Lake County Social Networking

Northeast Cooling is highly active on social media networks such as Twitter and on our Facebook Page.  We’ve been able to find real business benefits to utilizing these platforms and engaging with others.  However, as important and beneficial as our online connections have become, we truly value the opportunity to get to meet fantastic people face to face.  In support of that, we like to help promote and sponsor local Chicago business, groups, and people who help to enhance those opportunities.

We’re proud to have been a supporter and sponsor of Lake County Social Networking (@LakeCSN on Twitter) since it’s inception last year.  Tim McDonald founded the group with the intent to create meaningful connections & help support local Chicagoland businesses.  During that time we have had the pleasure of meeting & networking with great people that live & or work in Lake County Illinois.

The last meeting was held at Flatlanders Restaurant in Lincolnshire on October nineteenth.   The guest speaker that night was Ramon De Leon.  If you’re unfamiliar with Ramon, he’s a social media superstar and has been featured on countless blogs and he’s presented at conferences throughout the country.  Ramon has been very successful enhancing his Chicago Domino’s brand utilizing social media platforms.  So basically, when Ramon speaks…we listen.  Ramon gave a fantastic presentation on social media and how he has found success promoting his Dominos brand.  He had so many good points it was hard to keep up and jotting everything down became difficult.  Here is a quick summary of some great tips that really resonated with me during his presentation.

Takeaways from Ramon’s presentation on social media

• Engagement is very important. Reach out and connect with your followers
• Monitor OPN ( other peoples networks )
• Social media is a tool that can be used to help with a business plan, NOT replace it.
• Talk about your customers most of the time, not your own business.
• Use monitter.com to keep up with what people are saying about your brand.
• Monitor the conversation about your brand & respond.
• Use foursquare for your business & create an rss feed of your foursquare feed. Thank people for checking in
• If using social media logos in advertising make sure to include the url’s. Don’t make it hard for people to find your business
• Make sure your business blog is mobile compatible & works well with all types of phones.
• Check out and learn from informative websites and blogs, such as the Social Media Examiner.
• Create a hash tag or multiple hash-tags for your business

So that’s what we learned and talked about.  What tips have worked with you to promote your brand?  Leave a comment and let us know!

For other tips on how your restaurant can save energy and money, be sure to  follow Refrigeration on   Twitter, and Fan Northeast Cooling on Facebook.