The Open Graph Protocol enables you to integrate your Web pages into the social graph. It is currently designed for Web pages representing profiles of real-world things – things like movies, sports teams, celebrities, and restaurants. It is important for you as a webpage owner to include Open Graph tags on your Web page which makes your page equivalent to a Facebook Page.

What it does mean for me?

If a prospect is looking for certain content (for e.g. customer reviews, latest events or menu) on your restaurant’s web portal to decide whether she wants to spend her evening with her friends at your restaurant, you not only want to make sure that the content is available at your webpage, but also have to make sure that the the content is in right format for sharing with social channels she visits regularly (read Facebook) to hang out with her friends online!

When she clicks the ‘Like’ button on menu or event page on your web-portal a connection is made between your page and the user.Your page will now appear in the “Likes and Interests” section of the her profile, and you have the ability to publish updates to her in future. Your page will show up in the same places that Facebook pages show up around the site (e.g. Facebook search), and you can target ads to her who like your content. The structured data you provide via the Open Graph Protocol defines how your page will be represented on Facebook to her and her friends (or her friends’s friend…)!

How can open graphs added to your restaurant webpages?

Open Graph tags are added to your Website via Meta Tags. The type of tags used should represent the content of the page. For example, Your home page tags would contain content about the site as a whole, while tags on a event page or blog post would focus on the nature of the story.

We at marketEnomics can help you to create specific tags for pages that focus on people (with children or in relationships etc.), businesses (near your location or by ZIP), locations (by zip or cities), groups (vegans, vegetarians, salad lovers etc.)

To know more on how we are helping restaurant owners at Chicago bring more leads and build engagement through Facebook Open Graph implementation, contact us today

How open graph helps to spread word about my restaurant?

The open graph lets apps tell stories on facebook through a structured, strongly typed API.

People use stories to share the things they’re doing, the people they’re doing them with and the places where they happen. Open Graph lets you integrate apps deeply into the Facebook experience, which increases engagement, distribution and growth. People can view the same stories across multiple devices viz. android, iOS or Web.

Publishing stories drives engagement and interest in your app. People can comment on their friends’ stories and start a conversation:

Why it is important for you as a restaurant owner to implement open graph today?

Open graph allows you to interact with existing customers, drives engagement, builds trust and increases overall Life Time Value (LTV). After configuring your website correctly for Open Graph actions, you also decrease ‘Cost of Customer Acquisition (CoCA)’ by reaching inner circle (friends of friends) of your existing customers, and what is the best way that traditional ‘Word of Mouth’ advertisement taken online?

We also want to add that Open Graph functionality is limited in regard to advertising units but you have to take action now to prepare for the broader implementation and adoption of Open Graph in future. You need to build and maintain a functional and appealing Facebook page if you already don’t have one, drive fans and engagement on Facebook Page or Apps, and encourage user actions not only limited to ‘Likes’ or ‘Comments’ but also ‘Check-ins’, ‘Recommendations’ etc.

Predicted future functionality of graph search

Although no ad units currently exist (May 2013) in Facebook Graph Search, there are several ways that Graph Search could be leveraged by you in future:

Sponsored Results – You could buy ad space so that prospects searching for related businesses will be served ads.

FBX – Prospects that search for certain businesses and products can be re-targeted with ad units related to those businesses and products.

Search Query Targeting – Ad units can be targeted to prospects based on their queries in Graph Search.

Offers – Relevant offers could be displayed in search results to prospects