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Promoting Destination Dining on Pewaukee Lake

Great food, smooth music and a location on Pewaukee Lake that'll drop your jaw. You'd think that would be enough. But Piano Blu's location also works against it, situated 45 minutes from the nearest population center. Destination dining benefits from a strong social media strategy that includes daily posts and tweets that create buzz and encourage folks to "make the trip".

The Piano Blu website project came to us through our mutual friend and frequent collaborator, Monica Brusnahan. The owner of Piano Blu, Carrie Boehm, was looking for more opportunities to get customers in the door to experience all that Piano Blu has to offer. For those that don't know Piano Blu is located right on the shore of Pewaukee Lake in a charming old building and they offer an unparalleled view of the lake, awesome nightly music and a great menu (thanks to Chef Oscar!).

It's a classic setting with great ambience, swingin' music and a delicious menu and that just wasn't being reflected on their current site. Since taking over the business a couple of years earlier nothing much had been done on the website other than to make updates to the menu and music schedule. Carrie was anxious to get something online that reflected the current style and feel of the place and had many more photos of the setting, the staff and the food. We were in agreement early on that the current site needed to be scrapped and redone from scratch (no leftovers).

The Importance of Great Photos

  After gathering content we immediately realized that the photos were out of date and not that useful for the new site. Some were salvageable, but for the most part we needed fresh photos of the restaurant and the food. 

We wanted to show people enjoying themselves, laughing, drinking, eating, enjoying music.  Folks just having a good time. So we called in our pro photographer, Erik Helgestad, to direct an afternoon of shooting. We got some great shots as the afternoon sun glinted off the water and Chef Oscar provided some great entrees for the "food porn" part of the shoot. It was hard to keep our hands off the plates until we were done. But, it all tasted fine cold. Erik then returned that evening to get a handful of candid shots of the diners and the staff during full service.

Social Media Options

In discussions with Carrie, she shared that Piano Blu is a destination for fine diners throughout the Lake Country. It's a no-brainer that people use Facebook and Twitter as part of their daily lives, especially the younger audience that Piano Blu is trying to attract. Those same users are very free about sharing their opinions or their dinner plans. We wanted to tap this resource to get the news out about Piano Blu's menu specials and nightly music schedule. 

Anyone can set up a social media account for free, but knowing what to do next is less clear. We wanted to make certain that Piano Blu knew what sort of information to be posting, when to post it and how often to update. We looked at their current Facebook account and realized that they

Piano Blu is a fine dining destination on beautiful Pewauekee Lake in Pewaukee, WI. Weekly blues and jazz make this a great spot to get a drink or enjoy a wonderful seafood experience courtesy of Chef Oscar. Dale and Carrie Boehm make everyone feel right at home.

www.pianoblu.com