Use of Social Media to Promote Business - Assignment Example

Use of Social Media to Promote Business Executive Summary Parameters of the report This research focuses on how social media as a versatile, fast, extensive and cheap marketing tool that can be applied to improve the number of customers visiting Tazaki Sushi restaurant. Description of the problem Tazaki Sushi restaurant specializes in offering Japanese cuisine in Sunset area in San Francisco where it has been able to establish a good reputation by providing high quality service and reasonable price to its customers. However, the repeat customers who are a major source of business for the restaurant are driving sales for the restaurant. Therefore, the restaurant has not gained much recognition, as not many people know the restaurant except the repeat customers. Effective use of social media is therefore an important marketing strategy that will benefit Tazaki Sushi restaurant, as it is a platform for the restaurant to increase its awareness among regular users of these services. Methodology To gain important information about how social media will be applied to the marketing strategy of Tazaki Sushi restaurant, I included a question in the feedback catalogue about how the customers found out about the organization. An analysis of how competitors were using social media was also conducted based on their presence in existing social media platforms. Summary of findings and conclusions Organizations that have successfully used social media to attract customers to their services have includes aspects such as creating fan page on Facebook, Twitting different aspects of their operations to customers, developing blogs and creating alert Google systems that give feedback on activities related the organization in different online avenues. Consequently, Tazaki Sushi restaurant should Tazaki Sushi restaurant adopt these measures to be able to improve its awareness which will translate into more customers especially since the restaurant has a reputation of offering high quality services. Recommendations It is recommended that Tazaki Sushi restaurant should have regular update of its website as an important source of information for more current services offered by the organization. Increased presence in social media should also be accompanied by promotions and incentives to increase the level of activities carried out in these avenues. Section I – Introduction/Background Tazaki Sushi is a Japanese restaurant located in Sunset area in San Francisco. The restaurant has good reputation by providing high quality service and reasonable price to its customers. Normally, repeat customers were a major source of business for the restaurant. However, the restaurant has not gained much recognition, not many people know about the restaurant except the repeat customers. Given the increased competition in the area of authentic traditional cuisine (Ebster and Guist 42), Tazaki Sushi should develop a practical solution to the ongoing trend to ensure there are more first time customers visiting the restaurant. Most of the repeat clients who have made Tazaki Sushi restaurant their preferred eating joint have indicated that they have been attracted to the restaurant because of combining and authentic Japanese cuisine with contemporary style. Although there are few restaurants offering Japanese cuisine and eating experience based on the expertise employed by Tazaki Sushi, the restaurant still faces challenge from other restaurants offering traditional cuisine from countries such as China, Korea, and Italy. The competitors have increased their market shares by increasing their visibility through various marketing strategies that includes putting up posters and billboards, having advertisements on mainstream media such as newspapers, television and radio stations as well as using social media. Therefore, this segment of the restaurant industry is headed towards increasing the number of new customers by increasing their presence in different media platforms. The number of customers who prefer visiting Tazaki Sushi will reduce potential new customers and repeat customers might be attracted to the competitors due to the elaborate and aggressive advertising that are being conductors by other restaurants. Section II – Statement of the Problem/Research Project Given the reliance on repeat customers as the main clientele for Tazaki Sushi, there is need to establish a robust marketing strategy that would increase the people awareness about the cuisines offered at the restaurant. The project identifies social media as the best marketing tool to improve the number of customers visiting the restaurant. This project is therefore about how the restaurant should use the social media platforms to advertise itself, develop a broader market and attract new customers, and finally diversify its client base (Richardson and Gosnay 45). The findings of this research will be used to implement an advisement program that would market Tazaki Sushi to new customers for attracting more clientele based on increased popularity of authentic Japanese cuisine. Section III – Methodology My research commenced by first investigating about how repeat customers had found out about the restaurant. To achieve this, I requested the management to include the question “how did you find out about our services” in the customer feedback catalogue. This section of the question also included options on comments about various marketing tools undertaken by the restaurant and how successful they were in convicting the customers to visit Tazaki Sushi restaurant. Tazaki Sushi has a customer feedback catalogue that customers fill voluntarily which I saw as the best approach I could use to gain data about how existing customers learnt about the restaurant. I then visited the organization website to determine the present features and how they support marketing of the different foods on offer. To help in this area, I talk to the marketing manager for Tazaki Sushi restaurant to be found out about the presence of the organization in various online platforms. I wanted to know the contribution of online services to efforts by the organization to continue attracting more customers. After establishing how customers found out about Tazaki Sushi and the services offered by the restaurants, I made a survey of social media to discover how different restaurants where using available platforms to market their products. For this part of the research, I wanted to discover how active are these organizations on social media based on the rate at which the pages are being updated and the comments generated by different items on the sites. Section IV – Findings Following the establishment of how Tazaki Sushi restaurant has conducted its marketing compared to the competitors, I determined a number of areas that have contributed to low numbers of customers visiting the organization. Firstly, although the restaurant has invested in advertisement on print media such as newspapers and magazines, this has only resulted in a section of potential customers access various information needed for them to visit the establishment. Although advertisement on print, television and radio had recorded a significant success as far as creating awareness for deferent dishes is concerned, these methods were found to have limited impact on customer decisions. A disadvantage for use of such media as marketing tool was found to be in the area of feedback. Most of the customers who got information about the restaurant from print, radio or television advertisement noted they could not be able to get feedback about different questions they had about what the restaurant had to offer. Since Japanese cuisine is foreign to many Americans, they had different questions they wanted to ask but these media did not provide for timely feedback with those interested having to physically visit the restaurant to inquire about the food. The marketing manager also indicated the cost of advertisement as the reason for limited information provided in the advisements carried out on radio and television. Cost implications also meant the organization had to mostly pick advertisement slot at off-peak hours when there are likely to be less potential customers listening to the advertisements. The feedback problems were also present for those using the restaurant’s website especially since it was not updated regularly to reflect different changes in areas such as pricing. As a result, most of the pricing on the website did not reflect the ongoing trend in the market or what was actually being offered in the organization. Some customers had therefore been discouraged from visiting the restaurant, as they were perceived to be charging higher prices for similar cuisine offered by rival restaurants. A visit to the comment section on the restaurant website also indicated customers had been frustrated by the time indicated for serving different dishes for super, lunch and dinner. A number of customers complained that they had to wait for some time before being served even when there were indicated times for serving some of the cuisine. For instance, one customer complained about being frustrated one day when there was an update that the restaurant was going to serve lunch between 11-1:30 pm. The customer complained that he arrived at 11:30 but had to wait until 12 noon to for his lunch to be served yet he had arrived at that time since he had a meeting later that afternoon. Analysis of online presence by competitors indicated the level of investment undertaken by some of the most successful restaurants. Many of the successful organizations not only those operating in the hospitality industry, but majority of the service industries have heavy presence on social media (Schroeder). My analysis of the social media as an important marketing tool led to the identification of a number of strategies that were being used by some restaurants to increase the number of customers visiting their establishment. Effective use of social media includes Organizations with robust online presence were those with a functional Facebook fun page. Having a separate Facebook page for the restaurant is an important step in creating increased customer base stems from the fact that many (51%) potential customers were most likely to buy something from businesses where they had become fans of on Facebook or what they had recommended (Flehx 1). Although the high number of repeat customers indicates Tazaki Sushi restaurant has successfully created some loyal customers, having a fan page on Facebook is one of the important strategies that can result in increasing the number of repeat customers therefore improving the number of customers loyal to the restaurant (Lawfer 14). Apart from the importance of Facebook in creating loyal customers, twitter has also provided an important avenue to boost the number of sales for different restaurants that were reviewed. Organizations that had successfully used twitter as a marketing tool were found to have regular tweets on their pages. This platform has proven an important tool for sending short, quick messages covering areas such as promotions and daily deals offered by competing organizations to their followers. Twitter is also an important platform based on the ability of the followers to retweet different messages sent by the organization. Given the number of repeat customers who are also potential followers of Tazaki Sushi restaurant on twitter, the organization will create more followers due to the retweets from the loyal customers. Apart from being on Facebook and Twitter, other avenues generate interest from potential customers. Being connected to Foursquare is also an essential driver of sales in terms of attracting new customers. This online service provides customers with an avenue where they are able to check in to discover restaurants, stores and events that might be of interest to them. Organizations that have blogs have also developed blogs to drive customer interests towards the organization. These blogs provides organizations, with a platform where it is possible to publish content that can be shared on social networks. This is important as readers get to discover different information about the food served, recipes for popular dishes, and the menu available at different times of the day while also providing links for customer participation on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter. Google alert is another alternative that enables organizations improve the levels of clients as it creates a feedback mechanism that allows Google to send alert messages to a preferred e-mail account whenever the organization’s name is mentioned online. This helps in monitoring how active the organization is on different social media platforms. Section V– Conclusions From the findings of this study, the number of new customers visiting Tazaki Sushi restaurant continues to be low due to ineffective use of online and social media platforms. Given that most of the repeat customers indicated print, radio and television as well as word of mouth as the main avenues through which they learned about the restaurant, there is need for the organization to undertake a more aggressive approach in marketing it products. The high cost involved in advertisement using mainstream media has limited efforts by the Tazaki Sushi restaurant marketing department to introduce initiatives that would improve awareness about the restaurant. Consequently, social media as a marketing tool is the most appropriate approach to improve the number of customers visiting Tazaki Sushi restaurant, as it is versatile, fast, extensive and cheap to implement. Competitors are already applying this approach with different levels of success being achieved depending on the aggressiveness in implementation with the effect being realized in the number of new customers being reported on a daily basis. Consequently, Tazaki Sushi restaurant will have to improve its presence in social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in order to improve customer awareness about different aspects of operations such as offers, menu and recipe. Section VI – Recommendations There are a number of initiatives that Tazaki Sushi restaurant should implement to record success in attracting more customers to eat at the restaurant. Given that the organization already has a website, this should be updated regularly to ensure customers are presented with up to date information about different areas of interest (Mathews 3). Application of social media as a marketing tool to attract more customers should also be done carefully so that it does not fail in meeting the objectives set by management. Consequently, frequent review of the sites must be conducted to find out what customers are saying about the organization. To be highly effective, the organization to assign one person to handle the entire customer reviews for incorporating all the information into a well-coordinated action plan. Incorporating all the reviews will ensure the organization does provide contradicting answers to customers on different social media avenues and therefore creating a system trusted by the users. Introduction of these social media platforms might not achieve success without including promotions and creating incentives for the participants. Consequently, there should be reward mechanism for those who are active in the platforms though activities such as introducing offers and discounts for users. Works Cited Ebster, Claus, and Irene Guist. The role of authenticity in ethnic theme restaurants. Journal of Foodservice Business Research, 7.2 (2005): 41-52. Print. Flehx. Five reasons you should climb out from under that rock and socialize. New York: Flehx, Inc 2012. Print. Lawfer, Manzie R. Why customers come back: how to create lasting customer loyalty. New Jersey: Career Press, 2004. Print. Mathews, Jennifer N. Social Media Marketing for Business Owners. Bloomington, IN: Booktango, 2012. Print. Richardson, Neil, and Ruth M. Gosnay. A Quick Start Guide to Social Media Marketing: High Impact Low-cost Marketing that Works. Kogan Page Publishers, 2010. Print. Schroeder, Harold. "The Art of Business Relationships through Social Media. Ivey Business Journal. 2013. Web. 4 Aug 2014. Read More