A Small Business Using Social Media Brilliantly With No Budget

We like to profile as many small businesses that are really using the free social media tools that are out there effectively and today we have a small local restaurant in rural Ireland who are making tremendous use of social media to help grow their business and build their brand. Rather than highlighting what we think they are doing right and looking at it from the outside we decided to ask Lorraine Fanneran who is behind all their social media activity to give us a run through of what is and what isn’t working for them. It makes for great reading and there are some tips in there for all small businesses to use about the social media channels that work best and how to use them effectively…

Tell us a little about your business?

We have a small Italian cafe and takeaway in Limerick. It’s very casual, seating 18 people serving home-made Italian food all cooked from scratch using family recipes.

When and why did you start using social media?

I started my social media campaign by accident really, I was on maternity leave 3 years ago and stumbled across a food blog while surfing the net, I had never even heard of a blog before and decided I’d start one myself as I had a bit of time on my hands at home for a few months. I won best food blog in 2007 and was in the final in 2008 also. I progressed to Twitter last year and finally after much persuasion from friends signed up to Facebook in May. Our business is very small and we are in Limerick which doesn’t get much media attention so it’s up to me to get our name out there and I find social media the best method to do this. Advertising in local media is very expensive for a business of our size and I never see any benefit from any ads that we have done so I put a lot of effort into making our social media campaign effective.

How have you used Facebook?

Setting up a facebook page is probably the best thing we have ever done for the business. I started it in May and we had our busiest month of the year just after that. I find it fantastic for tapping into our local market and communicating directly with our customers. We have nearly 2000 friends in 10 months and the majority of those would be in Limerick. I keep the page as active as I can and try not to sell the business all the time. I keep it personal as people want to know about “you” the owner and the more personal it is the better. I put a food question on nearly everyday to find out the likes and food preferences people have and always get great feedback. I often find the more simple or random the question is the more responses I get. My most popular question was “pineapple on pizza?” and I got over 60 comments. I think people like to talk about food so I find it easy to interact and post popular topics.

The Munster team eat in with us a lot so when I started I posted photos of them in the shop and had a huge reaction to it, everyone was talking about it. Some of the team left a lot of comments on each others photos which was fantastic as the public got to see the more personal side of them and there was a great buzz around it.

I also do give-aways, the most popular one is “tag the pizza” and “happy freebie Friday” I post a photo of our 20″ pizza and get people to tag the photo back to their page and I put all their names in a hat, I normally have about 60 names and lots of facebook pages showing my pizza which is an amazing amount of free advertising. I try to get the winners to post a photo of themselves with the pizza on their page and post it back to me too. I try to keep the page as fun filled and food obsessed as I can.

My latest facebook campaign is an “Italian Facebook Cookalong”. I asked the question if anyone would be interested in doing it and got a huge reaction to it. I’m going to give the shopping list, where to buy the best ingredients, step by step photos and we’re all going to cook the same dish on a chosen night of the week. I want those involved to take a photo of their dish, tag it back to my page and then I’ll let the public decide who’s is the best and I’ll give a prize.

How has twitter worked for you?

I don’t think Twitter really works for my type of business, it is good for profile for my blog as there are lots of food bloggers on there so it’s great for interacting with fellow foodies but I don’t find it good for targeting potential customers or increasing our business profile among the general public .I haven’t used Twitter much recently but I just got Tweetdeck and find it much easier to use, so I’ll spend a bit more time on it again. I’m actually very bad at the technical side of things but I’m slowly learning with the help of a few tecchie friends.

How much time do you spend on your blog and has it been effective?

My blog has taken a bit of a back seat since I started facebook, with the blog I find you need time to sit down and think about what you are going to write, I also need photos because it’s a food blog and now that I’m not at home as much I find I don’t have the time. I used to actively blog twice a week but now it’s about twice a month. Facebook is much easier to keep updated and I just post random things I’m eating or doing at work and post photos from my mobile from La Cucina.

What advice would you give to a small business owner starting out in the world of social media?

I think every small business should be on facebook but you do have to use it effectively. There is no point in just putting the business on and just bombarding people with facts and figures about your business. People aren’t interested, they are more interested in the people in your business and what you’re about. Let the public see a more personal side to the business and get them interacting with you. I take photos of our customers and post them on the page too, and always get a great reaction from their friends etc. I think the best thing about facebook is the interaction and that’s what businesses need to focus on, not shouting their special offers at people that aren’t listening.

Have sales increased as a direct result of social media?

Definitely, I would honestly say that we have avoided the hard effects of the recession as we have built our customer base substantially over the last year. Overall turnover has been affected but by building up our customer base we have had a very good year.

If you only had one social media tool to use which one would you choose?

Facebook of course:)

How much time a day would you spend using social media?

I don’t have an iPhone yet, waiting patiently for Vodafone but I do pop in and out on the laptop probably about 4 times a day and spend about 10 mins on Facebook each time, to be honest I only spend time on my own page. Blog posts obviously take longer, about an hour when I actually do one. Twitter I don’t spend too much time on, just the odd update and again I don’t really read too many posts as I only follow 70 people. I’m on a couple of forums like ForknCork and MagicMum and usually contribute to the food sections.

Tags

• Blogging
• cafe
• Customers
• Facebook
• Lacucina
• Limerick
• restaurant
• Social Media