about internet marketing

Jenny An is a Chicago-based writer with a focus on popular culture, food and travel. Her work has appeared in Time Out Chicago and VenusZine.

Social media certainly has its benefits for those who love dining and drinking. From free drinks for Foursquareclass="blippr-nobr">foursquare checkins, to Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter notifications about happy hours, to Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook messages about free food, there’s always something tasty happening online.

But the social web offers a lot more than just discounts and deals when it comes to drinking and dining. Restaurants and bars are giving social media users a backstage pass to the food and the people who make it. Chefs and restaurateurs are using social media to reveal how their dishes are made, generate familiarity with chefs and provide a means for diners to share feedback.

Revealing How Dishes Are Made

While customers go to lower end restaurants looking for value and discounts, higher-end restaurants think that “discounts cheapen the experience,” says Tom O’Keefe, a Boston-based restaurant tweeter and social media-focused marketer.

You can blame it on the rise of celebrity chefs or the success of The Food Network and shows like Top Chef, but now more than ever, people want to live vicariously through others who cook. Many restaurants, including Chicago’s Piccolo Sogno and The Bristol, are posting videos to YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube or Vimeoclass="blippr-nobr">Vimeo of new dishes being prepared. “The general idea is to pull the curtain back,” says Phillip Walters of The Bristol. “Allow people at home to feel more involved and engaged with that you are trying to deliver.”

But social media does a lot more than just satisfy curiosities. It makes Twitter followers or Facebook fans remember their last visit. Stu Mitchell, marketing director for Blue 13, a Rock and Roll spot in Chicago, says this act of reminding customers about their last visit “prompt[s] them to want to return, to keep us fresh in the minds of those who have yet to visit, but have been planning on it.”

But the behind-the-scenes social media technique sways more toward high-end than fast food restaurants. A behind-the-scenes glimpse of the origins of the McNugget (hint: it’s birthed from pink goop) led to class='blippr-nobr'>Internetclass="blippr-nobr">Internet-wide horror and repulsion.

“A local Taco Bell is going to connect and build community in a very different way versus a Michelin-rated restaurant that brings passionate foodies together,” says Lorrie Thomas, CEO of Web Marketing Therapy.

Getting to Know the Chefs

Instead of attracting customers with deals, many restaurants strive to use social media for a tailored, personal experience. “People love to go into a restaurant or bar and know the owner or the chef,” O’Keefe says. Think of it as instantly becoming a regular.

That’s why chefs like Joanne Chang of Boston’s Myers and Chang and Flour Bakery personally tweet photos of the kitchen staff at work. “If you’re in a PR firm, you’re not going to get the same feel,” O’Keefe says. “It’s her and you know that it’s her.”

Grant Achatz, the man behind Chicago’s Alinea — named best restaurant in America in 2006 by Gourmet — also does his own tweeting. “Who would you rather hear from?” he asks. “Me directly or some weird person I paid to represent me?” When Achatz is not in the restaurant, he continues to tweet — from where he’s eating in Chicago to where he’s visiting in Japan. It lets people get to know him better and maintains a base, he says. “I’m not a celebrity, but I have a following.”

Achatz’s approach to helping his audience learn more about him is spot on. “Who we are” is the primary message of any effective marketing campaign, says Syeed Mansur, CEO of Sentrana, a firm that uses mathematical models to determine the most effective marketing strategies for companies.

Opening Communication Between Diners and Chefs

The restaurant experience has traditionally always been divided between front of house and back of house. Customers sat in the dining room and enjoyed their meals, completely disconnected from the people preparing the meals. The success of open kitchen designs, the farm-to-table movement, and books like Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, show that diners want a deeper connection to the food that’s being prepared for them.

Not only does social media let customers view what’s behind that “Employees Only” door, but it gives customers access to the people behind it. Twitter allows Tony Priolo, chef of Piccolo Sogno, to connect with customers before they even come to the restaurant. And diners plugged in with social media receive special treatment. “If we tweeted with them beforehand I’ll usually come out of the kitchen and thank them for tweeting with us or send over something special,” he says.

Achatz likes to hear complaints from customers and says he actually responds. Sometimes he’ll refund a meal, but more importantly, “the more we know about who is coming into our restaurant, the better we’ll be able to fulfill our obligation to do what will make them feel happy,” he says. A couple had flown into Chicago from New York to eat at his restaurant and expected not only excellent food but also excellent service. The wife was escorted to the bathroom the first time she got up, but not the second. Achatz thinks the front of house staff just assumed she knew the way and could help herself. But the husband indignantly tweeted about the incident and then Achatz knew that his customers had different assumptions of service. The restaurant has tweaked its service accordingly since then.

“When people know, like and trust us, they buy,” Thomas says. “Pushing propaganda will freak people out.”

While restaurants are unable to quantify the exact monetary impact of their social media campaigns, the responses they receive assure them that somebody is listening. “We hear enough feedback to know that we’re reaching people and that they enjoy it,” says Amy Mills Tunnicliffe of 17th Street Bar and Grill in southern Illinois.

Before social media, it was difficult for the average person (even a person spending $200 for dinner) to have access to that ornery bartender or three-starred Michelin chef, but now, dishing complaints or compliments has become as easy as a tweet or a Facebook post.

How have you used social media to enhance — or complain about — a dining experience? Do you follow your favorite chefs or restaurants? Share your thoughts in the comments.

More Foodie Resources from Mashable:

- 10 iPhone Apps for Wine Enthusiasts/> - 3 New Recipe Apps for the iPad [PICS]/> - 10 iPhone Apps for the Global Foodie/> - 7 Services That Will Suggest Things You Like/> - HOW TO: Find Good Food Online

For more Social Media coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Social Mediaclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Social Media channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad

MMA to Create Mobile Privacy Guidelines

Greg Stuart, Global CEO of the MMA, said the group recognizes the importance of consumer privacy. "In order for marketers and publishers to responsibly and sustainably engage consumers through and with the mobile channel, we need to continuously update how we address the collection, management and use of personal data or related consumer information," he explained earlier this month.

To create the new guidelines, the MMA is asking members of the mobile community, including carriers, marketers, agencies, media companies and media technologies, to join its Privacy Committee. The issue will also be addressed at its upcoming Consumer Best Practices Meeting, January 25-26 in Boca Raton, Florida.

Compared with the $25 billion online ad industry, the mobile marketing industry is still in its infancy. It won't reach $1 billion until 2012, reported AdWeek, citing data from eMarketer. "If we'd seen how fast mobile Internet and apps were going to grow, maybe we would have stepped in sooner," Stuart told AdWeek.

[Author's Note: if they had seen how fast it would grow? Were they not watching?]

There's no timeline for the completion of the new policy, Stuart said. "It's more important that we get it done right. This release was a call to arms."

A Need to Address Mobile Privacy Concerns

This issue was recently in the forefront of people's minds, thanks to a Wall St. Journal series called "What They Know," that highlighted the growing lack of privacy in today's digital world. One piece in particular ("Your Apps are Watching You") dealt with mobile privacy.

The Journal found that, after an examination of 101 popular smartphone applications on iPhone and Android devices, 56 transmitted the phone's unique device ID to other companies without the user's awareness or consent. 47 also transmitted location and 5 sent age, gender and other personal details.

Counterpoint: Tracking is GOOD

The somewhat overly paranoid reporting from The WSJ was met with some backlash online, especially from the tech blogging community. In a post entitled "Hello, My Name is: 9649e796e8b23900dc9629a18f2d47306430e62f," BGR blogger Andrew Munchbach made a convincing argument that mobile tracking isn't really all that bad. (The headline referred to his UDID, the unique device identifier that's used to build an online profile of a device, and therefore, the user).

"I’m not all that concerned with third parties, even advertisers, knowing the age, gender, UDID, and/or the general (or even specific) location of my device’s end-user (that’s me)," Munchbach wrote. "So Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds, knows that the dude using my mobile device is, um, a dude, was stuck on level 5-13 for six straight hours, and was in Newport, RI when this all occurred. So the game looked through my address book to see if there were contacts that were also playing Angry Birds with whom I could connect. I kind of like these features," he said.

He also said that even when that data is passed to an analytics company, it's used - anonymously - to provide useful usage statistics and intelligence. "Rovio can use this information to improve its product, which would seem like a benefit to me, the player. Heck, Flurry may even go one step further and use this information in its own reporting and assessment of the mobile industry or publish a report about it...still doesn’t trouble me all that much. Why should it? It’s an age, gender, and ever-changing location that is linked to a number that represents a mobile device."

...But Some Want to Opt-Out & Today You Can't

While in Munchbach's case, the tracking is seen in a positive light, there are some who would prefer the option to opt-out, as you can in most of today's modern desktop-based Web browsers, through the use of built-in tools like privacy/"incognito" modes, browser add-ons and extensions and even alternative search portals that promise no tracking.

WSJ polled its readers on the matter, and a majority (67.7%), said they want apps to tell them every time they collect and send info about their mobile device. Clearly, these voters were worked about about the idea, having just read the article. Apps that constantly nagged you if and when they could share information would be worse than Windows Vista's User Account Control security feature which seemed to ask you every single time you tried to make the simplest change on your PC.

Still, the mobile world, as of yet, does not have any such opt-out options. It's all or nothing - use the app, or don't. But if you do, you're agreeing to certain conditions. The MMA's influence may help to create new scenarios here that will better serve mobile users, not just with regard to apps, but for all sorts of mobile ads, including SMS text messages, in-app banner advertising and ads on the mobile Web itself.

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