Differentiation, crowd-sourcing and service: social media strategies in Melbourne's restaurant scene (Part 2)

Welcome to my second post about the social media strategies used by Melbourne eateries! As mentioned last week, cafes and restaurants in Melbourne must differentiate themselves from heavy competition as they operate in a city well renowned for its various eateries.

One avenue for differentiation is through social media - cafes and restaurants with creative social media strategies can stand out from the crowd and increase their customer base...In the last post, we looked at how Jimmy Grants Souvlakis managed to diffuse their brand across Melbourne, gaining over a 1000 followers after just one month of operations...This week we look at creative social media strategies used by N2 Extreme Gelato in Fitzroy and Espresso 3121 in Richmond to differentiate their businesses.

Case study 2: N2 Extreme Gelato - Crowd-sourcing through social media

Unlike the other ice-cream parlours in Melbourne, N2 Extreme Gelato co-creates value with customers by developing the flavours they suggest. Individuals can hop onto their official website, run on a Tumblr platform, and submit flavours they'd like to try. N2 then selects the best suggestions and turns them into real products. This co-creates value because involves customers in developing products they want to to try. In turn, this enables the store to sell flavours that actually appeal to their target market.

N2 leverages the concept of crowd-sourcing on social media. According to Mashable, crowd-sourcing can be defined as "distributed problem-solving." By spreading tasks with large groups of people, companies can gain collective intelligence, assess quality and attract target customers. For N2, crowd-sourcing has allowed the business to interact with their customers more closely on social media. The activity has empowered customers to design their own products, and in the process, helped N2 to drive positive online discussions of their brand.

After they have tranformed a suggestion into a real product. N2 promotes their flavours for the week on Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr. Through this, they not only showcase a range of unique products that differentiate their brand from others, they also credit customers for their creativity and imagination. On photos and updates about co-produced flavours, customers tag friends who suggested the flavour or who are interested in trying it. This helps to spread word of mouth advertising about the brand and products on social media...The more unusual the flavours, the better, as customers are likely to talk about them because they are oddly appealing (e.g. Apple struddle), or outrageous (e.g. Spam and mustard). This, along with their science-themed storefront, has helped the ice-cream parlour to attract many customers and online followers. Since their opening in August 2013, N2 has gained over 1900 followers as a result of their co-creation and communication strategies and their interesting store concept.

                                            

Case study 3: Espresso 3121 - Providing augmented services with Twitter

Another eatery that has used social media to distinguish itself effectively is Espresso 3121 in Richmond. The cafe has used Twitter to enhance its service efficiency. Like many other cafes, Espresso 3121 uses Twitter to create conversation with customers - letting them know about offers, daily specials and other news as well as encouraging them to leave comments and provide feedback. But the cafe has taken their Twitter strategy to a whole new level. 

Espresso 3121 has installed a screen to display twitter talk inside the cafe. This screen shows content relating specifically to their business and therefore provides customers with a chance to find out about the cafe's twitter activities. It also acts as a point of interest for customers while they wait for their orders. Further to this, the cafe has used twitter to provide an express ordering service - customers can order ahead  by tweeting a direct message to Espresso 3121. This not only benefits customers who can skip the queue; it also benefits the cafe, allowing staff to get more organised and to push through a greater number of orders. Additionally, this helps to keep the waiting area clear in peak hours. While the system has experienced a few initial teething problems, it has been well-received with customers and reviewers who have talked about it on Urbanspoon, Twitter, Facebook and other networking platforms as well as their own blogs and websites. 

Espresso 3121 has also employed the use of Foursquare to drive customers into their stores. Because Foursquare can be easily integrated with Facebook and Twitter, and has a growing number of Foodies using it, the cafe has established their venue on this site. Through Foursquare, Espresso 3121 offers discounts for loyal customers who check-in when they visit and share this across Facebook and Twitter. 

By augmenting their services through Twitter, Espresso 3121 has differentiated themselves as a cafe and become more memorable to customers (as evidenced from blog posts like this one and this one). The Twitter strategy has also brought publicity to the cafe from the likes of  Broadsheet Melbourne, who are an influential site to foodie groups in Melbourne. You can read about the Broadsheet article, here and more on the cafe's social media strategy, here. It just goes to show that creativity with social media pays off...But what do you think of these strategies?...will you suggest a flavour to N2 Extreme Gelato? Or would it be appealing to tweet an order for your coffee? Leave a comment and let me know!

Key points to take away from this post:

• Crowd-sourcing can help to diferentiate a business on social media. It not only helps businesses to solve problems and gain new ideas, it also makes customers feel valued. Businesses should provide social media space for customers to share their thoughts and opinions- this will allow them to collect intelligence and assess product quality, so they can improve their business and become even more appealing to customers than their competitors.
• Use social media to augment service provision. Social media platforms provide businesses with another way to serve customers, as well as communicate with them. If businesses can leverage social media to enhance the ordering, customisation or delivery of their products, they can stand out from their competitors. 
• Think of new and original ways to use social media - don't just use it to talk at customers, use it to interact with customers. Consider the main functionality of the platforms and brainstorm ideas around this. For example, Facebook has a strong relationship-building element. Businesses might want to consider how they can create activities on it that can help create a brand community. Question how social media currently works and consider new methods of useage. Can it be used in a collaborative and public way rather than individually on a phone or computer? Experiment!