Hamish Champ: What can the internet do for your pub?

I experienced a couple of 'firsts' last week. It was the first time I'd ever attended the Federation of Licensed Victualler's Associations' (FLVA) annual conference, being held in Blackpool. And it was the first time I'd ever been to Blackpool. I didn't know which experience I was more excited about.

The conference contained a series of informative sessions. There were contributions from Greene King - which was sponsoring the event - which included a session on how to attract female pubgoers and why pubs should employ more women. There was also a depressing but no doubt useful session on the sort of drugs licensees needed to be on the lookout for.

But the presentation that caught my eyes and ears was one given by Matt Furnell, Greene King's web wizard. His presentation offered encouragement and advice for licensees looking to use the internet to attract, hold and keep in touch with customers, whether by creating a website for their pub or simply a page on Facebook, the social networking site.

He also had a myriad of internet facts at his fingertips. More than 500 million people worldwide use Facebook. Nearly a quarter of all online activity in the UK is devoted to social networking sites. And per head of population Sunderland is the most prolific spot in the UK for use of the internet. Who'da thought it?

Some pubs have cottoned on to how creating a website or even just a Facebook page can help bolster their appeal.

Being able to highlight what's on in your pub can be done so much more effectively using a computer and access to t'internet.

Punters looking for a good night out will fall upon a pub's well-presented website like a pack of wolves devouring a poor wee lamb that's wandering lost and alone in the Carpathian mountains.

Yet for many pubs the power of the internet has still to make a sizeable impact. Well over half the pubs I namecheck on a search engine such as Google have little more than their address details available over the ether. Of websites there are all too few.

This is a missed opportunity. My 17 year-old godson has been hired by his local pub to set up and manage its new all-singing, all-dancing web presence. It'll help boost what is already - and finally, after two years of hard work - becoming a good pub. But a website will also take some effort, hence the job offer.

This, as Greene King's Furnell told his Blackpool audience last week, a key part of going online. You have to keep it up to date. The pub's website that in November is still advertising a forthcoming Mother's Day lunch event - and we're not talking 2011 here - doesn't get any repeat visits.

But come to think of it, for all my talk of the vast void still to be filled by the internet savvy, The Publican's readership, or at least certain elements of it, is extremely web aware. One only has to post a story that's not to its liking and almost immediately the comment in-tray is bulging with the irate, the disgusted and in some cases the downright venomous.

Then it all kicks off, with half a dozen of the same old 'faces' arguing amongst themselves - and often about nothing to do with the story to which they've appended a comment - while the rest of the licensee population wonders how they manage to find the time to go online with such regularity and still run a pub.

But hey, that's the internet for you. Everyone can have their say. And amen to that…