June 8, 2014  

Restaurant Romanoff Facebook page

Dear Reader,

In my previous post I was talking about Facebook for business, therefore this post I would like to look in depth how to create and run successful Facebook page. As an example I took a page of restaurant Romanoff that was created for the final presentation as a part of my assessment for social media course.

First of all, my college and me decided to create a page for non-existing restaurant in order to test our knowledge first before running a page for a real restaurant. Just a quick story of the property: Romanoff restaurant is a place where customers can try traditional cuisine of Russian nobility, located in Moscow, Russia.

One of the first steps that should be taken in order to create a page (and actually run a business) is to define the target market of the place and a big plus would be buyer persona. From social media point of view, narrowing the people for whom you create a page, you can get higher engagement rate (Vahl, 2012). Therefore, we decided to post in two languages– Russian, which is native language and English which is for our foreigner customers.

It is crucial for manger of the page to identify the best suitable strategy for their page in order to be constant and be able to measure success. For our presentation we decided to implement 8 success criteria model invented by Owyang, Tran and Webber (2010), as it is explaining in depth the most important factors that manager of the page have take into consideration. Moreover, this framework shows how to interact with fans, how to increase engagement rate and how successfully reach potential customers (Slideshare.net, 2014). Let me explain in depth how we implement those criteria for our Restaurant Romanoff page.

1st criteria- Set community Expectations

According to Owyang et al. (2010) it is important to clearly express expectations, so fans of the page will know how to interact best. For restaurant Romanoff we set community expectations as following:

There two important aspects that should be incorporates in the facebook page:

First one is a governance policy, which means the rules and regulations concerning behaviour and language (Social Fresh, 2014). The other one is a vision for the page, which explains what the page is created for and what fans will be anticipates (Firebelly Marketing, 2012).

2nd criteria- Provide Cohesive Branding

The next step is to provide complete experience about the brand for the customers, including logo, mission statement, contact details, address, description and all useful info about company. The manager of the page has to make sure that branding on the page corresponds the overall brand of the business. If the branding of the page is not clear, the page can confused the customers and the company will not be able to build more trust with customers. (Socialmediatoday.com, 2014) According to Lieb (2014) the brand is not only a logo. It is crucial to complete all the information about brand and make the page recognizable by providing familiar visual experience (brand logo, cover photo, etc.)

Here is an example of Restaurant Romanoff page:

3rd criteria- Be up to date

Our team run the page during one month, therefore we tried to keep the page up to date and posting new contents on daily basis (or every 2 days), including Interesting and Educational Content, 80/20 rule (80% of education information and 20% of promotional). In order to be sure that the page attracting the attention of the targeted group, post the content in a variety ways (Porterfield, 2011) , for example, pictures, video, polls, employees stories, podcasts, etc. For more information check 11 Checks to Ensure Your Facebook Page is Up-to-Date (Gingerich, 2013).

Here you can see our most engaged days and time and based on this data we decided when it is better to post something in order to achieve high engagement rate (Lee, 2014).

4th criteria- Live authenticity

For our page we showed your customers and fans that there is someone working at the brand that isn’t a robot or just a logo (socialmediatoday.com, 2014). In order to achieve high engagement and increase trust among the fans we follow net rules:

  • Posts should come from 1st person in conversational tone
  • Providing admin signature on each post and comment

5th criteria- Participate in Dialogue

“ Two way dialog spurs interaction, trust, and the spread of information” (Slideshare.net, 2014). In order to contribute the dialog, the manager has to look at the existing discussion and join in or create a new one. During running of the Restaurant Romanoff page we replied comments within 24 hours and always thanked the customers for participation. According to Owyang, 60% of Facebook users are more likely to recommend a brand page after being a fan (socialmediatoday.com, 2014).

As the page was created for the non-existing restaurant, we did not include the rest 3 criteria that are Enable Peer-To-Peer Interactions (allow fans to talk about your brand with each other), Foster Advocacy (find the most active fans and make them to “represent” your page, in other words, make them share the page with their friends (it will creates eWOM) and encourage them to do something on the fan page) and Solicit A Call To Action (when the page have customers being fans and they are willing to engage and talk to you, create a value deal for your fans, for example, promotion or discount), because in order to use criteria stated above the page have to have more fans and higher customer engagement rate. (socialmediatoday.com, 2014)

The manager of the page has to check the Page insights regularly to understand what is working better to keep the posts relevant and engaging (Facebook for Business, 2014). Therefore, we checked number of reached customers:

The objectives for our presentation was to reach 40-50 people per post and we successfully reached it.

In order to measure Engagement Rate we used the formula stated below:

(Socialbakers.com, 2012)

And even it was non-existing restaurant, we obtain 5,4% of engagement rate, whereas our goal was 5%.

Even if I consider our page as a successful one, there are some things that personally I would do differently if there would be chance to undertake a new social media project as social media manager

  •   Using different type of content (video, polls, employees stories, podcasts, etc.)
  •   Include 20% of promotional content to boost the sales
  •   Create Instagram and Foursquare accounts to increase loyalty and engagement
  •   Success on 5 first criteria and implement another 3 from Owyang et al. (2010) model
  •   Include custom applications or tabs that help reverberate the brand and theme (Bullas, 2010).

Facebook page can be very useful tool for the running successful business, however, businessmen has to appreciate that “what Facebook is not is a portal to millions in instant revenue” (Casserly, 2013).

 

References:

Anon, (2014). [online] Available at: https://socialmediatoday.com/kenyeung/157791/eight-success-criteria-facebook-marketing [Accessed 4 Jun. 2014].

Bullas, J. (2010). The 8 Keys To Success For Facebook Marketing – Jeffbullas’s Blog. [online] Jeffbullas’s Blog. Available at: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/07/29/the-8-keys-to-success-for-facebook-marketing/ [Accessed 5 Jun. 2014].

Casserly, M. (2013). Why Small Businesses Are Losing On Social Media. [online] Forbes. Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2013/04/17/why-small-businesses-are-losing-on-social-media/ [Accessed 5 Jun. 2014].

Facebook for Business, (2014). 10 Facebook Page posting tips. [online] Available at: https://www.facebook.com/business/a/online-sales/page-post-tips [Accessed 5 Jun. 2014].

Gingerich, M. (2013). How to Audit Your Facebook Page Features. [online] Social Media Examiner. Available at: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/11-checks-to-ensure-your-facebook-page-is-up-to-date/ [Accessed 8 Jun. 2014].

Lee, K. (2014). The Social Media Frequency Guide: How Often To Post To Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, And More. [online] Fast Company. Available at: http://www.fastcompany.com/3029019/work-smart/the-social-media-frequency-guide-how-often-to-post-to-facebook-twitter-linkedin-a [Accessed 4 Jun. 2014].

Lieb, R. (2014). Facebook’s IPO: What Does It Mean For…?. [online] Altimetergroup.com. Available at: http://www.altimetergroup.com/2012/01/facebooks-ipo-what-does-it-mean-for.html [Accessed 8 Jun. 2014].

Porterfield, A. (2011). 9 Facebook Marketing Strategies to Build Super Fans |. [online] Social Media Examiner. Available at: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/9-facebook-marketing-strategies-to-build-super-fans/ [Accessed 8 Jun. 2014].

Slideshare.net, (2014). The 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing. [online] Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/jeremiah_owyang/the-8-success-criteria-for-facebook-page-marketing [Accessed 8 Jun. 2014].

Social Fresh, (2014). How To Create Facebook Community Guidelines. [online] Available at: http://socialfresh.com/facebook-fan-page-community-guidelines/ [Accessed 4 Jun. 2014].

Socialbakers.com, (2012). Formulas Revealed: The Facebook and Twitter Engagement Rate. [online] Available at: http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/467-formulas-revealed-the-facebook-and-twitter-engagement-rate [Accessed 4 Jun. 2014].

Vahl, A. (2012). How to Use Facebook Targeted Posts to Improve Your Facebook Engagement |. [online] Social Media Examiner. Available at: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook-targeted-posts/ [Accessed 5 Jun. 2014].

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2 responses to “Restaurant Romanoff Facebook page”

  1. Thomas Owen says :

    Thank you Lolita for your interesting post about managing a successful Facebook page for Romanoff restaurant. I especially like your idea about doing a trial run of managing a non-existing restaurant. It goes to show that you want to test it and see how it goes, this will definitely give you a step ahead in starting another new page. You even made the effort to post in two languages, this will definitely increase the views and the potential customers that have only speak one language.

    You’ve mentioned a success factor that is invented by Owyang, Tran and Webber (2010). The “8 success criteria model” is an effective model that shows how to properly and successfully interact with fans that will promote and reach potential customers. You have used this tool and have succeeded, like with your increase in engagement rate.

    I especially like what you mentioned about the changes you will make if you had the chance to promote this page. I also agree that using different type of content will attract more customers, by the use of video, polls, employee stories, etc. I would personally be attracted to it, because I am a visual person and videos interest me because of the actual feel of it.

    So thank you again Lolita for sharing your experience and strategies, this blog will definitely give people a different view on how they would manage their companies Facebook page.

    Reply
  2. qrovsky says :

    Dear Lolita,

    Thank you for your post. Looks like you have put a lot effort to manage the page of the real restaurant as well as translating each post into Russian/English to increase the engagement rate. I also like the justification and the way you clarified why you chose Facebook as the main medium for promoting your restaurant. The fact that you pointed out the criteria that you have based on and that you implemented them into your strategy also deserves praise. Referring to the Owyang, Tran and Webber (2010) you established the success criteria model, which involved eight success criteria factors. It is fully comprehensible that you could not use all criteria in your project. Furthermore, you have shown that you possess a good understanding of the module as you were able to apply it in your strategy. According to the 3rd point of your criteria – “Be up to date”, you mentioned that you have posted every two days. However, according to Cooper, B. (2014), the best times to post content are: Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Personally, I believe that in consequence you should reconsider the frequency of posting. By making a short research you can check which days do people visit your page most often and post content at that time. As a result, the content that you have posted could reach much more people.
    All sums, with exception for a few minor shortcomings it has to be said that the strategy, which you decided to apply, seems both effective and consistent.

    Best regards,

    Jakub

    Reference:
    Cooper, B. (2014). A Scientific Guide to Posting Tweets, Facebook Posts, Emails and Blog Posts At the Best Time. [online] The Huffington Post. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belle-beth-cooper/a-scientific-guide-to-pos_b_4262571.html [Accessed 7 June. 2014].

    Reply

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