Mobile Stats you Should know

As you know, I spend way too much time reading online guides and references, but what I can't escape is this: More people are using phones to hit the internet.

I know, I know, you've heard this all before, but what does this mean?  Well, read on, and I'll condense 100's of hours of technical reading to a few short facts for you.

As it applies to a bar/restaurant, it's important to remember:

1. What are people searching for?
2. What information do people need to come in to my bar?
3. What sites are they using to do this?

STOP. Think about this for a minute and I think the answers will become clear to you...

Now, let me back this up with what we think are the answers at ThriftyHipster, the stats that prove it, and what you can do to respond and capture these patrons.

SOME MOBILE FACTS

1. 70% of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour (Source: Mobile Marketer)
1. On ThriftyHipster.com, 92% use the site the day of going out, most go out within the hour.
2. 91% of all U.S. citizens have their mobile device within reach 24/7. (Source: Morgan Stanley)
3. There are more mobile phones on the planet than there are TVs. (Source: Jupiter)
4. There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. 5.1 billion of them own a cell phone, but only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush. (Source: Mobile Marketing Association Asia)
5. Only 1 in 5 websites are mobile optimized (Source: dobMobi)
6. MN: 42% of Minnesotan's use Smartphones (Source: bizjournals)

For MN, this is HUGE. I shouldn't have to tell you. Look around your restaurant one night and see how many people have smartphones.  I bet in the Twin Cities, the number of smart phone users is closer to 70%....

But that is WHY you need to be mobile.  What are people searching for and how are you making sure they find you?

Again, stop and think about this.

At ThriftyHipster, we can make people can find you, yes, but also, that they can read up-to-date information about you. 

Mobile Application (part of the HUB)

Fans. Fans. Fans.

I love this.

I saw it yesterday and thought I'd throw it out there to y'all.

Want to know how to get more fans and actually drive them to your business?!?!

• Do Cool Shit.
• Post Cool Shit.
• Support Local Businesses.
• Make sure you're visible.

That's pretty much all there is to it.  People don't want to be marketed to. They want to feel like you know them.  That is why, ThriftyHipster is just a few local dudes that hang. We know people, we try to introduce them to you.

Read this Post From THE OATMEAL

2012 New Offerings

Here are just a few things we have for the 2012!

New site, fully designed and customized to make new technology easy.  We have a philosophy here: Accessibility is king.

• When someone is searching for a patio in uptown, do they find you?
• When someone is on thriftyhipster.com searching for a 7pm happy hour in Nordeast, where you at?
• When someone is on Facebook and meeting friends later and is looking for your menu, do they see what they need?
• Is someone getting the tips they want from foursquare about you?
• Do you have time to manage your social media every day? Are you using it effectively?

The new ThriftyHipster makes solving these problems a breeze, and we'll forever grow with the technology.  We just want to say to you, you have a friend to help you deal with it all.

Tuesday Seminar Recap

Thanks to those that made it! Was a fun and informative session!

In case you need it, here is the handout: Timeline Cheat Sheet

Save a copy or pass it to your designer! This should be helpful as you start using the Facebook Timeline.

Customers Cocktails Handout Time Line Setup

Mobile Site vs. Mobile App

Local Twin Cities Stats

• 40% local residents own smartphones
• Search volume on mobile increases 300% per year
• 9 out of 10 smartphone searches result in a purchase or patronage

Which is best for you?

For any local business (and most national businesses to be honest), the answer, is You should have a Mobile Site! (view our option)


Why Site over App?  First, understand the difference between "Mobile App" and "Mobile Site" 


Of course, this really varies with the way you use a site and what you hope to get out of it.  Yes, I know iPhones are popular, millions of people have them... But should YOU have an app?

Before Investing in any Mobile Platform, understand it.
Mobile App
Is a specific piece of software created and custom-coded to work on various phone platforms (Android vs. iPhone, etc)

Mobile Site
Viewable when a user tries to go to your site on their phone. It will reroute them to a special site formatted to fit on a phone screen and work on all phones with internet.

Here are some interesting things we've been reading:

• 9 out of 10 smartphone searches result in an action, such as purchasing or visiting a business. (Clickz) 
• Mobile Internet use is set to overtake desktop use in the next four years. (Search Engine Land)
• Webmasters no longer need have to have a separate mobile site – they simply need to have mobile friendly pages that can be housed under the same URL. (Google)
• Mobile search is different from device to device and will present different search engine results.
• The most used mobile apps in the U.S. are games; news; maps; social networking and music. Facebook, Google Maps and The Weather Channel rule. (mobiThinking)
• M-commerce (mobile shopping) is predicted to reach $119 billion in 2015. (mobiThinking)
• HTML 5 can be incorporated into mobile SEO practices to enhance a mobile site’s usability and performance, resulting in higher page rankings in search engines. (Mashable)
• The level of search personalization in mobile browsers will be higher because mobile phones are personal. (Search Engine Land)

Naming your Social Media

One of the biggest problems I see when working with local businesses is just simple name confusion.  MAKE SURE YOU GET FOUND! You want to make this easy for people, so you want to make sure everything matches and lines up.

NEW FOR TIMELINE! For those of you stuck with the wrong page name before, you can now change it when you launch your Timeline page! We'll walk you through this at class next Tuesday at Demand Quest 



You should get the option to change your name when you launch the page.  

(note: you can always change your name from this form, HERE)

Although you cannot change the URL, you can at least set one up and correct anything you messed up with the titling.

TITLE: choose the full name of your business.  They only time I would suggest NOT doing this is if you're known as something else, which, is just ridiculous anyhow.

ie. Shouthouse Dueling Pianos - should be called - "Shout House Dueling Pianos"

Vanity URL: Url is how people will find you.  Best practice = match site domain and twitter name.  (http://facebook.com/Vanity_URL)

ie. ThriftyHipster.com = @thriftyhipster = facebook.com/thriftyhipster

Timeline's Full List of Creative Sizes

Here at ThriftyHipster, we were trying to figure out what would make fan gathering the best... It all starts with a complete listing and visually attractive fan page for your business.

And don't forget about the event on 3/27 where we'll be going over all of this and even having a designer on site to help you!

Here is a complete list of all creative sizes. Designing images to this size will ensure YOU have the best looking Facebook page for your business!

A few new policies/constraints to remember when making your images:
We've summarized for you, but if you want to read everything, here is the link on facebook (downloads a pdf)

1. Cover Photos Cannot include:
1. Price or purchase info. Facebook does not want this to be an ad space, so saying something like "download it at our site" or "reserve a table on our site" will not fly.
2. No Contact info, that should go in the "About" section
3. Calls to action (arrows to "like" or "buy" are out)

What TO include on your images (recommendations)

1. Cover Photos - Make them extremely cool. Big photos, colorful, clean, and highlighting your space.
2. Milestones - What image really represents your accomplishments?
3. Profile Picture - Logo? Or does something else make sense?

Suggested Facebook Timeline Apps

How many of you are using Facebook apps now?  With timeline, there are going to be a limited number that you can use.  Here are some of our favorites:

MENUS AND HAPPY HOURS
Of course we have to give ourselves a shoutout here. These were customized and designed specially for bars and restaurants.
Sync your happy hour info, menus, and events from ThriftyHipster.com to your Facebook page. This allows you to have a full menu, events, and happy hour in your page, easily accessible to everyone on Facebook, and the best part is, no extra work on your part!
This app is free for all ThriftyHipster clients.

EVENT CALENDAR
Sometimes I find that the facebook event list is tough to read.  That's why, we built an event calendar that lets a user see when friends are planning on coming and lets them "attend" and share multiple events at once.
This is a free app for all ThriftyHipster clients.

IFRAME APP
What is an iFrame app?  It allows you to put images, html, or other things in to a blank slate in facebook.  This is an app everyone should have.  In the simplest format, you can put a large poster or monthly flyer, some add, or otherwise.
I like the Wildfire Iframe App. It's easy to use and comes from a credible firm.  In this example, you can see we used a large image and had a custom form below.
Of course, with the switch to Timeline, this becomes less cool, but still something to use.  We'll be following this vs. the map.  The simple IFrame app is free from wildfire and also comes with a "friend gate" (ie. "like" page to see another page)... But again, this becomes less relevant in timeline.

RECOGNIZE FANS & REWARD THEM FOR COMING IN
People love to be rewarded.  Build regulars and reward them for coming in, leaving comments on your wall, and more.  Now, you can reward them!
I like Booshaka. Booshaka analyzes your Facebook page and surfaces the top contributors so that you can recognize them. Fans earn points for the quality of their participationand ability to engage the community.

Customers & Cocktails Event 3/27

On Tuesday, 3/27/12 6-8pm

We'll be hosting an event to give you the info you'll need for the Facebook Timeline switch.

The class will be 3 parts:

1. Walkthrough on Setting up timeline, including creative work, admins, new permissions, etc.
2.  New messaging platform, setting up and depolying new strategy consisten with Timeline
3. Open Discussion to help deal with any other issues that arise

ThriftyHipster.com will also have an optional designer on-site to help with this process, so we encourage everyone to bring their laptops and any design assets that they have and we will directly assist you in the switchover.  

Please use code HIPMAIL to receive a discount for all readers of the Customers & Cocktails Blog

Members, please email or call Matt for a different promo code

Anatomy of Facebook "Timeline" Page

As we said, the new timeline is here! Here is the creative direction you'll need to edit it.  We'll be discussing this and more 3/27/12 at Customers & Cocktails.

Here are some basics to get you started:

What's out?
Your old Fan Page.  After 3/30/12, your page will be no more!
Well, forget about the arrow that points to "like".
No more calls to action to try to get people to "like" your page.
No more linking direct to an app page. This is probably going to result in apps being less important...

Anatomy of the Timeline Fan Page

1. Cover Photo:  851x315 Pixels (Facebook Rules)
2. Logo: 180 pixels square
3. Timeline Apps Area: 112x74 - up to 12 (you can rearrange, but photos is always first)
4. Facepile: Friends see their friends and activity. Depending on number of fans, you will want to be cautious about this
5. About Area: Abridged area, keep your about line short and sweet
6. Message Options: New "Milestones" and more. (see below)
7. Posts:
1. Starred Post: After post is made, rollover and "star" it. This will display as the top message for 1 week on your wall.
2. Regular Post: like current... 
3. Milestone Post: Set important dates, like open, awards, etc.

Anatomy of the new Facebook Timeline Page

Facebook "Timeline" for pages... is coming!

Just when you thought you had social media figured out, Facebook throws "TIMELINE" at you.  Meaning there are lots of "apps" and new designs, and new ways to use it for your business page.

STARTING MARCH 30, FACEBOOK IS REDESIGNING THE WAY YOUR BUSINESS WILL USE FACEBOOK.  YOU SHOULD GET READY FOR THIS TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE IT LIKE YOU WANT IT!

Everything is changing, but don't worry, ThriftyHipster has your back.  We'll be discussing how to use timeline and how to best use it for drawing in patrons, what apps to install, how to manage photos... This is going to take several posts.

But anyway, we wanted to introduce you to the topic.

To see what your page will look like in TimeLine, Click Here for Preview.

Branding

• Cover Image: A huge image across your page.  You want to make sure this is NOT an ad, but rather, something that showcases what you're all about.
• About Section: a VERY short, punchy description about your business
• Page Apps: Will now be found on the right side of the "About" section, otherwise, you'll have 4 above the fold.
• No Custom Landing Page: Sorry, this is out, so your specials and fan-grabbing pages will be tough to find (we've figured out a work-around)
• "Like" Customization: depending on who your fans are this might be an issue. We'll discuss this in a future post

Customer Service: New Messaging Platform!

This is pretty cool.  Timeline will allow users to send direct, private messages to your page.  It's important that you set up a channel to deal with incoming messages and a policy to deal with them so you're not perceived as ignoring fans.

Highlights Feed

Basically, greater personalization and friend response is what this will be used for. This is very different than your facebook page of before and allows users to read each feed, jump moments in time, and interact on a whole new level... Meaning that a good strategy with posts and images can really open up new fans and opportunities!
Further, you'll have less control over the friend activity section, so you'll want to make doubly sure to respond to negative feedback immediately.

Composing Updates/Videos/Links... And Milestones

This is probably the coolest new addition to this, is the Milestones.  Set important things that happened to the company, and allow a user to quickly navigate to different milestones so they can track your accomplishments, new product launches, and big events you want to pump up for the future.

Twitter: A Step by Step Guide

A quick rundown on Twitter.  These points will be explained further in future posts. Click the "Twitter" link on the right for a full list of Twitter posts.

1. Sign-up and post a profile. Do it Here.  Write a little about yourself, and remember your audience! They want to know why they should follow you...Meaning what message will you give them?
2. Follow People and Make Friends. Find your favorite blogs, friends, staff, or whoever you think your customers would like. Just click the "follow" link on the top right of their Twitter Page. Here is ours for example.  The easiest way to do this quickly is to find people you like, or are similar to you, and see who they follow.  You can see this on the top right under the "follow" button, ie. 652FOLLOWING
3. Write some updates. Link interesting ideas, mention cool stuff, plug an event, invite them down for drinks... Remember your audience and engage in conversation.
4. Post some Links.  The "tinyurl" link: We have one made for you (find out more, call us at 612-246-4373), or just copy/paste your link in any url shortening tool. Here is Google's:  http://goo.gl/
5. # ! @ links, etc... WTF?!? Some of the online speak can get confusing, so here is what Twitter Uses



Anthony Weiner's Weener. DM, don't Reply!

1. the "@" - The thing you should use the most! Reply to users by using @TheirTwitterName. They will see you posted them and hopefully reply or share this with their followers!
2. the "#" hashtag - is for Trending conversations. More info than you'll ever want to know is found here on the Twitter blog.
3. the "d" Direct Message - a direct reply to a follower that will NOT go to the rest of your list. This is different from a reply, because only one user will see this.  Want to know what happens when you screw this up? "d TwitterNameUwantToReplyTo"
6. Monitor Conversations about your company. Follow what people say about you.  This is SUPER easy in Twitter and probably the best use for it.  Do people like you? Search what they are saying! You can even subscribe to an RSS feed of this! Twitter Search - Enter your name

That about sums it up! Give us a ring if you have any questions or need any custom backgrounds made up (612-246-4373)!

SEO for beginners: Key words

Want the basics? Well, the best thing is to make sure you're on as many free listings you can be on.  We're not going to get in to Search Engine Optimization, or explaining how the Google algorithm works...  Just know, stuff that we give you will help your SEO, meaning you'll get found when people search for you or things you offer.

No doubt you've heard about "keywords" but have no idea how to use them to get found, or even, what words are important.  Well, it's time to do some research and find out.  You want to keep in mind 2 things when developing a key word strategy:

1. What words are searched the most -FIND OUT-
2. What words can you actually "out-rank" your competition on (meaning you come up before them)

* Remember, Google's job is to try and "guess" which results are the most relevant, so the more relevancy you have, the more often you'll be included in the front page of a search query.

For example, do not just focus only on major words that you cannot rank on, ie. "Minneapolis Bars" returns a result of ThriftyHipster, Yelp, CityPages, CitySearch, etc.. (in that order)  Your bar will not outrank these because they are too general of words.  Highly searched? Yes, but too tough for you to "compete" on.  Instead, focus on words less used, but still heavily used... ie. "Bloody Mary," "brunch buffet," or "best burgers" might be words you can rank on.  

I like 2 tools for figuring this out.  They give you search volume and competition level... Meaning the more searches and lowest competition words are what you want to focus on.

My 2 favorite tools to do this are:

Google Insights

or

Google Analytics tool (my preference)

This should get you started! So look up keywords that are what you think people search and where you'd want to be found in those searches and record the ones you want your bar to be found in.  Remember to focus on only a few and you should be able to be found first!

Should your Restaurant have Twitter?

Some people like ThriftyHipster, some like Facebook, some like Twitter, some like reddit, some like dig, some like all the above or any combination of them.

Twitter is a silly little application. You can only send 140 character updates, but the response these get is amazing.  Think of it more like a text message to friends, but one they’ll only see when they log in to twitter (which for some people is all day, for others is never).

Get your Twitter Handle

You might ask, is it worth it?  The answer varies by what your restaurant provides, but that does not change the fact that you definitely should at least register for a handle.

1. Only 1 handle is allowed per email
2. Similar to a domain name, only 1 handle is given out – So even if you don’t plan on using twitter, you’ll want to claim your name before someone else does!

Choose a Handle: Best is to make it your domain name, Facebook name, but keep it short too!
For Example: If your domain is “elisfoodandcocktails.com” you’d probably want your Twitter handle to be @eliscocktails.
However, if your domain name is short, like britspub.com, you’ll definitely want @BritsPub.