Inc. magazine published a pretty awesome list of tips for using social media in your business.  We've adapted their list here for restaurants.

1. Offer a peek behind the scenes. Imagine building some demand and excitement for your spring menu changes before they actually roll onto the menu? If you tweet and FB and blog about what you are working on, you can engage people in the process, which is exciting for them and business-building for you. 

2. Harness your expertise. A lot of chefs want to write cookbooks. I think it is because they are convinced that it is part of the magic formula for success. Unfortunately, the likelihood that you'll make enough money or gain enough prestige to make it worth two years of your life is unlikely. Focus instead on taking all those recipes and thoughts and ideas and create a great blog. You'll build community, a following, and, if it's great, will get that book deal and have the material for it nearly done.

4. Put your website's content to work. Have I blogged about how much I hate expensive restaurant websites being built these days with no social interaction? Seriously.  Stop reading and go tell your web team to build in some technology to incorporate a blog and get blogging.

5. Be candid. I am really growing in my belief that responding to critics (intelligently and not like a spoiled baby or angry puffed up rooster) is a good way to go. I say that knowing most people can't respond to critics without sounding whiny or like they are turning into an axe murderer. But if you can respond intelligently, do.

6. But be careful what you say about others. It is a small world and word travels fast.

7. Interact with visitors -- really. (I'm leaving this pretty much as is from the original article.) Just putting up a blog or a Facebook fan page won't do much good if visitors sense the flow of conversation only goes one way. In fact, Matt Mullenweg, founder of blogging platform Wordpress, lists not participating in comments as a surefire way to kill a community.

8. Don't try to create a stand-in for yourself. Your restaurant Twitter feed and FB page can be managed by whomever. Your profile cannot.

9. Don't pretend to be someone else. You'd be shocked to know that I can track your IP address from my home computer. And I am not even that geeky.

10. Help employees bond. The orginal post, in Inc. magazine, talked about making a community of a staff working all over the world, so this point makes sense. To the restaurant, though, staff is there. That said, most restaurants have a few servers, cooks, hosts or assistant managers who would love to be a part of the social marketing of a restaurant. Ask around, really. It won't be so hard for you if you don't try to do it all yourself.

First, there was the Youtube channel.

Then, there were the Facebook and iPhone apps, Pope2You.

Now. The Pope is telling all the priests they have to blog.

What I find most astounding is that an organization that's still so Medieval is so progressive.

Last year, I spent much of this blog nagging chefs to get on Twitter.  Many did — toques off to you — and a few of those even found the platform a necessary evil and are tweeting as you read this.

This year, I think I may have mentioned, I am doing a blog nag.

It's nice to know the Pope and I have found something we can agree on.

Housekeeping

Our blog platform changed from entirely fubar to surprisingly wunderbar on Friday.

Rather than spend a billion hours trying to anticipate the possibilities, make changes to a bunch of old posts and frantically retag everything over the weekend, I decided to just make some little changes each day until I get it to where I want it.

Like here on this Pope blog post, I sorta wanted to add a picture of the Pope, because for the first time I can. But I wasn't able to figure it out in the precaffeinated early hours of my day.

Sometimes I think it is good to just jump into something and do it, instead of trying to figure out all the particulars and variables. On this blog, for instance, if I had spent hours trying to figure out what I wanted it to really look like, then spent hours trying to learn everything I wanted to do, then spent hours getting the housekeeping in order, I'd likely have been stuck with my old blog until peaches come back in season.

Instead, I am basically trying to learn one thing a day. Today, I am learning how to get my editor on here so she can edit it and make it go live. If you are reading this, we've achieved success there.

Small, but why make this whole blogging edict more stress than it has to be.

So, if you are not blogging because you can't figure out all the bells and whistles and possibility and design, take it from me. Jump in, learn one thing a day.

And start blogging, damn it.

I got into a fascinating discussion yesterday on Twitter with someone who was responding to yesterday's Unplugged blog. At the end of the discussion, the person I was speaking with commented that if people knew more about the mechanics of restaurant reservations, they wouldn't be so quick to anger:   "Communication is key."

She's right, of course. If you aren't evil, then honest, forthright, non-spun-by-fancy-suited PR reps communication is the perfect right tool for smoothing over just about anything.

All this was on my mind when I stumbled on this post this morning about the cruise ships full of frolicking passengers that are docked in Haiti. However you feel about the matter isn't the point here. The point, really, is the C-level bloggers of Royal Caribbean who are being as transparent as possible about their decisions.

The cruise line's CEO blog, updated a few times a day, goes into extensive detail about the decision-making process — they even go so far as to include a PDF of the daily meeting notes.

Can one argue that Royal Caribbean is just giving one side of the story? A better question is, will (some)one? And the answer is assuredly yes. But more because people tend to need the chemical imbalance of hysteria to make their day interesting than because they have actually reasoned to the answer — you may leave your ranty comment below.

But, to the outsider trying to lay aside agenda and look in, one has no choice but to see the decision-makers at Royal Carribean as humans, trying to do the human thing. And the extent of their blog actually helped them manage the story because no journalist covering the topic could responsibly miss reading the blog.

Which leads me to my point.

Whether you are dealing with reservation policy or disaster relief and reaction, it is your job to commit the time and discipline to communicate to your constituents if you want your story to be told your way.

Never before in history have we had this kind of power/opportunity to express ourselves and our opinions, tell our own story, participate so fully in getting the word out.

For the chef, who previously could only hope to attain cult status in order for his story to really start being told, this opportunity is a game-changer. It means no longer needing to add white asparagus to a menu because that's what the media is writing about. It means no longer having to attend every large fundraiser humanly possible in order to interact with as many potential diners as possible — because how else do you reach people who don't know about you? It means no longer having to pay huge fees to have a PR person interpret — and possibly mutate and bastardize — your story because they once were the gatekeepers to the media.

And in the telling of your story, you can actually even begin to get media attention, as a few chefs have with their blogs.

This all seems thrilling to me. And I wonder why more chefs aren't jumping in with both feet. If anyone has any insight into why, please ... share a thought or two.

Some friends and I planned on taking this garden planning course this weekend and, in order to make everyone's life easier, I thought it would be a good idea to ask my assistant to sign us all up.

She does a lot of personal stuff for me so that I can work harder, and that's the job, so you can scrape your jaw off the floor.

Moving on.

The drama that has ensued from this simple task has been nothing short of, well, infuriating. First, the web site was apparently not coded to accept reservations for more than one person, so my assistant went through the whole sign-up and the confirmation I received was for one.

So, she contacted them and found out that she could sign up for two at a time only, so she needed to fill out two forms and the second form couldn't have the same name as the first, so she needed another name.

I received the two confirmations, but both were listed as not final because, are you ready, they needed the actual names of the attendees to confirm the registration.

So I got another email yesterday, asking for the additional names, but I was in a client cluster so I completely spaced the email until I was reminded by the organization calling me to demand the other names this morning before 9:00.

Which for some reason made me think of all the restaurants that take reservations and then demand that people give a phone number so the reservation can be confirmed — and call that guest service.

Guest service is about attending to the guest as the guest wants to be attended to. Me, personally, you call me and I am likely going to be really inconvenienced by the interruption in my day. Leave a voice mail and ask me to call you back and, really, if I actually pick up that voice mail (highly unlikely to begin with), I am going to be just a little peeved that I have to confirm my reservation with you.

I actually get downright angry when I make a reservation one day and the very next, someone calls to confirm. 

Look, I know reservations are one of the biggest pains in the asses of the restaurant world, just below no-show staff and above ice machine breakdowns, but being in business isn't about you and your convenience, it is about the guests.

Restaurants that understand this don't notice economic downturns.

So stop pretending that your barriers to good customer service are helping your business. Stop just doing stuff because someone in some meeting decided it sounded like a good idea.

And start asking yourself what you can do to really get in a guest's head and start to deliver on the word hospitality.

(yes, this is supposed to be blank.  It is never OK.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude lately, because for whatever reason, we equate a new year with a chance to be better. And I think central to being better is taking stock — regularly, not just in January — of the good stuff I already have.

Giving thanks isn’t about establishing moral superiority; trust me, I gave up on that years ago. What it does is provide a gratifying, fun way to focus on personal and professional successes. Whether these came about by dumb luck, with assistance from a colleague, friend or stranger, or by your own sweat equity doesn’t really matter. What matters is recognizing that these things are good, and therefore you want more things like them to happen to you in the near and long-term future.

Here’s another way to think about it: If you haven't already, take five minutes now to think about and write down what happened to you in the past twelve months or so for which you are most grateful. Something tells me there’s nothing negative on that list. If you’re grateful for something, it’s because it turned out well, or at least better than expected, or because something comforted or calmed you in an otherwise difficult situation.

So I encourage you to take stock of how life came through for you this past year — because there are lessons there. Who are the people who supported you? What are the strategies that paid off? How much did good fortune, patience, gumption, planning and calculated risk-taking factor into your finest moments? This isn’t some cheesy, New Age exercise.

This is your roadmap to more good stuff.

Yesterday, one of my clients emailed me:

Have you thought about having a meeting/seminar on social networking, promotions, media, web site offers, etc. so everyone knows your suggestions and opinions on what works, what doesn't and what to avoid. We are in a new world of marketing and it takes time to investigate everyone who bombards us with emails, email blasts, food web sites and just about everything under the sun.

It was reassuring because, this is SpoonFeed. Or a part of it. So, we are on the right track with developing a Digital Dashboard for Chefs so they can manage all this.

SpoonFeed is for our clients. But there are times when I want to get on a rooftop and tell everyone to do something straight away. Client, not-client, friend, foe, whatever.

Navigate here and claim your Google Place Page. Now. It's easy, it's free. It's important. Please also share this with your restaurant friends and foes.

Most of you can stop reading here, you'll just do as I suggest. For the slow folk who need more reasoning, read on:

First off, you should start getting acquainted with the fact that more and more people are using location-aware mobile phones to run their lives (here's some geekier content saying the same thing, if you need that).

Secondly, you likely need to have a come-to-Jesus about the fact that the world has changed. Most people don't make restaurant decisions based on reviews in traditional news outlets. They get recommendations from:
     • friends
     •"friends" on Facebook and Twitter
     • whatever pops up on the first results page from a Google search
     • user-generated content (weighted to come up first on Google search)

One you might be familiar with is Yelp! One thing you might not know about Yelp! is that they pissed off Google.

Google, also known as Skynet, is more powerful than Yelp! Google will win. How? By incorporating some techy location doo-dads into the search functions we all already depend on every day. They've already incorporated it into Google Maps. Go here and toward the top right-hand corner, click on "Narrow by" and "User Rating."

I mean, really, are you gonna slog through some guidebook, trying to plot out where everything is on your own, or are you gonna start to use this feature next time you travel — or even at home?

I mean think about it. I occasionally perform the services of a restaurant concierge to people trying to figure out where to eat, and let me tell you, it's hard to spontaneously come up with a list of places in the midst of all my work. So, I turn to Google Maps, toss in a few keywords, and voilà! I can make my recommendations. 

Do I, personally, rely on the UGC? No, I know enough about Chicago restaurants, and I am now so reliant on Google maps that when it comes time to travel, I'll go here.

And now they are adding in the ability for restaurants to market to all those customers going there. For free.

Wait, you are still reading? You haven't been convinced?  Have you considered that in the amount of time you just spent reading all this justification for filling out an online form, you could have filled out an online form?

Stop fighting against your fears of technology and start embracing all the great tools available to you. Free tools. Go claim your Google Place Page.

Lately, a controversial topic has sorta bubbled up to the surface in my little corner of the world. The conversations seem to revolve around critics, both professional and not, and the newfound ability for restaurants to, well, have a word or two to say about a review. 

Here's one place where this conversation is taking place (you should join in) and there seems to be a lot of feedback going on over at TimeOut, like here where a publicist outs the magazine for not fact-checking a story, and here where a thunderous mob cried outrage.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that none of this is about reviews and critics. What all this is really about is the fact that reputation management is no longer about hiring an expensive PR firm to polish up our image — it's now a responsibility we all have to deal with every day.

This article starts to explain the phenomenon and maybe will also help chefs to start understanding that they are not alone in the world — we are all now open to attack, being misquoted or even being publicly embarrassed. 

And I think it is about time we all started working some sort of method of reputation management into our daily lives.

At RIA, we have grappled at length with the idea of incorporating sophisticated algorithms into our client dashboard, SpoonFeed, in order to assist a restaurant and chef in knowing what people are saying about them. 

In the past, I hestitated having this service because, well, I know how chefs feel about Yelp. And I was convinced that plastering the negativity on their dashboards would make them ignore it, not use it.

But I am kinda changing my mind.

I think this whole phenomenon of citizen reviews can't be ignored anymore. For one, Google is set up to deliver user-generated content first in search results, and so what that means is that when people search for your restaurant, the first thing they see is a citizen review.

We all need to start paying attention to this stuff, making a plan for how it should be handled, and acting in ways that manage reputations. So, we are going to start laying down a path for restaurants to follow as they delve into these murky waters.

I'd love to know what you think. Would you use a chef-friendly tool to help you monitor your reputation? Do you need guidance in responding to the critics?  How much? Or are you just not ready to deal with it?

Yesterday I met with a restaurateur who wants to hire a publicist because their burger is better than DMK and Kuma's and yet, and yet — they don't get press. 

Today, I meet with a young chef who is trying to get a new restaurant together and every time I ask him about what makes his (insert anything from wine dinner to drinks menu to food) stand out, he talks about how it's better than everyone else's.

And really, I wish everyone would stop basing their damn marketing strategy on the idea of good, better, best. Because really, that's an opinion — yours — and unless you are happy just making you happy, it does not marketing make.

So, what do you base it on?  Differentiation. If you do that, your customers will decide for themselves you are best. And that's the best kind of marketing strategy.

So, how's that work?

For the burger shop: You can go anywhere from styles of burgers to burger toppings to sustainable/locally raised meat to celebrity chef burgers. Hell, you could go with customer DJs or karaoke or vegan burgers or anything else. The idea is to be the only burger joint in the city that has the certain mix of whatever the hell you think up.

For the young chef: Without giving it away, we are working on packaging his unique background to communicate his approach to food and eliciting the facts about design and service that deliver an experience diners can't find anywhere else.

We're doing anything but saying "the food is better," "the experience is better," or the "mixologist is more talented."

Are there some people who don't want what you deliver? Sure. That's okay, you can't please everyone. The customers who are looking for what you deliver will, themselves, proclaim you are the best. They'll tell their friends. And that is what you want.

Need another example?  Well, here's my competitive advantage: I am the only restaurant PR shop in the country that has custom-built software that collects, houses and distributes press information.

In the age of the Internet, that's a powerful message that leads any potential customer to spontaneously understand that I am the only restaurant publicist who understands the Internet, is forward-thinking and isn't bogged down in doing things the old-fashioned way.

It means that instead of spending a whole meeting describing why I am better, which is what every other publicist has to do, I spend a few minutes describing my very unique product — and the potential client spends the rest of the time describing why I am better than everyone else.

Are there people who resist change? Sure. And I don't worry about them because they aren't ready and that's okay by me. There are enough happy clients who proclaim I am the best. They tell their friends. And that is what I want.

If you heard a big "Hallalujah!" screamed from the rooftops yesterday afternoon, well, that was me. I hope I didn't disturb. But there are times when I kinda can't help being ecstatic and I am generally a sharer, as you might already know.

You see, a few days ago, Cary Taylor, a chef client of mine, started a blog. Astounding, in and of itself, because most chefs spend so much time kvetching about how they don't have time to write a blog that, well, they don't have time to write a blog. Cary, who is so understaffed he nearly doesn't even have a dishwasher at the restaurant where he chefs, isn't a whiner. And frankly, he is the type that assumes he can be in control of his destiny if he works hard.

And so he started a blog. 

The first day, a few people moseyed over and kicked the tires of his new blog.

After the second post, a few writers sent me private messages about how impressed they were with his writing.

And after the third post, Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page, the intrepid authors of fifty gabillion books about chefs and chefdom, shined their light onto Cary Taylor's blog and shared it with their friends.

Bam, that's how it is done.

Here's a few other client blogs.

Sarah Stegner on Chicago Now — because when Sarah started with RIA something like a year or so ago, she checked her email once a week and now, not only is she blogging, she brokered a deal where the Tribune Company can worry about the traffic and design and everything else so she can just post and walk away. Snap.

Randy Zweiban on his restaurant's website, Province — because he is incorporating his blog into his restaurant's website, making it all part of the Brand. He posts regularly and mixes personal and business into each post so that we aren't hit over the head with PROMOTION but yet we do learn about promotions, activities and events at the restaurant. It's a nice balance.

Mikey Sheerin and David Posey over at Blackbird — You probably didn't realize that the love child of Paul Kahan and Wylie Dufresne is turning two culinary paths into a highway we can all get on by merging molecular gastronomy and farm-y simplicity in a way that tempers the excesses of each.

Here's a few other chef blogs I read:

Mark Mendez's Posterous — I'd like to see a bit more writing in there, only because I know he's got gold to share with us, but the guy gets the A-plus in my book because that dude serves food to crazy huge armies of people and still has time to find some way to blog and Tweet.

Phillip Foss's Pickled Tongue — Because he embodies DIY PR and has made things happen for himself in the process.

John des Rosier's The Inovasi Thought — Because he is white-knuckling his blog project, writing whatever the hell thoughts come into his mind with nearly Asperger's-like honesty, and it is making me wanna get off my butt and drive the hell up there and eat his food. I imagine it is having this kind of effect on others and, duh, that is the point.

Dan Tucker's SUSHIsamba Rio's Posterous — Because he wrote this lovely post about thanking his dishwashers that said a lot about who he is as a person, and that person is someone you'd want to introduce to your mom and dad he is so nice.

Rick Gresh's Time-Released Brilliance — Because who knew that he liked to make beer, garden like a mad fiend, build furniture and in general act like a Renaissance Man with Mutton Chops. Every chef wants to be seen as the Renaissance Man these days, but we'll really only believe it when we see it embraced with this kind of gusto.

Curtis Duffy's Avenues — If you like food porn, Curtis Duffy does good porn. I've never eaten at Avenues but I know what his food is about. For sure.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret I’ve learned in two-plus decades as an official adult (and it’s a secret that also happens to apply quite nicely to PR): Growing up isn’t just about learning the rules of proper decorum. It’s also about learning when it’s appropriate to unlodge the stick from your derriere, tell the world to cram it, and live a little.

Glen Kelman, CEO of Redfin — and, apparently, one of my kindred spirits — wrote a fantastic missive, “DIY PR.” Kelman’s post outlined 10 reasons why entrepreneurs should ditch the agency and do their own PR. This is number three:

“You don’t have to seem all grown-up and boring. Every entrepreneur feels vaguely disreputable. Maybe you drive a crappy car. Maybe you never went to prom. There are enough stuffed suits in this world to fill fifteen Wall Street Journals a day. As anyone who watches American Idol will tell you, what this spun-out, over-hyped world is absolutely famished for is a little genuine personality. And, outside of your technology, it’s probably the only thing you have. So stop trying to be like IBM and just be yourself.”

Go ahead and ask a journalist about the worst interview she’s ever had, the one she walked away from fuming, the one that made her want to stick needles in her ears, and she’ll likely tell you some version of, “He sounded like he practiced his lines in the mirror for a week before the interview. He had nothing REAL to say.”

The irony is that we are all grown-ups here — and to get to this point in our lives, we’ve had to plow through a lot of obstacles, be the butt of some jokes, feel the heartache of more than a few failures, run in circles, laugh through tears, and step in some dog doo. That’s real life — and the same stuff that shapes a good life makes for a good story.

Now, I know there’s a flip side to being an adult. The Fear Factor kicks in. We stop seeing the first snowfall as a potential snowman and start seeing it as a car accident or broken hip waiting to happen. We think — a long, long time — before we leap, and sometimes we decide it’s better to keep those orthopedic-clad feet firmly planted on the ground.

When we do take risks — like, um, opening a restaurant — we get so worried about not succeeding that we may try so hard to be everything to everyone that we aren't ultimately anything to anyone.

In other words, we intentionally suck the life right out of things, because life is risky.

But the conundrum is that there’s nothing interesting in life that comes without risk. No one wants to read about the pristine, scrubbed version of you. Not only would that version of you be unbelievable, she would be unlikable and dull. I’m not suggesting you focus on your difficulties, but if you’re going to cut the cord and DIY your PR, you need to get comfortable with the real you telling the real story — warts and all.

Dear Prospective Client,

It’s true: I’d really, really like to sign you up to join RIA, so that you can take advantage of the kick-ass software we’ve developed to make it uber-easy for diners to be so excited about you that they actually dine in your restaurant — and for the media to write about all of the ridiculously cool stuff you do to make your restaurant amazing.

I don’t want to deceive you, though. You should know up front that I am not the publicist for you if you still think a publicist’s job is any of the following:

Doing the amazing stuff for you. There will never be anyone more passionate than you are about your own success, so I would strongly caution you not to let me, or any other publicist, hijack your success. I can help you come up with great ideas, and I can help you share your ideas with the world, but I am not here to turn those ideas into reality. You tweet, you write your blog, you run your events, you manage your web site (or find a techy or admin-y type person to do it for you).

Making up shit to make you look better than you are. If there are fundamental problems with your restaurant, we can’t throw a PR masquerade ball and make it all go away. We’ll need to address those problems first, before any PR can make a difference.

Talking to the media for you. Though I can hold my own on many interesting topics — including, but not limited to, food, the restaurant business, PR, urban chicken farming, pickling, and junk shopping — I am not you. When reporters want to talk to you, 99 percent of the time they will accept no substitute. And I’ve never been good at impressions.

Writing reporters’ stories for them. I’ve learned a lot in 14 years in the business, and this is one of those truths: No matter how much sage I burn or hocus-pocus I conjure, I cannot control what the media writes or says any more than I can control what you cook.

Working miracles. If we hit it off, and you sign up, and then you do none of the things we discussed in our strategy session, well, see my point above, re: burning sage and spouting magic spells.

Being your shrink, sycophant, groupie, or cheerleader. I’m not here to make you feel better about or gloss over what’s going wrong in your business. That’s why you have parents, friends and significant others. If you want someone to boost your ego, hire your mom.

My role is to help you focus on what makes you and your restaurant amazing, and to provide you with a fantastic platform to help you get the word out. It’s a straightforward, but powerful, responsibility that I take quite seriously. (And did I mention that it’s really quite affordable?)

Thanks very much for your consideration. I do hope you join the ranks of RIA.

Sincerely,

Ellen Malloy

Traditionally, it takes three things to form a trend. I'm settling on two, for now, because I find it very interesting that these two articles bubbled to the surface last week: This one in the New York Times and this one on Huffington Post.

The first post is important because, in my mind, it is a bit of a journalist's view of why Twitter is important to journalism: because it streams in information from a vast number of sources. They get to bypass the traditional gatekeepers of access.

The second post is important because, in my mind, it is confirmation that the journalists will indeed find the information they need on Twitter (and other social media). They may have worried that without their traditional sources, the gatekeepers of access, information would dry up. Brangelina, methinks, are just the first Jenga piece to unsteady the tower.

If you need a third bit of proof on the trend, turn to Seth Godin, who tells it like it is.

So, I guess the guy from The Secret is in a whole heap of trouble about his wackadoo Sweat Lodge experience. It's a shame because the principles of The Secret are really important.

In a nutshell — because it is hard to slog through the nutcase book to get to the kernel — what you visualize, you get. Be it good, bad, or ugly.

I absolutely know this is true because when most chefs hire a PR firm, they're pretty vague about what they want and the results are also pretty vague.

Just like The Secret says.

Spend some time thinking precisely about what success looks like to you. Be specific. Start by writing down everything you can think of, no matter if it is realistic or not, so you can get yourself going.

Go to bookstores and stand around flipping through magazines. Watch food TV. Google successful chefs and see what they have done and achieved. Spend a month doing this.

Then spend the next month thinking about each thing and how it really fits into your life and if you are willing to do the work it takes to get there. Cross off the things that really don't matter. Things that aren't very realistic probably won't really fit into your life anyway, you'll cross them off too.

When you are done, you have an action plan for your PR firm — and yourself.

Back in the '80s, management guru Tom Peters developed the leadership principal of Management by Wandering Around, or MBWA. I don't remember which book of his it was in, but I do remember the principles. It occurred to me the other day that it provides a good blueprint for this new age of Social Media we all now need to embrace.

Do it to everyone.
Don't just pay attention to what your friends are saying on Facebook. This social media world is a gold mine of information and new customers for the chef who branches out.

Do it as often as you can.
Stop rolling your eyes. We're all busy. Saying you don't have time for social media is like saying you don't have time for success. It's the world we live in now, embrace it. Or be left behind.

Go by yourself.
Sure, someone can manage your main restaurant Twitter and Facebook page, but you are going to be a heck of a lot more successful if you augment that with your own efforts.

Don’t circumvent subordinate managers.
It used to be that you could befriend the media and diners in your restaurant and not deal with the madding crowd. No more. There's a new class of influencers in town and they've got the power to sway the crowd. Find them, friend them, watch what they can do. Are they doing it for you?

Ask questions.
There are a few people who have been doing social media since before the rest of us had even heard of it. That rest of us group, we just heard the term for the first time last year. So, it's okay not to know what you are supposed to be doing. It is not okay to pretend you do when you don't. Find a few people who know what they are doing and take them out for a beer. Ask them a lot of questions. It's important.

Watch and listen.
First rule of Twitter Club is you do not talk before listening. The second rule of Twitter Club is that you do not talk before listening.

Share your dreams.
Don't be afraid to be human. You'll make mistakes, you'll look like an ass every so often. But you'll be human. (I reserve the right to translate this principle as such because to be human is to dream.)

Try out their work.
I may be stretching a bit here, but I will interpret this as: Comment on other people's blogs. Comments are important to bloggers (me too, you can comment below, please!) because it reassures them that they are not writing to no one. Trust me, if you comment on a blog, you have a friend for life.

Bring good news.
Shock and awe brings visitors, not fans. You want fans, not gawkers looking at the blood-bath of a driveby. So, stay positive.

Have fun.
Seriously.

Catch them in the act of doing something right.
Set up a strong set of Google Alerts and be sure to say thanks to anyone who Tweets, Facebooks, Blogs or Yelps positively about your restaurant. Be sure to have a program in place for the Mayors of your restaurant as well. If you don't know what that last statement means, welcome to 2010. Stay tuned.

Don’t be critical.  
Don't respond to the haters. They will surely have more time than you to keep the fires stoked.

If you are like me, you don't get around to starting your resolutions until a few days into the new year. After all, who wants to start serious marathon training while slightly hungover. Who can get the house organized before cleaning it? And who even keeps all those resolutions anyway, so why even get started?

So, if you are like me, you are just getting around to thinking about resolutions now. And so now, I want you to stop thinking about what your resolution is gonna be and start thinking about what resolutions mean.

Resolutions are part of the seasonal/holiday puzzle. They are either the first or the last piece we put in the same puzzle we make and remake each year. Resolutions, followed by diets, stews, citrus, Super Bowl, Groundhog Day, chocolates, aphrodisacs, Valentine's Day and so on.

Each year, the puzzle makes a new picture with the same pieces.

So last year might have been pommelos, this year finger limes. Last year, affordable make-at-home Valentine's meals, this year hopefully rebounding economy blow-out celebrations.

Every year, writers both professional and not — and now a whole army of people on Twitter and Facebook who have joined in the conversation — are working on this puzzle, trying to find a new way to tell the same essential story.

Understanding this pattern is the first key to inserting yourself into the conversation. You know the media are going to be talking about finger limes this January. Get some finger limes, serve them to guests so they'll start talking about them. Tweet about what you are doing with them. Put a recipe photo montage on Facebook. Do something and someone will write about it.  Someone else will notice it. You'll be part of the conversation.

So, break out that fresh new calendar the grocery store or car wash gave you and start writing in the topics everyone writes about and talks about each year. Start listening to what people are saying about the topic, see what you learn about the zeitgeist of the day. Then start adding in what excites you now about each topic. 

You now have a plan for the year. How's that for a resolution?