This social media audit has been performed on the profiles of Roti Mediterranean Restaurant. Roti is a growing fast-casual Mediterranean restaurant chain of 20+ locations.
Roti states that their goal is to serve “Food That Loves You Back“. They say that means the food that they prepare and serve tastes great and leaves the customer feeling great long after they’ve finished eating.
Roti states that their food is prepared every day from real, healthful, flavorful ingredients. Their vision is to become the leading Mediterranean restaurant brand.
As a part of this audit, I checked the NRN Social 200. The NRN Social 200 takes a daily look and ranks the social media activities of the nation’s largest restaurant chains.
Obviously, Roti has plenty of work to do on their social media. As of the date of this audit, they don’t rank in the top 200 restaurant companies in America.
This audit is designed to show the executives of Roti Mediterranean Restaurant some measurement of their social media marketing activities along with some suggestions as to how to elevate their activities to foster overall community interaction and audience growth.
Overview: In case you are new to my site, I regularly perform social media audits on brands, celebrities and sports teams to assess what they’re 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 quite a bit deeper. But even in this format, the profile being audited can get a very good assessment as to the overall viability and health of their social media marketing.
What’s specifically interesting about reviewing the social media profiles of restaurants, is that this industry is a topic that really gets talked about on social media. According to Klout, food is one of the top 10 sources for engagement on social media. people love talking about, and taking pictures of, their “foodie” experience.
In the Simply Measured Q3 2014 Facebook Study, they concluded that restaurants, by far, see the highest engagement per post. This data shows how imperative it is for a restaurant to have a strong social strategy.
For a restaurant to not have a robust and compelling social media experience for their audience is inexcusable. Especially in such a competitive industry with so many dining choices for today’s consumers.
please click on the relative tab below for data on the specific social network
- Roti Mediterranean Grill - Facebook
- Roti Mediterranean Grill - Twitter
- Roti Mediterranean Grill - Instagram
- Roti Mediterranean Grill - YouTube
As of the day of this audit, the Facebook profile for Roti Mediterranean Grill has 9,166 fans. This report covers the measurement period of 11/01/2014 – 12/14/2014. Facebook auditing is somewhat limiting without full admin access, but with social media being so transparent, we can still get some pretty interesting data.
One of the first things that jumps off the page is that Roti has averaged LESS than a post per day. Far less! That’s a good indication as to why the page has enjoyed such little engagement.
The images are quite staid and accordingly, the page averages only 7 engagements per its own posts. It’s most engaging post only received 14 total interactions. The most troubling stat to me is that NONE of the posts looked at during the measurement period received any shares. There wasn’t a single share of any of the posts that Roti published. That’s pretty telling. That shows me that the audience isn’t finding any value in what Roti is publishing.
100% of the content being posted are photo/images. There’s been no split testing of content to see what the audience might respond to.
As for sentiment, 94% of the activity is neutral or positive in nature. The optimal posting time is on Monday afternoon between 12:00PM and 1:00PM.
(to see a full size chart, please click on the image below)
Recommendations:
- The post frequency needs to change immediately. Various studies have confirmed that the sweet spot on Facebook is 6-10 posts per week.
- Roti needs to expand their content. What is being posted now is clearly not resonating with its audience. Begin posting exclusive content that the audience can’t find elsewhere. In order to be successful on Facebook you have to post content in native fashion. What works on YouTube may not work on Facebook. Split testing will help you define the content that resonates with your audience.
- You MUST deploy Facebook ads to promote your content. You’ll hear this over and over within this audit. Not having a budget for Facebook ads is inexcusable. If you’re not going to support your content on Facebook with ads, you might as well not be on Facebook. Facebook has throttled organic reach to near zero and a team that doesn’t know how to artfully place Facebook ads is a team that needs to be replaced.
The Roti Mediterranean Grill Twitter profile currently has 2,575 followers on and they are following 2,523 people. The time period for this audit was 11/28/2014 – 12/14/2014. Currently the Roti Twitter account is “unverified“.
Roti is averaging only .6 tweets per day tweets per day (not a typo), yes, less than 1 tweet per day. The follower engagement is basically non-existent. Current sentiment, obviously skewed by the lack of activity, shows to be 88% positive or, at minimum, neutral. During this sample period Roti gained zero new followers.
Roti didn’t post any tweets with links during the measurement period. However they did post a link on November 20th. It garnered 1 click…but it was my click. I guess it’s safe to say that like their Facebook page, their audience finds no value in the content that Roti is posting on Twitter.
The Roti profile engaged with 25 unique people who were responsible for 32 total engagements that had the potential reach of nearly 30,000 users. You’d have to conclude that this Twitter profile is basically on life support.
(to see a full size chart, please click on the image below)
The best time for engagement on Twitter is between the hour of 3:00PM and 4:00PM. And the top day for tweeting is on Wednesday. 37% of the mentions that occur, take place on Wednesday. However, with such miniscule engagement and such a low level of tweeting, the optimum time isn’t currently relevant.
I usually include a lot of additional charts and graphs when auditing a brand’s Twitter profile, but in this instance it’s not necessary. Roti’s Twitter account is basically dormant and is just a repository of the same regurgitated content that is posted on their other social profiles. There’s nothing native about their approach whatsoever and their numbers underscore the failure of their Twitter strategy.
Recommendations: I don’t often see a brand profile that needs a total makeover. This is one. Other than their amazing Twitter header image, everything else needs to be re-tooled.
Lots of work to be done here. If there is a sincere interest in developing a Twitter community, a much higher commitment needs to be made to content and communication.
- The current tweet volume of .6 tweets per day is unacceptable. The execs at Roti need to digest what’s going on and make some serious changes. Roti should be posting a MINIMUM of 6-10 tweets per day. By initiating and responding to influencers, posting great content, and replying in surprise and delight fashion to other Twitter users, generating 10 tweets per day is a low bar standard to reach…and exceed.
- The more you tweet, the greater your opportunities are to engage with followers, and the more total response and follower growth you will receive.
- Twitter is a high volume / low value network. Make each post a piece of content that contributes something of value to the Roti audience. Use Twitter as a storytelling platform. Tell us about the locations, the people, the customers, the recipes, the food, history of the food, how is it made…etc. Use Twitter as a means of letting your audience know that you care about them and respect what they believe to be important.
- If Roti truly believes that they serve “food that loves you back“, then prove it! Right now their social media doesn’t support their stated objective.
Instagram: As of today the Roti Mediterranean Grill Instagram profile has 497 followers and they are following 1,105. The audit period is 01/01/2014 – 12/16/2014.
At first glance a red flag immediately presents itself. Obviously someone at Roti is mass following people in order to seek reciprocal following. Their follow/follower ration is horribly upside down. It also appears to be desperate to grow followers in an inauthentic manner.
Instagram is a huge social platform for food / restaurant brands. However just as with Facebook and Twitter, Roti is posting far less than one post per day. Roti averages .33 posts per day. Again, not a typo. Roti has only posted 116 content pieces for all of 2014 to date.
Roti has enjoyed 2,118 engagements in 2014. This represents and average of 18 interactions per post. This level of engagement isn’t by any means great, but it’s a level that can be built upon. Obviously it’s the content which is at issue.
The Roti Instagram profile seemed to be much more engaging earlier in the year, but it has since tailed off dramatically. The post below was published over 10 months ago and since February, Roti hasn’t been able to match the engagement on this post:
Recommendations: Roti has a content problem. Earlier this year, they seemed to be fostering engagement. However, there’s only so many falafels that you can post. Instagram is a great platform for foodies, but Roti isn’t telling their story and there doesn’t seem to be any effort to prove their value proposition.
Looking at their Instagram profile, which is just a bad mirror of their Facebook and Twitter postings, I don’t see the life of the brand. I certainly see no indication that their food is going to love me back.
- Begin creating and posting exclusive content that the audience can’t find elsewhere.
- Create and activate promotions (monthly) and offers that are unique to the IG audience.
- Using the profile link to drive real engagement.
- Increasing the posting frequency to a minimum of 1 per day
- Get the in-store audience involved and create UGC that serves to endorse the brand.
- Show us how Roti serves food that loves us back!
- And of course…replying to fans and key influencers is a must.
- Be sure to include both trending and relevant hashtags in all posts
- Lastly using image based surprise and delights takes Instagram to an entirely different level.
The Roti Mediterranean Grill YouTube channel has just 35 subscribers and only 9 videos have been uploaded. In its entirety the channel has only garnered 25,792 views.
Video is arguably the fuel of social media and Roti hasn’t posted a video in 4 months. Roti obviously doesn’t find video to be important and they aren’t at all capitalizing on the opportunities that video provides..
What’s interesting is the fact that the videos that Roti has posted aren’t bad quality. They just seem not to care about the ultimate story telling medium.
In building a video online community, there are two very basic tenets that need to be adhered to. That being valuing the people in your community and committing to an ongoing development of valuable content.
How do you enlarge upon these numbers? Why is it so important to show care for your video community? People and Content! (sourced in part via Youtube):
In regards to the people, you have to understand that there are two specific types of people you need to build an online community:
1. Your audience IS your customer. In the digital age, if you want people to buy, you have to foster a relationship.
2. You MUST cultivate Influencers; the leaders, innovators, and voices particular to your industry.
The bulk of your community members will generally be silent; you’ll see their views add to your YouTube Analytics meters but they will never comment on your videos. They are passive-consumers.
By contrast the influencers are active-consumers; they will not only comment on your videos, they will talk about the video elsewhere such as their Facebook wall or their personal blogs. They will re-share your content more often (and regularly) than anyone else will.
Have you ever seen a YouTube video that has millions of views, but only several thousand ‘likes’ and re-shares? This is because influencers make up a smaller portion of a community; they are the ones who are willing to engage with content. They are a smaller group but they are the main reason why content can “go viral”, because they are the ones who share content with their own communities.
The take away from this is that if you focus your community building on having a relationship with influencers, you will get a much bigger audience (=more customers).
Recommendations: Before Roti abandons YouTube, I would suggest making a commitment to seeing if they can gain traction. Restaurants have the good fortune of being able to produce great content. Happy customers, happy employees, great food, and a bright atmosphere all contribute to being able to tell a great story about a restaurant.
Roti needs to deploy a video and microvideo strategy to build its audience and prove their story. Lots of work for Roti to do but it will certainly payoff if done correctly.
