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February 12, 2024by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

Want Cinematic F&B Posts? Get Messy

Want Cinematic F&B Posts? Get Messy by David Klemt

Note: Photo not taken by Beautiful Booze or Little Lane Media.

Unsurprisingly, many people think that their social media and marketing photos and videos must be perfect. However, that’s not necessarily true.

The pressure to be “perfect” can lead people to stress out over posting F&B content to their social channels. Surely, composition must be flawless. If it’s not, why bother even posting?

After all, the century-plus-old phrase is “picture perfect,” not “picture imperfect.”

Well, you can stop fretting over every detail of your photos and vids. Two experts in social media marketing and content creation encourage you to be less than perfect.

During this year’s WSWA Access Live event in Las Vegas, Nevada, Natalie Migliarini and James Stevenson presented “Cinematic Cocktails: Mastering the Art of Visual Mixology.”

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A post shared by Beautiful Booze Cocktails (@beautifulbooze)

If you’re an avid consumer of social media content, you know Migliarini and Stevenson by the brands they’ve developed over a decade. Beautiful Booze, approaching 200,000 followers on Instagram, is run by Migliarini. Little Lane Media is a media agency operated by Stevenson.

Last week, I shared their tips for working with micro- (and nano-) influencers. Click here to learn why such collaborations can pay dividends for your business.

Today, I’m going to share a few of their tips for creating and posting your own engaging pics and vids.

Perfection is an Illusion

Throughout history, people have explained that perfection is an illusion. Worse, the self-imposed pursuit of perfection when during tasks can discourage a person from even trying.

So, don’t worry about being perfect. Instead, remove the pressure of perfection and just do your best. With that out of the way, Migliarini and Stevenson have a compelling argument against perfection.

In their experience—bear in mind that Beautiful Booze is a pioneer in the cocktail influencer space—the general consumers of content are put off by content that appears too professional and heavily edited. Rather, people seem drawn to more casual content.

Let’s say you want to promote a new cocktail on your menu. So, you’re going to create a video of yourself or a bartender creating the drink.

If you make a mistake, it can be tempting to scrap the video of edit out the error. Well, you can relax.

According to Migliarini and Stevenson, being messy during some build steps can look better than a “flawless” video. In fact, the duo say a messy video can be “fantastic.” Why? Their reasoning is simple: the mistakes show that you’re not perfect.

You know who else isn’t perfect? The people watching your video. This makes you (or your bartender) more relatable. It also takes the pressure of them if they want to try to make the drink at home.

There’s also the fact that many people are cynical about content. Too professional equals “trying to sell me something.” They know even a casual video is trying to get them to visit your bar or restaurant, but it’s more acceptable.

So, liquid splashing out of the glass? Leave it. Did some booze spill from the jigger and miss the glass? Leave it in.

Tips and Tricks

Of course, you should still create content with some guidelines in place.

If you sell alcohol, you should probably keep cocktail, beer, wine, and spirits content to Instagram. TikTok may be a dominant video platform but you can’t be sure what ages are consuming your content. Best to err on the side of caution.
Migliarini and Stevenson have learned that people like transparent cocktail shakers when watching cocktail videos.
Get a tripod. It doesn’t have to be an expensive, professional one; a decent one from Amazon will do.
Any light is better than no light.
You can fill “dead space” in your photos with garnishes, coasters, etc.
Shoot in slow motion. If you want a truly cinematic post, this works wonders.
Aim to create 20-second videos.
Finally, and this one is very valuable, edit your video so your “hook” is up first. (Speaking of editing, try Final Cut Pro if editing via laptop or desktop, and InShot to edit on your phone.) You have to grab people’s attention, and Instagram counts the first three seconds as a view. Since it will be a loop, put your hook at the front and the build after that. This may seem odd to you at first but people watching won’t notice the “strange” cut.

Bonus tip: You don’t have to be perfect when performing a task for video. However, make sure your background is cleaned up (and consider blurring it). There are people who’ll pause and try to zoom to pick apart backgrounds; it happens.

With these tips in mind, it’s time to try your hand at some new video content.

Image: Isabella Kara on Unsplash

December 4, 2020by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

How Not to Handle a PR Crisis: Boston Market

How Not to Handle a PR Crisis: Boston Market

by David Klemt

So, you boasted about a significant boost in sales linked to one of America’s biggest holidays and then under-delivered to a catastrophic degree.

What do you do?

Certainly not what Boston Market did and is still doing: Proceed with your Thanksgiving-themed social media campaign and remain silent on your reported failures.

Last week, on Thanksgiving Eve, Randy Miller, president of Boston Market (which reportedly received a PPP loan of $5-10 million), told CNBC that Thanksgiving sales were up approximately 172 percent compared to 2019.

There are 346 Boston Market stores in the United States. Pop open Twitter, search “Boston Market,” and check out the tweets from about November 21 to today.

Twitter users, some of whom claimed to have spent $300 or more on preordered and prepaid Thanksgiving meals prepared by Boston Market, experienced a range of issues when they went to pick up their orders.

Tweets and reports abound of Boston Market customers experiencing one or more of the following:

Waits of up to three hours (if not longer). In a pandemic. On Thanksgiving Day.
Incomplete orders. Supposedly, this was due in some situations because walk-in guests were permitted to place orders they received before those waiting in line for preorders which, again, were paid for in advance.
Unprepared orders. Some Twitter users claimed they were given frozen or raw items to prepare themselves.
Missing orders. There are claims that some customers arrived to pick up their orders only to be told it wasn’t there.

Of course, that’s not the complete list of issues reported by Twitter users. Other tweets—and there are a lot—claim that people placed preorders, paid for them, and then received messages canceling their orders. Some of those cancellations allegedly occurred on Thanksgiving Day—and without refunds.

And what has Boston Market done so far? Continued to tweet on Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the following Sunday. Those tweets are still up, with a November 29 tweet about the final day of their Black Friday deal being the most current.

At the time of publication, there’s no tweet addressing Boston Market’s apparent Thanksgiving debacle. But there are plenty of replies with messages like this from one user:

“It’s not a happy thanksgiving when you tell us to wait in a very long line our Thanksgiving order that WE PAID $140 – and we’re here during our window.”

And this one, from a user who shared an image that purported to be of their $175.30 order:

“I’d be thankful if I could have waited in line for 2 hours to pickup our family’s Thanksgiving day meal. Unfortunately, the food was paid for, but never delivered to us. We’ll be eating sides from the grocery. Thanks Boston Market.”

The situation is no better on Instagram, with one user there commenting, in part, “Boston Market has taken NO RESPONSABILITY for the Thanksgiving disaster.” (Emphasis theirs).

Perhaps Boston Market is addressing or has already addressed affected customers offline. Perhaps some of the tweets weren’t real and posted by trolls doing their troll thing. Not everything, it turns out, on the Internet is real.

Boston Market still needs to release an official statement addressing what happened to many of their guests on Thanksgiving. That statement needs to be accompanied by social media posts.

How negative an impact Boston Market’s silence will have on their bottom line moving forward remains to be seen. However, as most owners and operators of customer-facing businesses know, an apology and offer to make things right goes a long way. Simply acknowledging a problem occurred and vowing to look into it can keep a bad situation from devolving further.

Saying nothing? Not a winning strategy.

Photo by Sara Kurfeß on Unsplash

December 1, 2020by David Klemt David Klemt No Comments

How to Address Temporary Restaurant and Bar Closures: 5 Social Media Examples

How to Address Temporary Restaurant and Bar Closures: 5 Social Media Examples

by David Klemt – 12/1/2020

Repeated restaurant and bar closures have, tragically, become a hallmark of 2020.

Operators have had to learn how to communicate closures to potential indoor guests, as well as delivery and takeout guests.

For most operators, the possibility of closing their doors—temporarily or otherwise—has moved well past “if” territory. At this point, it’s not even a question of when a restaurant or bar will have to close, it’s a matter of when it will happen again.

There are a few reasons a F&B business will have to close due to the Covid-19 outbreak: official mandate, reduced indoor and outdoor dining capacities, and voluntary temporary closures.

Mandated closures are, on the surface, straightforward. Government officials decree that certain types of businesses must close their doors by a specific date and time, and owners are expected to comply.

Closures induced by capacity restrictions are less straightforward. It has become woefully apparent that most lawmakers don’t understand (or don’t care) that at a certain threshold, reducing indoor and outdoor dining capacities is as good as forcing a restaurant or bar to close; the value proposition of remaining open simply isn’t there.

A voluntary temporary closure can come about because of capacity limitations, but they can also be the result of other factors. A significant workforce reduction, lack of traffic, rising costs of goods, or an internal Covid infection.

The stark reality is that the likelihood today’s operators are going to have to craft social media posts and emails announcing temporary (and possibly extended) closures is anything but slim.

Below are four examples of effective closure announcements that bars across America have posted to Instagram recently.

Machine, an upscale cocktail bar and restaurant in Chicago, made the difficult decision to close their doors to in-person dining guests throughout the remainder of 2020. The post addressed the reason for the decision but made it clear that Machine would continue to operate for delivery and curbside pickup orders placed online. Community health and safety was held up as a priority, and though the news was disappointing and no doubt difficult to break, Machine’s post was positive.

Award-winning Chicago cocktail bar Lazy Bird, located in the basement of the Hoxton hotel, was forced to close due to indoor dining restrictions. The post image was short and to the point, with the caption explaining in detail why the bar was closing temporarily. Lazy Bird is part of the Boka Restaurant Group and their post included a call to action for people to support venues within the portfolio that would still be able to offer outdoor dining, delivery and takeout.

Three days ago, award-winning restaurant Compère Lapin announced a temporary closure due to a team member being exposed to Covid-19. Like the Machine post, Compère Lapin’s message explained their decision was based on safety. Similar to Lazy Bird, the restaurant urged guests to visit James Beard Award winner Chef Nina Compton’s other restaurant, Bywater American Bistro (BABs).

In Woburn, Massachusetts, just ten miles northwest of Boston, the Baldwin Bar alerted guests to their temporary closure because a staff member tested positive for Covid-19. The message, like that of Machine’s, was transparent, straightforward, reassuring, and positive overall. Not only did the Baldwin Bar share that the venue was undergoing a deep clean, they named the company tasked with providing the service.

The Baldwin Bar, thankfully, got to post the following message a little more than a day after posting their closure announcement:

Operators who find themselves in the terrible and frightening position of having to announce a temporary closure would do well to follow the examples above. While hope isn’t a viable business strategy, a hopeful tone can help garner support from the community.

Equally important are an emphasis on health, safety and cleanliness so guests feel comfortable placing orders for delivery and takeout, and returning when the doors open once again. As difficult as it may be when faced with closure, focusing on the well-being of the guests can help ensure there are guests lined up upon reopening.

Image: Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash