Pubs in the ‘web 2.0′ age…
I’ve started to notice the occasional pub turn up on Facebook, like this one from my home town of Crook in County Durham:
It’s good to see pubs embracing this kind of marketing. Most pubs don’t have websites. Of those that do, it’s unusual to see a decent one. Some are amateurish, some only work on Internet Explorer, some are entirely Flash-based and therefore inaccessible to a whole cross section of society (people with visual impairments, people using older browsers, people with mobile phones, iPod Touches, etc) and some are just plain awful. Websites can be expensive for small businesses and are usually a low priority. Using Facebook to advertise has several advantages:
- The Facebook site is accessible. It works in all browsers. It works on mobile phones. It works on iPods. It looks professional, it is well designed, it is useable.
- It allows a pub to interact with its customers. Changes, comments, offers, events, etc are all immediately highlighted to the people who matter most - the people who already love your pub.
- An online community builds up around the pub. Friends of your customers begin to see your name. An active and social core develops around you.
- All of this costs nothing and it only takes minutes to set up.
Facebook came of age in the UK during 2007. I’ll watch with interest how many other pubs begin to crop up on my radar and how well they can leverage what social networking sites can offer.
A comment by Paul Garrard
March 19th, 2008, 1.05pm
I’ve recently registered with facebook and find it less user friendly and less intuitive that MySpace. That’s not praise for MySpace by the way.
A comment by Clive
April 21st, 2008, 3.41pm
Here’s a Web 2.0(ish) site of my own that you might like to try out:
Originally known as “The Random Pub Generator” the www.throngalong.com website was developed to solve the age-old problem of deciding where to go out for a drink in the evening, how to invite everyone and how to know who is coming and who isn’t.
Basically you set up a shortlist of favourite pubs (or clubs, restaurants etc), add a list of friend’s email address and choose a date and time. Invitations are sent out with a link so everyone can RSVP easily and see who else is going. The neatest thing is that the venue is selected at random, at the time the invitations are sent out, from the list given. The date can be recurring so you can have it go off automatically every week, choosing a different pub each time.
The RSVP page is great as everyone can leave messages for each other to arrange where to meet, explain why they’ll be late, or worse of all, why they’re not coming!