Dining out? Check your phone first (if you aren’t doing that already); here are some dining apps for you to consider.
With today’s plugged-in landscape and social media savvy society, websites, blogs and smartphone applications are quickly becoming the go-to source for daily tasks like hunting down recipes, shopping for restaurant deals and connecting with friends. From check-ins to secret menus and Twitter notifications about the next happy hour, social media is the inroad to “what’s good” at bars and restaurants.
At Sapporo, social media has allowed us to give diners a backstage pass to our food and how we make it as well as provide a tailored personal experience. Hungry for a certain dish? Don’t worry; Sapporo has you covered. By liking Sapporo on Facebook, users can ask questions and checkout the new and most popular menu items and what people are saying. Through Twitter, users can follow and find out about upcoming events and exclusive promotions.
Whether you’re looking for a fine-tuned menu, a trendy, foodie destination (like Sapporo) or just wanting a burger, below are some social media app suggestions that will have you eating, drinking and being social in no time.
Digital dining promotions
Remember the days of cutting coupons? Cut no more; with today’s social media landscape, getting the best deals on restaurants is literally at the click of a button. With daily deal sites like Groupon, Living Social and Doozy of a Deal, diners can pre-purchase coupons and print them off to use them at their leisure. But that’s not all, more and more restaurants are utilizing their own social networking pages like Foursquare and Facebook to offer exclusive deals and promotions to help drive traffic through the door and create customer loyalty.
There are dining apps for that
For those who may be hungry but too lazy to make a reservation or order food, there’s an app for that. Today’s social landscape makes it easy for diners to get rid of their hunger pains by the push of a button. At Sapporo, an app called Open Table allows diners to make reservations through Facebook. Other restaurants have also created their own mobile applications that allow customers to place food orders from the convenience of their smartphones and even pay for their purchases.
Table tweets
Dining with social media isn’t just about getting the best deals; many restaurant guests enjoy the connection social media allows them to have with the restaurant and its chef. Through Twitter, many restaurants, chefs or owners will actively engage in conversation with the customer base by posting events, recipes, up-to-date menus and photos. Some even take customer interaction one step further by coming out to greet those patrons tweeting from their table.
Mind your mobile manners
“No phone at the dinner table” is a phrase everyone has heard at one time or another. Since mobile technology has improved and diners are more social media savvy, it has become socially acceptable to multitask during meals. Today’s guests are eager to check-in, snap photos or tweet about where they are and what they’re doing. Not sure what to order? Foodspotting and Forkly, apps that can be downloaded to a mobile device, allows diners to snap photos and share dishes so customers make better-informed purchasing decisions.
Dine and dish
After a dining experience, there is nothing more guests like to do than dish about what they ate and how amazing, or not amazing, it was. Several social networking sites have created a space where patrons can share their tips, reviews and rate restaurants. Urbanspoon is an app that allows customers to view ratings for the specific type of food or restaurant they are looking for. Yelp is another app that allows users to search for the restaurants closest to them and read reviews before choosing a specific restaurant.
In the past, dining out may have involved navigating an unfamiliar neighborhood aimlessly searching for a restaurant, unsure of what to expect on the menu ― but not anymore. Look no further than your smartphone, where restaurants like Sapporo are engaging in the social space and guests can stay in the loop and experience a new type of dining experience.
