I was recently talking some business colleagues  at a marketing company called Xente Media about some ways restaurants can spend just a little bit of money and still find success in digital advertising.

We agreed that one area that businesses should look at are the review social media sites like Yelp, Trip Advisor, Zagat, UrbanSpoon etc.  The first thing many of these sites should do is to make sure their profile information is correct and up to date, and post quality pictures on their business page to attract customers. 

When using these sites businesses should also encourage customers that have had great experiences to share them on these sites (but only request the customer to do a review on one of them or you will sound desperate). 

The hardest part of reading reviews though are going through the negative writeups and personal attacks on a business.  This is a chance for a business to shine though.  Instead of being upset that a person gave you a bad review start a conversation with them to find out what the problem was.  Maybe they came in on a day that was busy and two of your servers called out, so they wrote a review complaining about your service.  Maybe they didn't like the food they got that night, but since then you decided to hire a new chef.  Or maybe they were so upset that you sold out of a menu item that Sysco Foods didn't have in stock for your order.  If it was a mistake on your businesses part, then send the customer an apology and offer to discount or comp a future meal and make sure when they come you have what they want. 

And if the customer has their head up their ass and nothing is good enough for them or they have a request that goes against your business model use it to make the customer look like an ass, similar to this video from Alamo Drafthouse Theater.