Jessica Baustert, marketing director at St. Paul, Minnesota based Green Mill – a restaurant company with 28 locations focused mainly on serving pizza, pasta and sandwiches, is running a successful social media campaign and getting clear results your business can easily copy.
(The picture to the right is of her on her wedding day. It’s one of the candid pictures she posts, to connect more as a person with customers.)

This 29-year-old didn’t attend any big social media conferences, didn’t buy a bunch of books on social media, and didn’t even hire a social media consultant. She just jumped in and started playing, and it’s paying off. Feel like your business needs to get better at building a social media presence, but uncertain how to start? Then this post is for you.

Keys for Success in Social Media

1. A passion for your subject and social media is critical.
“If you don’t like social media, you’re not going to be good at it. People are going to notice that,” she said. If you don’t like social media, have someone else in your organization do it.

Baustert loves the time she spends at work connecting with customers online. “That’s my favorite part of the day.”

She estimates it comprises a full quarter of her time. She’d make it a bigger slice if she could. She’s also not a newcomer to the social media world. She’s been an avid user of My Space and Facebook, even before she joined the Green Mill.

2. There’s support from the top.

Her boss loves that she’s getting the company so involved in social media. The company loves social media, not because it’s hip, but because the tools are free, and it gives the business a chance to engage directly with customers when not physically in the restaurants.

3. Track the efforts in simple ways.
The Green Mill doesn’t have an elaborate system for measuring financial gain from social media, but does track enough of it to show it’s paying off at the cash register. “You can send out direct mail pieces all you want, but you don’t know if people really saw it unless they bring it in,” she said. Here, she can easily see how many people visit a company Facebook page, respond to a contest, or bring in a coupon they received from an online contest.

4. Start out slow.
The Green Mill launched its first social media outpost – Twitter – in March of 2009, and built from there. Now each restaurant location has a Facebook page, and in coming weeks the chain is going to be adding Foursquare – the location-based service where users “check-in” to the building or location their in, and sometimes are rewarded with coupons. She didn’t wait for everything to be perfect either. When she discovered @GreenMill was taken, she didn’t burn a bunch of time worrying about branding on Twitter. She just jumped in with @GreenMill001. No, the numbers don’t signify anything specific.

5. Social media is just one slice of an advertising strategy.

She also does some direct mail, radio and television.

6. Hold simple contests often, to engage your audience.
Recently Baustert held a Twitter contest. The challenge was to head to the restaurant’s corporate Facebook site, look up a specific fact, and then tweet that fact back to her. Out of an audience of 2,723 Twitter followers on @GreenMill001, 15 people responded in an hour.
She sent out a coupon for $10. Because I happened to win that contest, I know I ended up spending about $30 total that night. So what did her two hours of work mean for the company? At least 15 people each interacted with the Green Mill brand twice, and I spent $20 more than the $10 I had a coupon for. Had I not seen the contest, and not received the coupon, Green Mill wouldn’t have made any money off me, because I wouldn’t have thought about the restaurant, nor eaten there that week.
So was that contest worth it? That would translate into an easy “yes” for most audiences.

On any given day, Baustert is overseeing multiple contests, to get people to look at the menus, win coupons, and ultimately enter the restaurant.

In July the restaurant launched a new “Customer Choice” menu, based solely on a survey they asked customers to take on the website and on Facebook.

The nice part about the contests as well, is that current customers are reaching out to others who either aren’t familiar with Green Mill, or haven’t been exposed to the brand online.

Another contest she’s running asks visitors to tweet a picture or post a picture on Facebook. And if a customer posts a picture with five people in it, who are all tagged, they will each also receive notification of the picture, so that’s five more people who visit the site, and see the contest.

7. Define success through multiple measurements.
While money is one indicator, number of comments and volume of people participating in contests are also important figures that are tracked. In mid-June the chain ran another contest for a $25 coupon on Facebook, garnering more than 100 entries during the week of the contest. Baustert said most of her coupons by the way, are in the $10 to $15 dollar range.

Another metric is simply whether more people are “Liking” the fan page and Twitter account. The goal isn’t simply to reach a certain figure, but just further evidence more people are consistently being exposed to the brand.

8. Niche as needed.

Until July, the company had one Facebook page, one Twitter account, and a website.
That worked at first, but customers would visit the page, and see promotions that didn’t apply to their local restaurant. So in July of 2010, the store has added Facebook pages for each store, so promotions for individuals stores could be targeted to each restaurants regulars. If there’s a reason to branch out, do it. But don’t assume you need a separate piece of online property for each consumer niche.

9. Be human.
Even on the Twitter account, you’ll find her name listed (and sometimes a few of her personal pictures, like the one above). Might sound funny, but many businesses fail at social media, because they, well, act like a giant, blind, unfeeling yet all-knowing corporation.

Or, especially if they’re a small business, they set up a page, and then leave it to die. But a Facebook site needs to be tended and watered regularly to thrive.

And perhaps most importantly, Baustert doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about how great the food at the Green Mill is.

Sometimes she’ll just ask how everyone’s doing. You’ll find her chatting casually with customers, and thanking people for saying how great their experience was.

“I don’t want to be a robot,” she said. Too often businesses don’t realize if they never respond to customers, and every statement looks like it’s been picked over by lawyers, customers are going to quit stopping by their online sites.

The key is to make sure “You’re not spamming everyone nonstop, deals deals deals,” she said.

“Once in a while I’ll post a picture,” she said, of a certain menu item. And sales for that specific menu item will then spike.
Each week she’ll typically run a contest as well.

10. Engage with customers where they feel most at home.
She speaks with certain customers who only use Facebook, and others who only use Twitter, and doesn’t expect everyone to come to the website, or use both social networking sites.

The one caveat to this is on contests, where the goal is to reward patrons who take the time to engage with the brand on at least a couple platforms.

11. Monitor the different social media outposts daily.
She monitors the company accounts all day long during business hours, and gets alerts on her Blackberry after hours.
And if it’s a pressing issue on the weekend, she’ll also reach out to a customer, like to find out why a restaurant’s phone number wasn’t working.

12. Don’t immediately delete the dreaded negative comments.
If someone posts a negative message on Facebook or Twitter, she does not delete it immediately. This would cost her credibility with her followers and fans. She publicly asks the person to send an e-mail to her, or a private message. This shows other customers that the company cares about the problem, and wants to fix it. This also allows her to do her best to resolve the issue outside the public spotlight.

“I try to do everything offline as much as possible,” she said.
She’ll also contact the stores, to try and resolve the problem.

“People are always surprised,” she said, when the business actually takes the concern seriously. “They’re like ‘O my gosh, thanks for listening.’” That not only addresses the problem, but that leaves the customer with a great experience.

Once the problem is resolved, Baustert will then remove the complaint.
If the person doesn’t respond to Baustert’s comment, and private e-mail, she’ll also delete the complaint.

Often other fans of the restaurant company will rush to defend the restaurant as well, she said. This is also very typical. Supporters of a store will quickly rush to bolster the reputation of a business they support.

When good comments come in, she also makes a point of taking a screen shot, and sending those shots to the stores, so the many servers who don’t monitor the social media outlets see the great news.

So where did Baustert get her online chops? Mainly trial and error, and by reading the blog at Spydertrap, a Minneapolis online marketing firm,  where a friend works.

13. To follow, or not to follow?

Currently the Twitter account stands at 2,723 and 2,499 on the corporate Facebook page.

Baustert follows every person back who lives near a Green Mill, or if they take the time to interact with the company, by posting a message.

She doesn’t want to build a following in parts of the country where supporters simply can’t purchase the products, and for that reason – and so she doesn’t get spammed – she doesn’t automatically follow people who follow the restaurant company.

And she rewards new followers with a secret page she provides access to for a special coupon. If you want to get yours, visit the Minnesota pizza restaurant on Twitter.

14. She maximizes her time online, by using simple tools.
To actively monitor, she keeps Tweetdeck up on one monitor, and sometimes Hootsuite, and she uses a Blackberry’s UberTwitter application, so she can know right away, if someone sends a public comment or direct message to @Greenmill001.

What would you like to ask Jess about her social media efforts?
What would you add, or change, if you ran he restaurant chain’s efforts?