Making Friends
Online Communities Are a No-Brainer for Grassroots Marketing

Unless your demographic is over the age of around 35, you’ve probably realized that your competitors have MySpace or Facebook pages, or both, for their bars. If you’ve been hesitant to dip your toe into these online communities, don’t be. The pages are very user-friendly and easy to create and maintain, as long as you make sure to log in every couple of days or so. It can be surprising how many “friends” you amass in a short period of time, extending your grassroots communications on a level you never thought possible before. For operators who need numbers to show them how worthwhile creating these pages can be, we asked patrons on-premise about their usage of MySpace and Facebook.

They Are Watching
While 32 percent of our respondents said they still get their information about bar events and promotions from radio advertising, a whopping 42 percent go online for this information — with 25 percent saying they browse Web sites for bar information and 17 percent saying they go to MySpace or Facebook sites hosted by their favorite bars. In fact, a staggering 45 percent of patrons said they have their own MySpace or Facebook pages. Twenty-four percent of respondents said that when they log in, they receive and read bulletins or messages sent to their pages by bar-hosted pages.

Free and Easy
The marketing potential of these (absolutely free) sites is too big to be ignored. Keep the radio ads going, for sure, but get online and start your community if you haven’t already. It’s a completely unique way to become connected in communication with other businesses, patrons, music acts, DJs and just about everyone else.