Off the Menu: Restaurants grapple with social media

Some assert restaurants have the obligation to remove critical postings in the interest of preserving a "civil atmosphere."

AP  

Many restaurants have eagerly embraced social media like Facebook and Twitter as potent yet cost-effective ways to reach today's increasingly connected consumers.

However, the sort of real-time, highly public dialogue that social media fosters is proving to cut both ways.

While it may be a great tool to share what's going on at a dining establishment, it also offers disgruntled customers a platform from which they can air grievances, real or imagined.

Responding properly to that sort of no-holds-barred dialog is proving to be a challenge not all restaurant chefs and owners are up to.

A highly publicized Facebook exchange in which a chef dropped the "f-bomb" in response to a customer's posted complaint is an example of social media behaving badly.
Though the restaurant owner subsequently removed both the customer complaint and his over-the-top response, it was too late. The exchange had already gone viral and was eventually picked up by the traditional media as well.

This particular social media dust-up has proven to be instructive for the industry as a whole, and there's a quite vigorous debate going on in industry circles regarding the management of social media posts.

Some are asserting restaurants have the obligation to remove critical postings in the interest of preserving a "civil atmosphere."

Others suggest that such one-sided, heavy-handed editing will inevitably backfire, undermining the usefulness and legitimacy of social media for restaurant and patrons alike.