Social Media – Page 2 – Velez Communication

Restaurants and Social Media

Posted on January 4, 2012January 4, 2012 by Phillip Vélez

Image courtesy of socialmediarestaurant.com

Social media is the best way for a company or brand to truly connect with their customers, and recent data shows that 55 percent of adults use it to find information on restaurants. A Pew Research Center study released last month found that about 55 percent of adults seek out information about restaurants, bars and clubs, and that those adults are more likely to be women, young adults, and technology adopters. Of that number, 51 percent look to the Internet for that information; 38 percent relied on search engines, 17 percent on specialty web sites, and 3 percent on social media sites or Twitter.

Today along with websites, Facebook pages, and Twitter accounts, restaurants also utilize other social networks particular to the industry like Yelp and Urban Spoon. Many social media-savvy customers use sites like Foodspotting, Open Table, and Zagat to report dining experiences and favorite foods. Customers are also using location-based social sites like Foursquare to check-in to restaurants which promotes the business to their network of friends.

So the next time you dine out, check out the Internet first, check-in to the place of your choice, and write an online review. Restaurants are looking at this activity and some offer special deals to customers using social media to promote their businesses.

If I missed any other restaurant-related social sites, please feel free to leave a comment below.

(Disclosure: The author of this post/blog is a communication manager for a Latin restaurant in NYC.)

Networking, Social Media

Google+ is Coming on Strong, But is it the Next Facebook?

Posted on July 29, 2011March 7, 2013 by Phillip Vélez

There’s a lot of talk around Google+, but is it the next Facebook? It’s really too early to say. Google+ became one month old yesterday and it already has a reported 20 million users. However activity has slowed down recently, but it’s still not available to everyone. So does Facebook have anything to worry about?

“With tens of millions of users and Google behind it, Google+ has become a major player,” Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, told Computerworld.

However, a report by Hitwise, an Internet traffic tracker, found that for the week ending July 23, Google+ had 1.79 million visits, down 3 percent from the week before. The report also noted that the average time spent on the site had fallen 10 percent that week to 5 minutes and 15 seconds.

I’ve been using Google Plus for a little over two weeks now and so far so good. I do notice that not all my colleagues, friends, and family are on the network yet, but that should change once Google opens it up to everyone. Even then, I don’t think Google+ will become as huge as Facebook, mainly because users have to have or open a Google account. I am not sure non-Google users will open an account just to check out Google+.

Twenty million members in one month is not bad for Google+, but Facebook is currently up to about 750 million members. Though Facebook would be dumb not to keep an eye on Google+.

“It’s very early to tell whether Google+ will appeal only to a group of insiders who like to use it a lot, which is the case with Twitter, or whether it will become a broad threat to Facebook,” Forrester Research Senior Vice President Josh Bernoff was quoted as saying by PC World.

I don’t think Facebook has anything to worry about because the masses will remain on Facebook and its membership will continue to increase worldwide. Google+ may very well be a success, but with Internet and social network savvy individuals.

But it really is too early to say. Let’s see how it all plays out. If you have any predictions about Google+ feel free to leave a comment below.