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Earls Restaurant was founded in 1982 creating the spirit of West Coast Casual and has now grown to over fifty restaurants across North America with a comfortable yet upscale atmosphere. We recently got a chance to speak with Earls’ Assistant Marketing Manager, Sepy Bazzazi, about their social media strategies and why he feels that they have been so successful. Check out what he had to say below and visit their site and social media channels to see what we are talking about!

Online: www.earls.ca
Twitter: @earlsrestaurant
Facebook: www.facebook.com/earlsrestaurants
YouTube: earlsrestaurants

1. What made you decide to start using social media as part of your marketing strategy?
   Earls has always loved and taken pride in being trailblazers in the West Coast Dining scene. When social media marketing for businesses started gaining momentum a couple years ago we decided to assess our needs, set some goals and move forward confidently but cautiously. The answer you’re going to hear nine out of ten times from people is, “we couldn’t ignore the social media wave!”. Although this is true for sure, I like to think that as an organization, we were proactive in foreseeing where social media could position our business. I don’t think we followed suit, nor do I think it was an accident that we ended up with a Facebook page, a Twitter feed or a YouTube channel.
2. Tell us about a time when you won business because you were using social media.
   The best thing about social media is that people don’t filter their thoughts and emotions. There are open conversations going on out there about your brand whether you like what they’re saying or not… back in the day, you couldn’t be in all of your markets, eavesdropping on everyone’s conversations, but now you can! At Earls, we monitor what our customers (past, present and potential) are saying on social media, and address their needs on an ongoing basis. The odd time, somebody will tweet about a sub-par experience at one of our locations. Almost 100% of the times, these people don’t know that we’re listening, so when I reach out to them it is a total shock and it goes a long way. There have been a few situations where a customer has tweeted in a way that would suggest that they are completely inconsolable. I would stumble upon their tweet and respond to them with a simple but sincere apology and an inquiry into the situation in case I could help rectify it for them. An upset customer was converted into a lifetime friend of the brand with the simple act of listening and a few key strokes. People with concerns want to be heard, they don’t (always) want a gift card or some other tangible perk. They want to know that their voice has echoed loud enough to reach the appropriate ears. I believe that listening and actively responding is something that we do really well at Earls (social media or otherwise) and I know it has won us business and created evangelists for our brand many times in the past, and will continue to in the future.
3. Which social media marketing effort got you the most results? What did you do, and what did you get out of it?
   When the Prawn Dynamite Roll was past its test stages, and was being launched company wide as a replacement for the Shrimp Rolls, we ran a great social media campaign to have some fun and promote the new rolls in a big way. Basically we asked our fans and followers to to complete this sentence:
   
   “I love to eat my Prawn Dynamite Rolls while ____________________.”
   
   The twist, however, was that they couldn’t just finish the sentence by writing out a response. They had to complete the sentence by taking a photo or making a video! The prize for this contest was a $500 Gift Card to Earls, and the length of the contest was three weeks I believe. We featured the contest on our blog, Facebook Page and Twitter and we actually ran Targeted Facebook Ads for the first two weeks of the campaign as well which helped boost traffic not only to the contest but to our Facebook Page in general. The contest generated a whole bunch of great fan photos and videos which were of extremely high quality; one of the videos was nearly five minutes long and edited the whole way! The submissions were so good that we couldn’t pick a winner… we had to funnel them down to the top three. Once our panel of judges voted for their top three favourite submissions, those three went up to the popular vote. Those fans who produced the content had to get their family and friends to come comment on their submission in order to vote. This contest was a really fun and memorable way for our fans to connect with Earls and with one of our new (and deelish!) dishes. From Earls’ point of view the entire campaign was a huge success; we got to know some of our fans a lot better, we acquired a lot of new fans, we witnessed spikes in sales of the Prawn Dynamite Roll and most importantly we all had a really great time.

Prawn Dynamite Roll Contest Winner!



4. How do you control the use of social media within your company? Do you have any rules or policies?
   Social Media seems to always be watching me, making sure that as soon as I get something done, it gives me more work to do! Honestly, no matter how fast you can move, social media moves faster! We absolutely have systems, rules and policies in place for so many different reasons; to help guide our individual locations’ social media efforts, to formally deal with certain conversations, to coordinate our online efforts with our in-store efforts and more. Having said that, because of the pace that social media is moving at these systems cannot be etched in stone. We’re always reading and learning so that we can give our employees the tools that they need to enrich the customer experience, and to mold our social media infrastructures to ensure we are current! It’s easy to become a dinosaur in the social media game if you take your eyes off of it for too long!
5. What’s your biggest social media pet peeve?
   As somebody who uses social media in a professional capacity, my biggest pet peeve would be when businesses ignore and sometimes remove customers’ comments. When a customer of your business has a bone to pick with you, you should respond, not ignore it. We can’t choose to be on social media only for the good news. We have to deal with the good, the bad and the ugly.
6. If you could give one really good tip to social media newbies, what would it be?
   I think the most important thing to do before you get started is a really simple self assessment: Are you social media savvy, meaning do you like social media? If you can answer ‘yes’ to that, then you should consider the message you are trying to get across, and assess whether or not social media is the right way to communicate it. Also, know this: there is no such thing as a social media guru. We are all students of it, so don’t ever be discouraged!
7. Name three people on Twitter that you think our readers should follow.
   @unmarketing Scott Stratten; one of the top influencers in the world on twitter and author of award winning book, UnMarketing.
   
   @VanCityBuzz All things Vancouver. From events, to stories, to art to contests. Your main 604 resource.
   
   @Starbucks Keeping in touch with your followers and responding to them can be tough and can keep you busy with a few thousand followers. Starbucks does a great job of this with over 1.2 million followers. They definitely lead by example, and are worth checking out and engaging with.
8. Name three Facebook pages that our readers should check out.
   Facebook Marketing Solutions Keep up to date with changes to the Facebook platform for businesses, while learning how to use features more effectively and see how other brands are ‘doing it right’.
   
   Mashable – Social Media If anything notable is happening on social media, you’ll hear about it here.
   
   Red Bull One of the most well made pages I’ve come across yet. The amount of content featured [beautifully] on their tabs can keep you busy for hours. This is a page worthy of being looked up to.