Update on the Apps
Posted by estiator at 13 April, at 16 : 06 PM Print
MANAGING FOR SUCCESS By CONSTANTINE N. KOLITSAS Business Coach
Technology evolves, and its grip on our business necessitates that we keep up on what’s happening if we are going to be relevant in our markets. Have you got Facebook figured out? Wait a second, they’ve changed the rules and now you’ve got to try to understand how to reach your audience all over again. (Even the professionals have a hard time keeping up with its zigs and zags.) And don’t ask anyone under 40—they’ll just call you a dinosaur for using Facebook in the first place. They’ve all moved over to Instagram, which of course Facebook recognized and bought so that they don’t lose their social media hegemony.
Honestly, columnist or not, I can’t figure out how to make Instagram do what I want it to do, and for the first time since social media became a “thing,” I’ve begun to use a marketing company to handle that aspect of my outreach. They come to the restaurant once a week, take photos and videos (videos are now commanding the lion’s share of IG views), and submit their post suggestions for my approval before they begin posting away. If you take this route, find someone you like because you’ll need to be in nearly continual contact with them if you’re going to extract the value necessary from the relationship.
As for Facebook, I leave the posts from our page to him, but I continue to aggressively post in the various groups that form audiences for my two restaurants. Foodie groups, regional chat groups, dine-out groups, bourbon groups, business groups—I regularly have a presence on all of these, with messages tweaked to the particular audience. At some point, a couple of weeks ago, I was put in Facebook jail for violating the community standards on spam. A handful of my posts were rejected and I was unable to post in any groups for about five or six days. Despite what it sounds like, I, of course, did not post anything untoward or socially unacceptable but, rather, my typical “come and get it” posts about the restaurant’s offerings for the week, along with my regular tags that include address, phone number, link etc. I contacted the admins of those pages and none had reported me, so I imagine it was some kind of algorithm that Facebook added to flag and handcuff anyone doing too much free marketing on their platform. It hasn’t repeated, although sometimes when I get a notification that someone liked or commented on one of my posts, I’m unable to link back to that post or find it when I go to search for it. So, something is up, but it’s not clear what that something is… Just a heads up if you come across the same kind of issues; don’t let it discourage you. Just give it a few days and try again.
I’m waiting for the class action lawsuits to prohibit Google from interfering with our livelihoods in this way.
Google is another platform that is continually changing up its algorithms and adding new features that are often frustrating to business owners. For example, when you Google a restaurant, you’ll sometimes note on its Google listing a strange line about the business level at the moment. “Restaurant is busier than normal” it may say, for example, as if Google has a camera on your tables. This is not only creepy, it can chase away business as customers may get discouraged because they may think that you don’t have any open tables and go else- where. Or the message may say that you’re rarely busy, which would lead them to think that you’re not a very good choice to begin with. I’m waiting for the class action lawsuits to prohibit Google from interfering with our livelihoods in this way.
As a Google customer (I host my websites and my email domains on their plat- form), I also have concern for the way that they charge for their services. My credit card has several very small Google charges on it every month in addition to the monthly charge for the services I knowingly purchase from them. I’ve tried to call, but that’s a joke. And I’ve tried to challenge the charges and just get emails indicating that they will terminate our business. For now, the amounts are very small, so I suck it up. But there is need to have transparency in their invoicing.
And if you’ve reached this part of the column and it seems like there’s more to say, you’re correct. But we’ll take that on in a future issue!
Constantine Kolitsas is a business consultant and president of Greca Hospitality Group, the owners of Greca Mediterranean Kitchen + Bar. He can be reached at dino@grecamed.com.
