WITH A lot of people turning more and more to the Internet for information, restaurant owners would be wise to tap online options to promote their restaurants. At the Restaurant Marketing Reloaded Summit 2009, an event organized by Courage Asia this year, online marketing experts shared their views on how this can be done.

1. Have your own website. “Make sure you have a good website,” said Edward David, director for business development at clickthecity.com. The site has to have the necessary useful information, from menu to contact details, and the content should be updated regularly. “Choose a content management system your people can be familiar with.”

2. Integrate online initiatives with your offline efforts. David advised entrepreneurs to promote their website address or URL in all their collaterals. Also, get listed in free online listings, explore priority and enhanced listings offered by online directories, and request to be featured in these websites.

3. Build communities; create followers. According to David, “Newsletters are becoming a thing of the past. Focus on growing your ‘followers’ instead of newsletter subscribers.” He recommended social networking sites Facebook and Multiply and microblogging site Twitter in doing this.

4. Explore and experiment with other options. Here’s where online advertising will come in and David suggested looking into pay-per-click, display advertising, pay-per-action, network buys and ad network options. In addition, Michael Rastas, consultant of myfoodtrip.com, mentioned joining forums and exploring iPhone applications to promote one’s restaurant.

5. Do your research. Howell Hay, managing director of munchpunch.com, said resto-preneurs should find out what their customers are searching for and reach the right audience.

6. Manage your reputation. Rastas said, “People will voluntarily tell you about a bad restaurant, but often will only talk about a good restaurant when asked.” Bad reviews of restaurants do get published online in blogs, but Hay offered hope by saying, “One bad review does not destroy your business for as long as there are plenty of people saying good things as well.” Hay advised, “Embrace reviews. They make us aware and provide us with an opportunity to fix a genuine problem.”