Regardless of how anyone feels about having a website or being involved in social media; customers are becoming more and more accustomed to a good online presence. AIS recently released a study reporting that 89% of consumers research a website online prior to dining there. It's hard to let your customers learn more about you without a website.

Having an online presence used to take a lot of effort

We've all seen a variety of restaurant websites. You can tell when some owners are more involved in their online presence, and you can tell when they haven't updated it for years. It's even more jarring when you arrive at their restaurant and their menu is entirely different from what they have online.

In the past few years, technology has progressed rapidly in providing services that simplify tasks that used to be very difficult. "Software as a service" companies have taken then technical aspects out of the equation. This means you can accomplish a much more impressive presence with much less effort. The downside to this is that customers now expect a higher quality presence. It's not acceptable to have a website that is 8 years old when these services are providing high quality websites.

What does social media have to do with it?

Social media is the new kid on the block. Honestly, if you really dig in; it can be quite overwhelming. The reason why people are clamoring over "social media" is that it provides a new channel of communication with potential customers. Never before have businesses had the opportunity to directly connect with specific customers and also hear the feedback they need to hear through the noise.

Radio, Print, Television and other forms of communication in the past were "broadcast" and were very difficult to measure. Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and others give you quantifiable and measurable responses to your efforts. You know how your customers are acting and can respond to improve business. It has massive potential and is an immensely young market.

Outsourcing your website

Last time you needed a website, your quotes were in the thousands and you decided your nephew could do just as good of a job. At the time, he probably did. Now you can click a couple buttons and all the work is finished setting up your website. Add your content, upload some images and get set up. I'll be writing here to help catch everyone up with how things are progressing in this space. I'm very excited about this space and getting restaurants caught up online. Customers are expecting it.