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.