EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an excerpt of a recent blog written by Paul Barron, the founder of Fastcasual.com and DigitalCoCo, a branding and social analytic firm. For the full blog, visit his website http://www.socialcoco.com.

The decade of the door hanger is gone. The yellow pages are extinct and the printing process for promotion is dropping so fast the rain forest may yet get a reprieve after all. How the connected consumer spreads the word through mobile and social media is the real answer for our future. An all-new consumer science is emerging in the restaurant industry and that science will help our businesses grow.

Recently we tracked the most influential restaurants in America and broke it down by segment: Casual, Fast Casual and QSR. The results were somewhat expected at the top where millions are being spent to drive the digital brand. The next layer was a whole new set of players that do get it and understand the power of the new medium to educate, inform and influence millions of consumers every day. Players that get it are making the most of the newfound way to reach out to consumers and make them raving fans.

We found Starbucks as the most influential brand in Fast Casual as we studied a variety of layers of the social web:

1. How the brand engages (tone, message, interaction, focus on topics or promotions)
2. How their consumers engage with them (frequency, trends and topics, response vs. action)
3. How influential their consumers are in their social circles (not just a Klout Score)

It’s how the ripple effect works when you strategically engage in the right place. The impact can be amazing. Jimmy John’s is the No. 2 most influential with Genghis Grill and Coffee Bean trailing very tightly at Nos. 3 and 4. What is startling is that a small chain the size of Naked Pizza took the No. 5 spot in our Fast Casual segment most influential list.

Google has been about search for the past decade, Social is about influence and trust.

This is our future and the best part is that we know it’s coming this time. The recent NRA 2011 Forecast suggests that social media and digital brand development will play a major role in our business growth over the next several years. So the big question is, what can we do to get there?

Here are just a few steps to take if you are not already doing them:

1. Get a real digital strategy in place with real talent that can help make a difference. This is not an intern handling your Twitter account. It requires the combination of a full understanding of the technology being used and the business impact it can have as well.

2. Get positioned in mobile quickly. This is the reality of how consumers will engage with you for location, referral, menu, ordering, loyalty and best of all repeat business. Embracing mobile should be your No. 1 consumer engagement plan right now.

3. Social CRM (customer relationship management) is the next phase. Work fast on targeted audience acquisition. Don’t leave out integrating your e-mail as a crucial priority in an overall social CRM strategy as well.

4. Start year-round engagement campaigns. Start with digital strategies that can be integrated into all of your marketing on a year-round basis and not just here and there. Digital should be the first plan in every marketing and consumer engagement calendar.

5. Bring in your franchise and management teams. Educate them so they understand the overall digital impact on the business. Best of all, this can help with idea generation. Remember, this is not the era of “Spray and Pray” marketing anymore. That is the first thing you will have to teach your team. The game has truly changed.

6. Get digital quick. Every major platform should have your brand represented. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Quora, FourSquare and the emerging ones as well. Test often and deploy in the ones that rise to the top.

7. Build your digital content plan. You have to become a publisher now instead of a marketer. In the past you published marketing material like mad, right? Now you will need to shift to content that makes sense to your customers. The competition noise is really loud and customers won’t listen to old standard marketing messages, they are looking for a new voice. It might as well be yours.

8. Analyze your digital competition. Now with open access, you can see the plans of your competition being executed right in front of you. The successes and failures are also transparent, but with the right strategy and tools, you can start to evaluate trends. This evaluation can teach you a ton in how your business needs to compete. Trends and tactics are the key to directing where your business goes.

9. Work on many fronts at once. This will require some heavy lifting and shifting of marketing, operations and even HR budgets, but you must shift your plan into all aspects of your business. Get your suppliers involved. If those suppliers don’t have a digital and social strategy, it’s time to change suppliers.

10. Listen. Yes, I know that is a simple tip but in reality it’s the hardest thing to do. We know our own businesses better than anyone but we must listen to our guests and our staff to really understand the opportunities that lie before us. Social media and digital branding is not just an outward persona. It is a revitalization of your entire organization. Analyze your customer’s tweets, posts, and videos. Empower your employees because today there are hundreds or even thousands of brand ambassadors, and though it’s hard to hear and especially listen to them all, you will find the ones who rise to the top are worthy of your attention.