Navigating the Social Media Maze for Bar Owners

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram ... where should you be and how on earth can you manage them all? I read in one SEO book that "your customers are on social media so you should be to". Nonsense.

In fact being on Social Media can do you more damage than good unless you are ready to go all in on each account that you open. Yes, your customers and potential customers probably are on places like Facebook and Instagram but they are there to see regular updates that are relevant to them.

So ask yourself - do I have relevant things to say on a regular basis?

The answer might be yes. You might have new products or services on a regular basis that you want to announce. Or periodic promotions. Perhaps something as simple as making people aware of upcoming national holiday opening times.

You don't need to even think of your own post. Just follow your favorite Journal or a leading figure in your field and share something they post. Its the added bonus of showing you're current and demonstrating to future customers that you keep up to speed with developments in your industry.

If so Social Media can be very useful to you and even to people who are not following you there. If I am thinking that I may want to make an enquiry then looking you up on Facebook to check there are no announcements from you that are affecting your opening hours is a useful thing and I don't need to be following you to do that.

Where Social Media can actually damage the way your business looks is if your profiles are incomplete, poor quality or deserted ... with 3 posts from 4 years ago! That undermines the professionalism you want to present. So when you, for example, set up a Facebook page do so in the same way as you added your business to directories.

• Full and informative descriptions of your bars, your story and what you offer. Again, use the meta description from your website home page and, if there is room, further text from your home page. Search Engines like consistency!
• Lots of images (that you have because you prepared them for your website anyway).

• All the attributes available - such as Opening Hours, Year Established, Contact Phone Number.

And make sure the profile is set up in a way that you are notified if someone sends you a message so you can reply promptly.

For a local business I would recommend:

• Facebook - it's a popular 'go to' place for many people even if they aren't actively following you. In fact some people prefer to search for businesses on Facebook instead of Google.
• Instagram - if you have regular images to post - say because you sell a line of products that you want to promote and sometimes place on promotion or you have drinks that are unusual and photogenic.

And that's it! Remember every one of these profiles has to be managed with updates and responses to questions or comments so if you set up a dozen social media accounts it can very quickly become an activity that sucks hours from your working week and you have to ask yourself what return you are getting for that.

I have met some business owners wasting so much time on Social Media that they could be devoting to SEO activities. In summary treat Social Media with caution, start slowly with Facebook and if you get a good feel of it expand to other platforms in your own time.

Despite what some people say Social Media is not your route to a booming business. Great customer service is and if that is what you provide then your customers will promote you themselves - not just in their feeds but also in groups they belong to and by good old traditional word of mouth.