.

Speaker 8 (35:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
There's another little tip or trick I want to throw
out there that I just found out about. And I
think I've mentioned this to the group before, but if
you have a database of emails through your resume or whatever,
you can actually load them into meta and if someone
has a profile associated with that, they'll pull all the
data of like who those people are and amalgamated so
that you know, like, like we have this little pocket

(35:26):
in Bexley, that's a suburb here in Columbus where we
know that that is a strong demographic for us of
people who like come into the restaurant. It's wild because
you just put the emails in it pops up like
this is where you should be marketing, this is your
target group. And it's really wild how all this stuff works.
But there's all these tools at our fingertips, but it's like,
how do you use them? And to your point, how
do you stay authentic while also trying to market directly

(35:50):
to your audience.

Speaker 5 (35:51):
The shop that you mentioned that's in Fishtail, yep, that
does the BLT. Yeah, and how they're able to be authentic,
Like that's great, but there are also some places that
can't be their authentic self. So I'm from Philadelphia, my
husband's from Philadelphia, born and raised Inner City, and yes
we have cheese steaks, but like in our restaurant in

(36:13):
gh Hannah, because of where we're located, you know, we
want a divers group of people to come in, which
that location. Definitely, we're one of the most diverse restaurants
in downtown Gahanna, which is great, that's what we want,
but we have to there's so many other things that
we have to be like cognizant of. So there was
someone who posted about Warrios is another cheese steak spot

(36:36):
out here too, how they walked into one of their
shops and there was a I think it was a
Kendrick Lamar saw that was playing well. That was widely received.
But if we were to do that, the type of
comments that we would get would be like insane, Like
we could never have Kendrick Lamar playing meaning like the unexplicit.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
You know Verion.

Speaker 5 (36:59):
We just can't hand a guy in because we would
get stereo type which sucks because we that's our culture, right, Yeah.

Speaker 8 (37:06):
I mean that was the one I was trying to
make him fish down. It's almost like, you know, these
are a bunch of hipsters and.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Everyone gets it and got to know your audio, your audience.

Speaker 7 (37:14):
I'm in a suburb and you know there's some there's
a couple of wealthy towns, and then there's it's very diverse.

Speaker 8 (37:21):
That's one thing about social media.

Speaker 7 (37:22):
It's like you could still be really funny and be yourself,
but you also still need to think, Like.

Speaker 6 (37:27):
You can ask her about the proof reading, like it's
the first thing is fast, and then it takes three
hours to make sure that I didn't told anything that
could be perceived in a certain way because.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
She did a certain way. Spelling is challenge what's behind
you in the kitchen, like what.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Does everybody else can pulsively read their posts like an
hour later and find three things you wish you had changed.

Speaker 6 (37:47):
That's why the.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Yeah, so with social media being a global thing, but
our purpose is to to like win our neighborhood. How
do you use social media to whin your neighborhood? Especially,
like you said, a large portion of your followers aren't
even in your neighborhood, So how do you grill down?
You know?

Speaker 8 (38:08):
I think I think that's that's a great point.

Speaker 7 (38:09):
I mean, you know when your neighborhood, or when you're
in Columbus, Ohio, or I connected with my restaurants, like
we talked about, I think your your what do they
call that, your profile is so important because let's just
say you post something and it goes viral and they're
in the middle of the country or they're on the
West coast. You want those people to know who the
heck you are, where your restaurant is, and why they

(38:30):
should go there if they ever come to Columbus, Ohio,
or hey, my aunts in Columbus, Ohio, shoot the profile,
or like I was in Philly and said to a
friend of mine, where should I take my son for dinner?
And I only shot me some Instagram links. I think
that's so important, you know, for my local restaurant accounts.

Speaker 8 (38:45):
It's great.

Speaker 7 (38:46):
I posted a really cool video of me making French
onion soup, right and I got a million.

Speaker 6 (38:53):
It went viral.

Speaker 8 (38:54):
It doesn't really matter if you said it.

Speaker 7 (38:56):
If I get one hundred likes and I get fifteen
people that come out in my neighbor, I mean that's.

Speaker 8 (39:01):
Then you're then you won. So the viral thing's fun.
It's good for your ego. I have teenage kids. It's like, hey,
your dad's got some likes on the college campus.

Speaker 7 (39:11):
You know, But it doesn't really matter. It's like, but
I do think that profile is very important. You know,
it can it could be funny and it could be witty.
But also it's like that link in.

Speaker 8 (39:21):
Profile, you know, what do you do? What did you
do cool? You know, you know a top chef, But
where's your restaurant? What are the hours? I think that
stuff so.

Speaker 7 (39:32):
Is so important to like have that stuff updated and clickable,
and if you're more of a takeout spot or something,
be able to go right like click it and one
click you're at like I'm gonna order a cheese steak.

Speaker 6 (39:45):
And already made the come before you.

Speaker 8 (39:46):
Yeah, fride onions. You know whatever.

Speaker 7 (39:48):
Great if you go viral, great if you get a
trillion follows and all that stuff, But like, at the
end of the day, how's that gonna How's that gonna
make me more successful in my town? And and you know,
bring people to my restaurants or.

Speaker 8 (40:00):
And five more cheese sticks.

Speaker 6 (40:01):
I think we'll see this as a way you look
far to somebody that has a lot of pollowers, A
lot of my friends also, they're always trying to find
a way to keep up with Like it's not like
a trillion poll ar solved anything from them. Now there's
now they're stuck in a place where if they don't post,
they're getting screamed at. Now their entire life has changed,
and not necessarily like they're having they're this sort of
folks that not to go on social media breaks and
that their branks are pretty serious because it's their occupation

(40:22):
and be like taking eto and social media and it
was supposed to be fun, right, and now they're no longer.
Just like with the restaurants, you could get home you're
enjoyed you have a restaurant, if you seek together, make
sure that you have the support system, and that's like friends, family,
these things are no matter what it is, it's very
important to have have that in it because it by
itself does not solve anything. It's what you do with it.
But again, knowing the audience, styling in on that, torquing

(40:43):
down to them, and taking the time to know when
you're when your active audience is engaged. So if it's
people that are working onto five jobs, why you post
a two pm unless you know it's like lunch break. Great. Yeah,
that timing is literally it's dictated by when this person
elects to pick up that phone. If they don't pick
up that phone, it stops my work.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
Kate. Kate has another stickatistic to lob at the group.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Thirty percent of millennial diners will actively avoid restaurants with
a weak Instagram presence and so potentially, but maybe that
means be consistent and authentic and have a strong call
to action. I think a strong called action is the
thing that has spoken to me the most. Listening to
your stories all of you, like, what is it I
want from somebody? Do I just want to tell them

(41:23):
about me, or do I want them to engage in
some way?

Speaker 6 (41:25):
What do you all look for, like when you if
you're scrolling on this thing, what is it that excites you?
Or like, what do you want out of something that
keeps your christ George Shanek and I.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
Were just say, yeah, we're both millennial.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
Older mild Yeah, and I think they probably our behavior
is a little bit different than younger millennials. Yeah, but yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Don't go to hi everyone. I'm not going to Instagram
to look at the page. I'm going to the menu.
Then I'll check out the reviews.

Speaker 6 (41:51):
No.

Speaker 8 (41:51):
No, I think it's a mood thing. I look at
like a vibe like Wow, this place looks really freaking cool,
and then.

Speaker 7 (41:57):
You click through to it and go, wow, this guy's
dish are great, Like look is cool, and then you know,
maybe look at some comments.

Speaker 8 (42:03):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (42:04):
I feel like there's boring instagrams and there, and for me,
those are just like, by the way, I could be
the best restaurants of the country probably at boring instagrams.

Speaker 8 (42:12):
You know, It's like.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
It might be anecdotal, but I think I have had
today answer. No, I have potentially an answer to this question.
Based on something that our manager here at ginger Rabbit
told me recently. And she's in the younger millennial category, right,
and she was giving me feedback on our Instagram here
at ginger Rabbit, which is a very inclusive place and
it's our stated goal to be inclusive here, and she said, listen,

(42:35):
when I look at our Instagram, I don't see myself
being represented in your place. And that's what I look
for when I go on people's social media is I
want to know that I will be accepted and that
I'm a part of like like that this is my scene.
So from an identity standpoint, that that you fit people's identities,
and I think that that is actually probably closer to

(42:56):
the answer of this question. Is that what we are
projecting out into the world this inclusivity and the ability
for someone to know that they're going to feel comfortable
in our faces, and that's something you actually need to
consciously make an effort to do if you are not
being your most authentic self, which I think that that
was her point, and she's like, I know you really well.
I know what we're doing here and we are inclusive,

(43:18):
but our social media is almost like stepping over a
line where it's not actually who we are. We're posting
things that are that aren't like authentic to us, which
I think and.

Speaker 6 (43:27):
I think that's why I think we were all kind
of in agieven with When you say the word weak,
what does that mean? The reason I'm trying to find
it is to say, the people that have multimillion dollar
marketing budgets correcting and they just throw money at something,
it doesn't make their page stronger because they have a
million followers, that's still a weak page in my eyes.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
Right.

Speaker 6 (43:44):
That's what I'm not interested in is maybe a millennial
who's on the younger end of stuff. Is I do
what's called Because I have a science background, I need
a quick research. So I'll click on the one. Okay,
I click on that. Now I'll look at the history.
Are they keeping up for as a great kid? Is
it clean? And the picture's okay? Are they it is
going to hit on the grid? I think, yeah, there?
Does it look okay? And it doesn't have to look perfect,
but it's like if it doesn't look good, I'll click
on one and it's a captain good? Hey, are they
talking about something? Or maybe it's somebody that's just trying

(44:06):
with the herd and they don't know. Like you can
tell if somebody is trying or not, right, I think
you all can see, like a is this a voice
that's coming out of here or is it just saying
two for one for this beer? Or if they're passionate
about two for one for a beer and they post
two for one beer every single day, that even they
can get creative with that, right, Yeah, And that can
be a blurred out of focused picture as long as
it's always blurred out of focus. Good example, Martha Stewart
and David Chang to people that are pretty well known

(44:27):
in the world. If you looked at their pictures and
how bad objectively and quality they were, but how good
their voices, Like it's is that a weak one try?
I don't know, but I think it's interesting to see
that the legendary Martha can take one out of focus
and think it's a lot more engagement than anything that
we could do.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
And I think when I think about week, I think
about well, like you walk in a store or a
restaurant and sometimes you can just smell the desperation already,
and I think you can get some of that on
social media, and you were saying two for one specials
if it's you can tell when when somebody's desperate for
customers in a way that doesn't feel good.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
I mean the whole industry right now. Yeah, I know
what you mean though, Like it just feels like everything's
for sale.

Speaker 4 (45:03):
Yeah, but they don't.

Speaker 6 (45:05):
Have it a week friends, the marketing sid where it's
like now it's a you can see that you did
pay for only ads and you didn't post. If you
just do boosted posts and you have one posted to
keep boosting.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
But this conversation does make me think of one thing
you were talking about, how specials you would sell out
right away. You have people coming in right away, And
I think something that might be interesting that I should
consider is treating my regular things as specials because they don't.
I've seen them a million times, I've thought about them

(45:35):
a million times. They feel like they've been forever. But
people looking on social media might treat it like a special.

Speaker 6 (45:42):
I've seen some pages and it seems representative in your
mind of like, hey, we are living in a contemporary time.
So if you don't have your stuff together enough to
even devote some attention to this to say that it's
a valuable tool or it can be used as such
that certainly shares and you just feel like I don't
want to be here. However, I will say, with a
lot of my local paper Chinese restaurants, do you think
that like it's it incurred? But I see anything like yes,

(46:05):
like it's it doesn't have to be like it can
just be a picture of the menu blurry and I'm like,
they did something and it just reminds me that it's
it's time to go there. So I'm yeah, I call
that a poke, like when we're just reminding people that
we actually exist in this world.

Speaker 8 (46:18):
Well, we'll talk.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
About this a few times. You need like three pokes
before you're gonna even look into this thing.

Speaker 6 (46:23):
Yeah all right.

Speaker 5 (46:24):
Uh, it's a new year and we're back for a
new season, so we wanted to shake things up a bit.
We have a new concept. It's our test kitchen, brainstorm
and sessions. We want to hear from everyone in the
group how you would attack this scenario. Okay, you're partnering
with an influencer to create a dish that you hope
will go viral on social media.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
How would you do it? We want to hear from
you chick about what I do it.

Speaker 6 (46:49):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (46:49):
I think I'd let the influencer kind of create the dish.

Speaker 8 (46:53):
I think people are.

Speaker 7 (46:53):
Tuning in to see that influencer. You know, they always
come into the restaurants and they do their influencer thing,
and which is pretty amazing, you know, especially like my age.
I remember in the beginning, I was like, influencer, it's
just influencer. Well, it's free food and stuff. And then
you're like, they get a million views and their phones
are ringing off the hook. So but it'd be fun
to watch them cook. So have them create the dish

(47:15):
and come into your kitchen. So have them, Yeah, have
them create the food and or you create the food,
have them cook it.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
And I wonder if they would really be able to
do it.

Speaker 6 (47:24):
I think we can preconceived dishes. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
I think I'd probably treat it the way that i'd
treat our regular menu R and D, which is to
ask people what their childhood favorite dishes and then and
then riff off of that, like specifically, what is it
that you love about that dish, and try to make
something that feels personal connection, homie, like you get to
know the person a little bit better through eating this food.
So I think that that's how I would tackle it.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
So how would you measure the assessed of it?

Speaker 3 (47:50):
Oh gosh, how do you measure the success of any dish?
The p miix? I guess people ordering? Yeah, I mean,
I don't really know how to measure this to sale, right, Yeah,
I think it'd be cool. Uh.

Speaker 6 (48:01):
You know, you have two audiences that you're bringing, and
even with the influence, if they're coming to you, they
want to expand their audience as well. So I'd be
aware of that and see what they were looking for,
and then they could see what we were looking for.
And as much as I look to say that, you know,
we haven't as preconceived nurse and that someone is two
good or two, but everyone's steaming at the end of
the day. So I'd appeal to that side and see
if we could create some authentic content, because you know,

(48:22):
I want to see it influence them too, Like I
want to see if I can do that. That would
be awesome because why else would be coming They're just
coming from Mark and they're not a true influencer. Join
Flinser has some following in an audience, so I would.
I think I'd lean into that and see what comes
next to you know, like I'm not gonna have to
make a dish or anything. I would just be like cool.
So normally you cook on an irn board or something, Well,
maybe I'll try cooking on an iron board. I don't know, like,
you know, it's it's exciting. I think, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
I think I'm going to let Chad make all of
my influencer partnership.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
All right. I have a question for everyone. Has there
ever been a time where somebody's post on Instagram actually
worked on you? Where you saw something You're like, I
need to go to that restaurant or buy that that thing.

Speaker 4 (49:00):
Yes, oh yeah, okay.

Speaker 5 (49:02):
I'm a big fan of Leachi Martini's. You cannot get
them every place you go. I was on vacation in
South Beach and I just typed in Leechi Martini and
Prime one twelve popped up.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Went Junior was amazing.

Speaker 5 (49:17):
It was one of the best Leech Martinis I've ever hit,
and they gave me extra leachies.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
Most places don't do that.

Speaker 6 (49:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
My family knows very well that I like to travel
and find places to eat, and we'll tend to go
on bakery sprees or restaurants sprees, and generally they're entirely
inspired by what I see on Instagram. There are some
like I'm currently working through where I'm going to go
when I go to New York City next month, And

(49:46):
there are several bakeries that just have flavor combinations I
haven't seen that are really interesting to me, or they're
doing something just a little bit different and I'm interested
enough to go try.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
I was grocery store when you're hungry, sometimes you shouldn't
go on Instagram when you're hungry, and there was a
somewhat famous influencer came through town and rated our pizzas here,
and there was a place called Sexton's Pizza that was
very highly rated, and I saw that post when I
happened to be really hungry, and I just instinctively went
to the order now button and ended up with the

(50:18):
sex and pizza and it was very tasty. So that
other time I got got by social media and delicious results.

Speaker 6 (50:25):
I think that there's been a couple of times in
the past, which again I'll try to the more mention games,
but there's been some accounts that were interesting and they
were similar chef owners places, and then I was just curious,
so I sign a question in the DMS and I
received a response, and it seemed like, man, this person
is so busy they still have the time I respond,
and so seeing that it inspires me to try to
respond as many people as possible too, because it seems

(50:45):
when you get a direct line to somebody, because like
you know, like Twitter, you can tweet us some med
but with like Instagram, when it initiates an actual conversation,
and that was really cool, Like it's really nice to
know that there is a person behind that branch.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
How are you, Jed?

Speaker 7 (50:57):
I only respond to things that have ketchup, but yeah,
kind of the same thing. You know, we work a lot,
you know, if we could get a night off. I
think I respond to chef owners that are doing something
outside of what they usually do in the restaurants, if
they're collaborating with you know, like YouTube guys, or doing

(51:20):
something off menu, or doing something cool at an off site.
I think I use social media to find it where
you know, food people are doing cool things.

Speaker 3 (51:28):
It's time for a favorite section. Overrated, underrated, Kay take
it away.

Speaker 6 (51:37):
Mixing things up.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
We are going to do this, I'm going to read
out a series of.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Social media related activities and just let me know how
you feel about them paying for ads.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
I just shared today that we are doing that ads,
so I have to say that it is underrated for
and I wouldn't have said that three months ago.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
So running contest or giveaways underrated.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
We do at the beginning of every month a giveaway
for dinner for two. But you have to follow us
and like us and tag your friend or whatever, and
we pick up about four to six hundred new followers
every month doing that giveaway. And all we have to
give away is one free dinner, generally to someone who's
never been to the restaurant before, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
I think it's underrated too.

Speaker 5 (52:19):
So we we tried the contest last year for National
Cheese Steak Day and that was probably the best contest
that we've ever done, and we gained about sixty new followers.

Speaker 6 (52:32):
From the National Cheese Steak Day.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
March twenty third.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
I want to celebrate this seie.

Speaker 8 (52:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (52:38):
I haven't done it in my new spot yet. It's
a lot of text. You gotta tag all your friends.
I don't have many friends to work all the time, right,
So it's like, I gotta think, who am I going
to tag?

Speaker 3 (52:48):
No?

Speaker 6 (52:49):
I think it's nice, don't.

Speaker 7 (52:50):
I don't like doing too many giveaways because then I
think it starts.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
Feeling like that everything's for sale kind of thing again.

Speaker 8 (52:57):
But it sounds like it's working for years. I might
have to try it.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
Responding to every customer review, Yeah.

Speaker 6 (53:02):
I always say I started off over, but now I
think I'm under because I think the stats are true.
I think the what I got from our staff was
very good. We have a lot of gen z here.
In the next after that, they brought up a good point.
Why are we giving the giveaway to the people that
are on the Instagram? Want to give them the culinary
students or donate And so what we do now with
the giveaways is we put it so like a culinary
student can get a free dinner. Also that and that's

(53:23):
pretty like that gives a return, so you get both
of it.

Speaker 4 (53:26):
Responding to every customer's comment.

Speaker 3 (53:29):
Or review underrated because it's positive.

Speaker 6 (53:32):
I think I talked about before, but positive reviews need
responding to, and we focus on the negative ones. What
you should respond to you too, because they probably got
there because somebody didn't talk about put her out there
to or if they're competitors, then you can take that
and put it on the inter end. Be like, look,
this person from this restaurant top shit about me on
public and he didn't realize that everybody's going to find
out because you have an iPad or sencond track. So
be careful, guy, be very careful.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
I just started doing something to be talked about this before.
Every time that I respond to negative review, I take
my time and respond to five positive reviews. You can't
respond all the reviews. I think it's underrated.

Speaker 7 (54:05):
I think you should respond to all reviews negative and positive.

Speaker 8 (54:09):
And I do not, but I should.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Gets underrad it.

Speaker 5 (54:11):
I don't respond to all. I do think that it's
something that I should do.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
I just need to make the time.

Speaker 6 (54:18):
I also, but I also.

Speaker 5 (54:19):
Do encourage people that when you do put out of review,
whether it's good or bad, more so the bad ones,
and you get a response from whether it's the manager
or the owner, then take the time to respond back
to what that person is saying.

Speaker 6 (54:34):
Anchorage. She all randomly pick some staff people to respond
to it because you always want somebody else to do it.
You never want to do it. So I say, hey,
this is a person who took fifteen minutes und the
day to write you. Would you write back to them?
And so we have our staff respond to them too, all.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Right, And that brings us to our final segment to
take out, where we are going to go around the
round table and talk about our parting thoughts. Are our
biggest takeaway from this conversation, sad As you are new
to the roundtable, what is your big is takeaway from
this conversation?

Speaker 7 (55:02):
So my takeaway from this, you know that authenticity of
your social media I think is the most important thing
to especially when you're starting out with a new restaurant
or you're the hot spot in the neighborhood. I think, yeah,
I think that authenticity is like when you look at
that grid, right, it's like, does that feel like what
it feels like when you walk.

Speaker 8 (55:22):
In your spot? But yeah, being authentic?

Speaker 3 (55:25):
What about you, b Jick? My biggest takeaway I alluded
to it earlier, but it's it's in the same vein
and is making sure that we're not just like posting
things or doing ads for the sake of doing them,
but actually trying to show off something that's like authentically
us with the restaurant, and I think we could do
a better job with that, mate. I agree.

Speaker 5 (55:43):
I wonderful being an intentional with what you're posting again,
just a piggyback off of what you two said, just
staying true to who you are, who the brand is.
And then you know, I don't think you have to
post every single day, but when you do post, just
making sure that it's meaningful.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
I think for me, I want to make sure I'm
having a conversation. I liked when Abasha was talking about
how this is social media and we should be social,
and I liked that kind of with intention being a
little more social in it.

Speaker 6 (56:16):
Two things. One was, yeah, maybe overthinking is not the
best thing. Sometimes when you build some beginn you're there,
the tendency is to, oh my gosh, I thought, we're here,
what we're going to do when we like to lose it?
You know? But I do not think that way and
just keep going for because that's originally why you start
in the first place. Then secondarily, I think what I
learned from this was it's almost like when we are

(56:36):
chefs of restaurants, we feed our guests the menu and
the same with social media posts. We need to feed
the audience that way too, So think about the audience
that it's going to try to do your best and
accept that there'll be some mistakes along the way in
just try.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
If you like what you heard in this episode, please
follow us on social media. Our links will be in
the show notes and leave us a comment and we
might even read it on our next episode of Restaurant
round Table and you can all of us Avashar, myself, Kate,
Shanika and our special guests Chad also on social media.
What are your ats for people to follow you?

Speaker 1 (57:09):
Chef Chad Rosenthal, you have a bringing question that we
didn't answer today. Are you just hungry for more? A
Restaurant Roundtable makes to subscribe to craft tigns Away from
Home newsletter at craft Times Away from Home dot com.
By subscribing, you'll get exclusive access to special pulls, content

(57:30):
and promotions.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
Visit craft Times Away from Home dot com to help
you elevate your business. Links are in the episode description.
Don't miss out. It's the perfect recipe to stay ahead
in the industry. In the meantime, you can find Restaurant
Roundtable on Spotify, YouTube, and social Media. Thanks for joining us, Chad,
this is really delicious. Yeah, and I hope we have

(57:52):
you back sometime and love looking forward to also getting
Jamar backwkness and so.

Speaker 6 (57:56):
I'm sure when you come back we'll have a lot
to catch up.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
We're waiting for that.

Speaker 6 (58:02):
We get one fund An episode there it is

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The Mistakes Restaurants Make On Social Media and How To Fix It!︱Restaurant Roundtable S02E01

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