12 Social Media Marketing Tips for Restaurant Owners
Updated: Nov 22, 2022
Photo by Steve Daniel on Unsplash
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It doesn’t matter how delicious or appetizing your restaurant’s food is; you’ll never get the attention you want or deserve if you aren’t actively finding ways to drive traffic to you.
Because of this, your restaurant must have a social media presence.
While social media has always been an important part of restaurant marketing, with the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s more important than ever before. Competition is higher than ever, and restaurants are scurrying to find ways to compensate for the lost revenue they have experienced.
Not leveraging social media and all it offers may spell disaster for your business!
If you’re new to social media, don’t worry – there are countless tools, such as Hookle, that can help you get and stay organized when creating a restaurant marketing campaign on social media.
Not leveraging social media and all it offers may spell disaster for your business!
Now let’s dive into the specifics of creating a social media campaign for your restaurant.
Why Is Social Media Important for Restaurants?
It’s estimated that 30% of millennial diners avoid restaurants with a minimal Instagram presence.
With customers becoming more reliant on digital information, you must carve out your spot in social media and create an identity that demands attention.
Using social media ensures your restaurant can communicate with customers, is found online, allows you to share your recipes and food, and adds legitimacy to the business.
How Restaurants Use Social Media?
Your restaurant can use social media in several ways. It’s important to be creative and think outside the box; however, some effective ways to use social media include:
Post menus
Show “behind the scenes” clips or images
Showcase content from customers
Post images of your food
Highlight workers
The more you share, the more engaging your social media presence will be.
How Do I Promote My Restaurant Using Social Media?
If you want to promote your restaurant with social media, you need to develop the right presence. To do this, use the following steps:
Add your logo and colors
Add a bio to every page
Post your content
What Social Media Platforms Restaurants Use?
When it comes to food, sticking with the more visual platforms is best.
It’s a good idea to start with sites like Instagram and Facebook, then move on to others if you have the bandwidth. Posting YouTube videos and on Twitter can be beneficial, as well.
How Many Times Should a Restaurant Post on Social Media?
It’s best to post on your business social media profiles a minimum of three times per week.
If you aren’t consistent, you risk losing engagement. However, the more you post with social media, the better as long as you have something of value to share.
How Do Restaurants Leverage Social Media (with 12 Tips)?
Photo by Abstral Official on Unsplash
If you want to leverage social media to benefit your restaurant, you have to learn how to create an effective marketing campaign. The tips below should apply to all cases - whether you are setting up your restaurant at home, street, or in a separate facility.
Here you can find 12 social media marketing tips for restaurants.
1. Create Your Profiles
The first step to successful social media marketing is creating your profiles. Be sure that you add all the pertinent information, including a short description, a link to your website, and an address.
Remember, the correct address and opening hours are important to keep updated in all social networks, but especially in Google Business Profile.
Remember, people judge a book by the cover. If you want to attract people to your social media profile, you need to ensure it looks great, is branded, and is easy to recognize.
2. Use Video
Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels
You might think if using a video is a good marketing strategy for restaurant?
Sharing videos on social media helps generate 1200% more shares than images and text combined. Because of this, you should make sure video is a big part of your social media marketing strategy.
Using video also allows you to promote specials, show things “behind the scenes,” and feature your employees.
3. Use a Consistent Voice
Consistent imagery and messaging for your restaurant are a must. If things seem inconsistent or flighty, people will lose interest in what you are posting and likely move on to another social media profile.
4. Utilize Social Media Monitoring
Photo by Hookle
How do you know if your efforts are effective if you don’t monitor what is going on? Investing in monitoring will help you know when your marketing efforts are effective and when changes should be made.
You can use social media management tools for monitoring your business's performance on social media.
5. Create Relevant Content
It’s important to make sure you are sharing relevant information. You can’t create a social media profile that is only publishing advertisements. You have to offer something deeper and more valuable to ensure ongoing engagement.
6. Create a Contest
Creating a social media contest allows you to build rapport, increase loyalty, and improve engagement with followers and customers. You can create a contest offering prizes like free gift cards, a free vent, or a free dinner for your restaurant.
Contests have been proven to be one of the most shared types of posts on social media today.
7. Respond to Reviews or Comments
If a customer leaves a comment or review on your page, make sure you respond. You want to show your customers that you care about what they think and say. Even if the comment or review isn’t completely positive, responding is a must.
8. Use Emojis
Believe it or not, emojis can be an effective marketing tool ☝😍 Using these can improve your engagement level on social media because it will make your account seem like there is a real person behind it, which is always a plus 🙋♂️
9. Use Location-Based Advertising
With location-based advertising, you are in control of when people see your ads. You can adjust the radius as needed and target people who are nearby. For example, if someone walks by your restaurant and is scrolling through Facebook, they will be presented with your ad.
10. Consider Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is when you collaborate with someone who has clout on social media. They will post about your restaurant and encourage their followers to visit.
11. Sign Up to free Google Business Profile
Although (strictly speaking) it isn’t a traditional social media channel, we’d feel remiss not to mention Google Business Profile here too. Why?
Because it’s another powerful tool for boosting your restaurant’s online presence.
Signing up to Google Profile helps people find your business when they search for you. But that’s not all. The very fact that you show up on Google gives your restaurant newfound credibility.
Overall, you can expect a surge of new customers coming through the door. Click here to learn how Hookle makes creating, verifying, and managing your Google Profile a breeze from start to finish.
12. Save Time By Using a Scheduling App
How David uses social media assistant tool as a pancake & coffee shop owner
Cross-platform scheduling app like Hookle can remind you when to post, automatically publish posts and help you manage content across multiple platforms. Whether these scheduling applications help you manage what content goes where, mock up what it might look like, when it goes live and on which account(s), they’re extremely helpful.
Social media is crucial to attracting new customers and staying connected with regulars
Getting Social Media Marketing for Restaurant Right
As you can see from the information here, a lot goes into social media and digital marketing for restaurants.
Whether you’re a new restaurant owner or a seasoned lunch restaurant nerd, these tips can help you boost visibility online among rapidly growing competition. Social media is crucial to attracting new customers and staying connected with regulars, and it can serve as a highly useful tool to remind them your restaurant exists, tell them about menu updates and share stories and secrets that will make them feel at home.
Now, if you want to feel more confident with your restaurant marketing, start using productivity tools like Hookle to make your restaurant marketing even easier. Enjoy!
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