Today I will be performing a social media audit on the Lime Fresh Mexican Grill restaurants.
What’s a social media audit? Each week I randomly pick a brand and I do a bit of forensics on their social media activities. I then take the data exactly as it’s pulled and analyze it and make recommendations accordingly.
I make sure to report what I see and I try to assess what they’re (the brand) doing right and what I think they may be doing wrong…and how they can improve upon the success of their social media endeavors.
These audits are very similar in nature to the audits I would perform on a client’s social profiles. However if I have admin access on Facebook, I can dive a little deeper. But even in this format, the profile being audited can get a very good assessment as to the health of their social media marketing.
Brand Name: Lime Fresh Mexican Grill
Brand Background: Mexican Fast-Casual Restaurant. Lime Fresh Mexican Grill® isn’t your average burrito joint. Lime Fresh was created by John Kunkel in South Beach in 2004 to meet the clamoring demands of its very stylish, health-conscious South Beach patrons.
Lime quickly became a South Beach sensation with a loyal following of locals, tourists and celebrities such as Hulk Hogan, Brooke Hogan, Rod Steward, Padma Lakshmi, Matt Damon, Owen Wilson and Jay-Z. Lime Fresh is a growing chain with 30 or so restaurants located in 6 states and Washington D.C. The chain is now under the Ruby Tuesday umbrella.
Ruby Tuesday has an aggressive plan to open 200 Lime Fresh stores in the next 10 years.
In this post, I will examine the social media profiles of Lime Fresh Mexican Grill . I will also be making recommendations as to how I believe they can better engage with their audience. For information on the individual social profiles, please click on the tabs below.
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Facebook: ( page link ) Currently Lime Fresh Mexican Grill has 19,064 fans as of October 18, 2013. They are enjoying an engagement rate of approximately 3.9%.
Lime Fresh currently averages 1.5 Facebook posts per day. In the last 20 days (date pull period) Lime Fresh published 28 posts that generated 734 engagements for an average of 25 engagements per post.
The most engaging type of content has been photos. However this may be skewed as photos were the only posted content. No videos, polls etc.
As for sentiment, 91% of the activity is neutral or positive in nature. The optimal posting time is on Monday afternoon between 12pm and 1:00pm. (click on image below to enlarge to full size view)
All of this indicates that there may be base of fans who have an interest in Lime Fresh content, but the brand isn’t posting enough content, nor the type of content that appeals to their audience of 25-34 year old men and women.
One very obvious mistake occurred on October 4th as the brand posted the EXACT same image with basically the same copy, 9 times!! That’s social suicide! Additionally, the brand simply posts the same type of content over and over again. There’s only so much interest in someone seeing a taco.
However, where the problem comes in is regarding the actual reach on the page. During the measurement period Lime Fresh was only able to obtain an engage rate of 3.9%.
This engagement rate is quite misleading as over half of the engagement is taking place on posts by Users. Not from the brand itself. These are mostly consumer inquiries, complaints and endorsements. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just indicates that the consumers don’t find the brand content all that appealing or informative. (click on image below to enlarge to full size view)
With the very low brand engagement, it’s clear that Lime fresh isn’t employing a Facebook ads strategy. As it’s well known that Facebook’s algorithm only shows content to a fraction of a brand’s fan base. There are a few ways to over come this to increase engagement.
No promotions, contests or sweepstakes were shown to be executed in the recent history of the Lime Fresh Facebook page.
Recommendations: Employ Facebook ads to reach a higher percentage of fans and friends of fans. Immediately begin engaging more with the fans who do respond. And begin creating, developing, and executing exciting social promotions on an ongoing basis.
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Twitter: ( page link ) Lime Fresh Mexican Grill has 11,898 followers on Twitter and they are following 4,692 people as of October 18, 2013. Currently the Lime Fresh Mexican Grill Twitter account is “verified”.
The measurement period of this Twitter audit is for a full 30 day period from September 16, 2013 through October 17, 2013. I believe this sample lot gives a fair indication of the overall Twitter activity.
Lime Fresh Mexican Grill is averaging just 4 tweets per day with very low fan engagement and they have 90% positive or, at minimum, neutral sentiment. During this sample period the brand lost 19 followers.
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In addition, only 2.4% of the brand’s Twitter followers are engaged. This is well below average and indicative of a Twitter following that isn’t responding well to the brand’s activities on Twitter. (click on image below to enlarge to full size view)
The best time for engagement is between the hour of 12:00PM and 1:00PM. This is when Lime Fresh should be spending a lot of time engaging and interacting with fans. The best day for engagement is Thursday as over 17% of the brand’s’ engagement occurs on Sunday. (click on image below to enlarge to full size view)
The most troubling datapoint uncovered is that Lime Fresh has an obvious strategy of NEVER responding to anyone. This is a failure. The only good thing about this is that it can be immediately rectified.
Lime Fresh should be posting more multi-media to Twitter. Videos, micro-videos and pictures do far better on Twitter than links alone. Lime Fresh didn’t post a single video during the reporting period and only posted 3 images. Lime Fresh is sending far more text only tweets than tweets with multi-media. FYI, Tweets with images and videos get 124% more engagement.
Recommendations: The content being posted needs to be focused on pictures and videos. The brand must IMMEDIATELY begin responding to @ mentions.
Twitter is a conversation, not a monologue. The poor content, lack of frequency and overall lack of response and participation by Lime Fresh explains the lack of interest by the followers, and the low rate of gaining new followers.
If you’re going to have a Twitter account you MUST respond. You must also post contextually relevant content on a timely and ongoing basis. As a guidepost, Lime Fresh should be seeking to obtain a response rate in excess of 60% and they should be responding at minimum within a 60-90 minute window.
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YouTube: ( page link ) Currently Lime Fresh has 3 subscribers to their YouTube channel. (that’s not a typo!)
The brand has uploaded a total of 24 videos. Total views of all videos is just 28,111. This gives the Lime Fresh an average of 1,171 views per video. However this is really skewed by one video from 3 years ago which accounts for nearly half of the channel’s total views.
Lime Fresh seems to have abandoned video marketing as the last video posted was over a year ago on July 19, 2012. Which is odd since in the video below, the CEO heralds social media as being the driver for bringing people to Lime Fresh restaurants.
Recommendations: I would suggest creating and posting videos of the restaurants, its patrons and the atmosphere. I’ve eaten at Lime Fresh and the food is great and the locations are very vibrant and I feel that Lime Fresh is doing itself a big disservice by not posting regularly on YouTube and then promoting said content both in their restaurants and via a YouTube promotional strategy as well.
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Instagram: ( page link ) Currently Lime Fresh just seems to be developing their Instagram account. It was opened in May of 2012 but it only has 15 posts. The brand has 390 followers and they are following 453 people. This is a red flag as a brand this size shouldn’t be upside down in it’s follower/following ratio.
Lime Fresh has only made 15 posts in a year and a half. This might not be the official account for the brand. This account was found by doing an exhaustive search on Instagram. The link to this profile was not posted on the main website for Lime Fresh.
In my search on Instagram I did indeed find a very lively, active and engaged Instagram page for Lime Fresh, but it was for a single location in College Park, Maryland and that location is no more.
Recommendations: Instagram is a HUGE and growing platform and a great way to promote your brand in a cool, engaging way. No consumer should have to search for your Instagram page.
Lime Fresh must immediately brand-out a page and begin posting and cross promoting image and micro-video content. I would also suggest that Lime Fresh begin executing Instagram promotions wrapped around a designated hashtag to build an ongoing conversation and content thread.
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Google+: Other than a few isolated locations that seem to have created their own Google+ pages, there isn’t a main corporate page.
Apparently, at the current time, Lime fresh doesn’t have a Google+ page. Google+ is becoming a major force in social media. Lime Fresh has chosen not to create a presence there.
Recommendations: Google+ can’t be ignored.I would advise Lime Fresh to create a Google+ presence and begin posting content as soon as possible.
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Lime Fresh Mexican Grill has great food and the atmosphere at the restaurants that I’ve visited is vibrant and upbeat. The brand is well positioned to have very engaging social profiles.
With a few tweaks and a focused allocation of resources, Lime Fresh could enjoy an amazing social presence. As Lime Fresh states that they have an aggressive growth plan ahead, let’s hope they get things rolling in social media very soon.
If you would like a free, comprehensive social media audit performed on your social profiles, please click here to contact me.
