Seriously, what’s not to like about 28 great restaurants offering fantastic 3-course meals for just $30?! But I’m confused about something, in regards to this fabulous lineup of restos, and I’m hoping some of you can help me out. 

Why do you think nearly 1/3 of the restaurants on this list choose not to use Twitter as a visibility vehicle, not just for this event but year-round? As social media fans (most likely you, if you are reading this!), we’re all pretty proud of the incredible culinary community we have on Twitter, and we truly love to talk about it constantly. But I’m always frustrated when I can’t find an establishment on Twitter, either to mention something cool they are offering, to ask them a question, or just to see what the buzz is about them from other Twitter foodies.

To wit, of this year’s 28 participating restaurants in Dine Around Seattle, 10 are not on Twitter – unless they are hiding and I can’t find them (that would be pointless, right?!)  And these are some of the best dining spots we have locally – Barolo, Chez Shea, Earth & Ocean, Mamma Melina, Nell’s, Nishino, Palisade, Restaurant Zoe, Steelhead Diner and Szmania’s.

So to these restaurants (or maybe their PR firms!), I beg and plead you to jump in and join us – the water is fine! We will support you, talk about you (we already are!), brag when we visit you, promote your events, share your special offers, and do whatever we can to support you in this wacky economy.  It’s just not the same without you…

I look forward to your comments below – what do you think is missing? How do we get them to come play with us on Twitter?

Warning – Shameless Plug: If you are one of these restaurants I’ve mentioned, or know one of them, I am more than happy to meet with you to discuss how you can use Twitter (or other social media) to increase your visibility and communicate with your fans.  Really, that’s what I do.

Follow this smart cookie @Twit4Restos on Twitter!

I just love, love, love what my ”right coast” colleague Lara Dickson does at Twitter For Restaurants. 

Besides constantly beating me to the punch with great ideas for restaurants on how to use social media in creative ways, she is just one smart cookie.  And so today, I am taking my fork, reaching across the table and stealing a bite from her plate – with all due credit, of course!

Her recent post “Telling Your Story Across the Web“ details how restaurants can use five online tools to maximize their visibility out of something as simple as a photo of a cinnamon roll:

Get a really good photo of your product or event, then:

1. Prepare a blog post
2. Create a Facebook event
3. Record a short video
4. Document with photos

And finally, bring them all together for a measurable impact on your SEO and analytics

5. Tweet(s) about it all

This one fantastic image has been broadcast on five different channels, reached all of your fan and follower bases, picked up in searches because your content was loaded with keywords and interesting information and images.

Perfect. Simple. Well said. Exactly what I would tell any of my restaurant clients to do.  I tip my toque to you, Ms. Dickson – and Happy International Women’s Day!  And don’t forget to follow her on Twitter - you’ll be glad you did.

The event is called Dining Out For Life, and it’s produced by the Lifelong Aids Alliance, which provides a variety of care services to people living with HIV/AIDS and other illnesses.

Now in its 17th year, Dining Out For Life takes place Thursday, April 29 in Seattle. To support this worthy cause, all you have to do is dine at a participating restaurant, grocery store, cafe, or bakery on this day, and 30% of your purchases will be donated to Lifelong AIDS Alliance, and the fight against illness and hunger in our community.  There’s also a special prize drawing for two free tickets on Alaska Airlines, for those that dine at a participating restaurant that day.

There are about 90 local merchants signed up already — we can do much better than that! – and you can view the entire list here. I’ve already forwarded the information to all my clients (and several others!) and I encourage you to do the same. This is a great opportunity for restaurants to help their communities and build goodwill with their customers.  As they say, it’s a “win-win” for everyone.

For more information, contact Trevor DeWitt at 206.957.1638 or TrevorD@llaa.org to sign up your restaurant today! Individuals can also participate as a volunteer. I hope to see you out and about April 29!

FROM DOFL: Dining Out For Life® is an annual fundraising event involving the generous participation of volunteers, corporate sponsors and restaurants. In exchange for their financial support, restaurants are listed in a city wide marketing campaign in an effort to increase customer traffic.

In 1991, Dining Out For Life® was created by an ActionAIDS volunteer in Philadelphia. Dining Out is now produced in over 55 cities throughout the United States and Canada.

More than 3,500 restaurants donate a portion of their proceeds from this one special night of dining to the licensed agency in their city. Nearly $4 million dollars a year is raised to support the missions of agencies throughout North America. With the exception of the annual licensing fee of $1,000, all money raised in these cities stays there.

Tidbit Bistro has the most Twitter followers (9964) among restaurants in Seattle

Which restaurants in the Seattle area have the most followers on Twitter? 

A client asked me this recently, so they could gauge where they rank among the 200+ restaurants using Twitter locally. So I decided to do a quick inventory – and I apologize in advance for anyone that was overlooked!  I’ve listed all those that have more than 900 followers, but if you know of anyone I’ve missed, please add the info in the comments section below.

• Tidbit Bistro – 9958 followers
• Skillet Street Food – 3545
• Marination Mobile – 3179
• Herbfarm -3151
• Delancey Pizza – 2935
• Pagliacci Pizza – 2551
• Blue C Sushi – 2270
• Monsoon East – 1894
• Seastar – 1645
• Mobatta Crepes – 1572
• Ruth’s Chris Steak House – 1410
• Heavy Restaurant – 1281
• Icon Grill – 1205
• Blue Moon Burgers – 991
• ART Restaurant – 979
• Maximus Minimus – 935

If you’d like to follow the restaurants in the greater Seattle area, you can follow the list I’ve created here. If you’d like to know how to get more followers - to increase your visibility and income! – on Twitter, maybe we should set up a meeting and talk about working together!  I’m just sayin’….

Did you know March 2 was National Banana Cream Pie Day? Photo: Alaska Silk Pie

Did you know there’s a National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day? Or a National Fettuccine Alfredo Day?  And as a restaurant, why should you care?

Believe it or not, nearly every day on the calendar is some sort of “food holiday” or celebration, according to The Nibble web site.  They document an amazing array of such events, and a basic description about how these special days are determined.

As a restaurant or food establishment, these are great opportunities to draw in new customers by tying in one of your menu items to the “holiday” – and then Tweeting about it!  It creates extra visibility, generates a fair amount of conversation, and it’s just plain fun.  And that’s good for business!

Listed below are a couple of recent posts on Twitter that display how restaurants/bars have hitched on to a food celebration, and kept themselves in an active conversation for much of the day:

AlaskaSilkPie: National Banana Cream Pie day! We make a banana cream Silk for the Norm Thompson catalog. Here’s a picture http://tweetphoto.com/13032319

Panera_Houston: Perfect day to try our Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake! RT @Foodimentary – Time to celebrate! March 4 is National Poundcake Day!

Vintagepdx: Its national Absinthe day; Celebrate with us. A chilled shot of Ordinaire Absinthe and a Laurelwood Treehugger porter to back it. $9

So if you are tired of just posting your Daily Specials on Twitter or referring to the same old menu items over and over, take a look at this food holiday calendar and plan ahead for some fun tweeting! Your customers – old and new – will thank you!

And in trying to focus on a topic for today, day four of my ”31 posts in 31 days” effort, I just couldn’t pick one thing – so I’ve created a lovely little menu of three side dishes for you instead…enjoy!

1. March on down to your local restaurant for the Dine Around Seattle promotion, which runs Sundays-Thursdays during the month of March.  There are enough restaurants participating (28) to keep you busy virtually every night this month, offering fabulous 3-course meals for $30.  In addition, 16 of the restaurants offer a $15 lunch special – giving you 44 different meal options to choose from this month.  I’d suggest you get started now!
2. If fast food/casual dining is more your speed, you might want to check out the Coupon Sherpa web site, which reveals “secret menu options” at 24 national chain restaurants. Now I was familiar with the insider lingo used to order at “In-N-Out Burger” (only Washington location is Olympia), but I had no idea McDonalds offered a “McGang Bang” (double cheeseburger with a chicken patty in between the two beef patties) or that Burger King made a “Suicide Burger” (four meat patties, four slices of cheese, bacon and special sauce).  Note to self: my nephews are no longer allowed to eat at either place; too dangerous, on so many levels!
3. And if wining, dining, bidding and dancing make your heart sing, splurge on a pair of tickets to Food as Art at Bell Harbor Conference Center on April 10. This gala fundraiser for the Central District Forum (CD Forum) celebrates the considerable culinary talents of black executive chefs and restaurateurs in the Puget Sound area. In addition to fabulous dining and complimentary wine service, guests will enjoy a dessert auction crafted by Executive Pastry Chef Sachia Tinsley of Wild Ginger and a live auction featuring travel, dining, and art items (in the interest of full disclosure, I am assisting the CD Forum with social media activities for this event).  You can view the list of outstanding chefs here and also get a sneak peek at the full menu here!

Do you have an food event we should be talking about or sharing with the community? Please let me know in the comments – we don’t mind sharing a great dish with others!

Don’t worry your pretty little head any longer – I have many ways to help you!  One of my new services is a series of classes to help the uninitiated, novice and intermediate Twitter users, with a goal of getting each group comfortable with this social media tool.

For those of you that are confused by the Twitter craze and have no idea whether it’s an appropriate tool for you or your business, I’m offering the ”To Tweet or not To Tweet – That is the Question” class. This two-hour seminar will cover:

• What is Twitter?
• Why Twitter is different (for business) than other social media tools
• What is the time and cost investment to use Twitter?
• How Twitter can be helpful to your marketing efforts
• How a “Twitter for Beginners” class can give you the training you need

Other options are the ”Twitter for Beginners” and “Intermediate Twitter” classes, both 2.5 hour hands-on sessions (bring your laptop!) where we will tackle the specific features and many of the tools available on Twitter.  If you don’t have a Twitter account yet, or have created an account but don’t know what’s next, the Beginner class is for you.  You’ll learn to create an effective profile, discover what to do – and not to do – on Twitter, how to decide what kind of messages to “tweet” and how to find/attract “followers”.

If you have the above basics of Twitter conquered, but know “there has to be more to it ”, the Intermediate class is your best bet.  In that class, we’ll cover the power of Tweetdeck and other organizational tools, how to engage in productive conversations, the wisdom of using ”lists” to monitor and manage your followers, discuss “hashtags” and “follow Friday” topics, among other advanced skills and features.

The classes are currently held in Bellevue, and I’m scouting out additional locations in Seattle (let me know if you have ideas!)  The cost for “To Tweet…” is $25, and the Beginning and Intermediate classes are $65 each.  You can view full descriptions and sign up at this registration page.  I’m open to additional ideas, topics and suggestions, so please leave me a comment below.  See you in class!

My nephews send the best birthday flowers!

Yes, it’s my birthday today and as much as I wanted to skip writing a post today, I didn’t. 

And why not, you ask? Because I’m committed to honoring my “31 posts in 31 days” project, and today is only the second day – I can’t break the streak so soon!

So today I will write about celebrating birthdays in the Seattle food community with a special focus.  What do local restaurants offer customers who are celebrating their birthdays?  I know there are web sites that list lots of national chains and their offerings, but I was looking for local and/or what I was sent personally to my email.

I also posed the question on Twitter several times, and much to my surprise, received fewer than five replies. And as someone with a fair number of followers (and I follow nearly 200 restaurants locally), I was a little disappointed.  There are probably several reasons for this, but first let me list what I did find:

• Epulo Bistro (Edmonds) – free cocktail or dessert on your birthday
• Dukes Chowder House (several locations) – free entree within the month AND free dessert for my entire birthday party up to six people
• Lombardi’s Neighborhood Italian (3 locations) – free entree within birthday month to VIP Club members
• Waterfront Seafood Grill (Seattle Pier 70) – $25 dinner coupon
• The Herbfarm (Woodinville) – personalized birthday greeting in silver frame to take home
• Tom Douglas Restaurants (6 locations) – free dessert, must sign up in advance, valid for one month
• Dairy Queen (national) – free 16 oz Blizzard (valid for one week)
• Melting Pot (national) – free chocolate fondue for two (on next visit)
• Baskin-Robbins (national) – free scoop of ice cream (valid for five days after birthday)

And I’m done now.  Really.  That’s all I came up with – but I’m sure there are more out there, but they just didn’t see the request for the info…or worse yet, they aren’t on Twitter.  Gaaaasssspppp!  True, some aren’t.

What’s my point? Since I am focused on helping restaurants communicate and promote themselves effectively (especially via social media), I think it’s a huge missed opportunity to not reach out to birthday celebrators!  Why? For the cost of an entree or dessert, you earn loyalty, appreciation, and most likely some great recommendations via Twitter and Facebook. And, possibly more importantly, those birthday boys/girls usually bring FRIENDS with them when they come to celebrate - turning a small investment by you into a big return thanks to a large dinner party who might not have dined with you otherwise.

And for those of you who DO have birthday clubs and promotions, but make them so darned hard to find on your web sites, etc., please make it easy for us to come celebrate at your establishments!  Put it right up front on your home page or send it to us via email or post it occasionally on Twitter. You know customers love “free” and it looks good on you to make us feel special on our birthdays. 

And I promise, we’ll come celebrate with you on your birthday too – no sign up required!

31 flavors of blog posts in 31 days!

I thought I knew, but I think I better make sure before we go much farther – and definitely before I start my “31 blog posts in 31 days” project today! 

I hope I haven’t confused anyone, but my business is going through a bit of a metamorphosis these days, and I’m re-focusing this blog to ensure I’m on track and reaching those I most want to help (and work with!). So I’m following the wonderful example set by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger fame, and I’m committed to posting every day this month – and I’m confident I will have found my stride by April Fool’s Day.

Last July I launched this blog as I began the transition from working as a personal chef to helping restaurants and food companies navigate the crazy world of social media.  The blog began as “Life Is a Buffet” but has now been folded into my Incredible Chef web site here and serves as my home page.  And don’t look now, but I’m working on a company name change, to more accurately represent my services, so look for a sparkly new moniker soon! But I’m getting ahead of myself…

So what is this blog now?  I am here to help restaurants and hospitality companies with their communications and marketing efforts.  It is a many-splendored thing I offer - guidance with social media, email marketing, blogging, twitter, facebook, word of mouth networking, promotions and contests – all very fun and exciting things to drive more business to their companies and increase their visibility.

I believe I offer something unique to my clients – public relations agency experience, personal chef savoir faire, demonstrated social media expertise, and most importantly, an unabashed love of helping people in the culinary world talk about what they love to do.  Seriously – how many of my breed do you know??

So today I start the task of showing you exactly what I can do and why you should believe me.  And it’s going to be a fun ride!  So tell me, what do you want to know about this world I’ve described?  Please let me know below in the comments and I’ll be back every day this month, delivering information cooked-to-order, just for you…bon appetit!

And isn’t that how some of you feel now, using Twitter.com? I’ve heard the frustration from many of you and the threats to quit Twitter because it’s too confusing, moves too fast and it’s hard to find what you care about.  Kind of like trying to pick a dish off a scrolling menu presenting in random, rapid-fire order, yes? 

And that’s my point today.  Don’t give up on Twitter – get TweetDeck now!

TweetDeck – like Hootsuite, Seesmic and similar products – is a productivity tool you download to your desktop (free!) that allows you to organize information into categories and topicsso they are more easily found and digested.  Just like a restaurant lists its dishes in categories – appetizers, entrees, fish, chicken, dessert, etc – TweetDeck allows you to create easy-to-view columns of information, so you can decide what to look at quickly, and it helps you focus if you have just five minutes to spend. As if…but I digress.

TweetDeck looks like a giant dashboard, with columns that allow you to group your followershowever you like. For example, I’ve created categories such as restaurants, food writers, friends, clients, Edmonds (my town), travel, etc.  When I open TweetDeck, I have 8-10 columns listing each of my categories in beautiful order – structure!  I can see at a glance what has been going on with my friends, for example, so I don’t have to scroll through the giant one-column mess that you find on Twitter.com.  No wonder so many people give up on Twitter, when they are left to watch Tweets scroll by like whitewater rapids – how could you ever find anything?

This efficiency allows you to manage your growing list of followers, so you can actually see what people are saying, in a logical way.  Once I have shown TweetDeck to novice users – and some intermediate users too – it’s like a light bulb goes on over their little heads, and they see the power in such an organizational tool.

In addition, there are three other major benefits in TweetDeck, that I simply can’t live without – and they aren’t available on Twitter.com.  There is an automatic URL-shortening featurethat allows you to paste a long web address and have it shortened right there in the same window, similar to tiny.url or bit.ly.  There’s also an easy way to simply drag a photoright onto the TweetDeck screen so you can attach it to your tweet.  And, you can actually edit and/or add a personal message when you are retweetinga Tweet, which is no longer possible on twitter.com.  These three features alone are worth the price of TweetDeck…oh wait, it’s FREE! (did I mention that?)

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.  When you are hungry for chicken, you want to go right to the poultry section on the menu, and not be bothered with desserts or soups.  And thanks to TweetDeck, when you just want to see what your clients are doing, you can get right to it, and save yourself time and mental energy.  And that’s worth a lot.  Just hop on over to www.tweetdeck.com and download it today…you’re welcome!

NOTE: For those interested, I am teaching an intermediate Twitter class that focuses on TweetDeck and other tools to help productivity.  You can view the details at this link