Social Media Marketing for Restaurants: The Beginners' Guide

Social media has been a significant marketing part with emerging of digital marketing. In the modern business era, social media is your business identity. Similarly, it has become popular in restaurant business marketing too.

Creating social media channel for your restaurant business ensures expansion of your restaurant to the next level and carries out your customers into repeat. Regular social media strategies say posting photos of your promotions and special offers or customer reviews turn your restaurant leveling up to a polished brand.

Online reviews and comments influence people to choose where to go to hang out. Hashtags with food, drinks, beverage are much popular on Instagram.

In this article, you will grasp:

• Why is social media important for your restaurant business?
• How will you make some good social media marketing strategies to advertise or promote your business?
• What tips do you need to know about social media marketing for your restaurant business?
• What are the advanced tips for using social media for restaurant marketing campaigns?

Let's get started…

People are now more digital-friendlier. Whether it is for shopping, traveling, or hanging out, the first thing is to check reviews on social media.

At present, the trend is hanging out with friends or family trying different cuisines, and posting aesthetic pictures on Instagram or Facebook. Checking in various restaurants on social media has also emerged as a new fashion for young generations.

In contrast, those who are not that active in social media, lefts behind now in the online era. So, your restaurant first needs a sustainable identity in social media. Undeniably, social media is an excellent instrument to get a better review and establish a brand.

Let's check out the focus points on why social media is needed for your restaurant:

• Improves communication with customers
• Comes up with upgraded information
• Makes the online presence of the restaurant more visible
• Splits your promotional offers and recipes online to grab more customer
• Boosts up the professionalism of your restaurant

How to use social media for a restaurant business? It is a valid question that how you will create your restaurant identity on social media platforms for marketing.

Social media is fun when you connect with your customers. You can create your style to brand your business.

Here are some useful ways to make your style on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and more for your restaurant business.

• Share your daily deals
• Post-high-resolution photos of your food
• Post the photos of the cozy environment you provide
• Connect with the customer sharing their review
• Share different cuisines recipes with video
• Share behind the scene of your videos
• Share stories from your chefs and others
• Share your journey with your dream restaurant

Following some specific strategies, you can promote your restaurant on social media platforms. The process should be unique.

Here are some ways you can follow:

• Don't be dependent on only one or two social media platforms. There are lots of platforms, and each has its followers. Create your business account or profile on all the platforms, say Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. And don't forget to create a YouTube channel to launch new videos of your foods and environment.
• It is necessary to use your logo color on all the accounts and contents you publish for the brand proposition. Make a color pallet that contains all your brand colors. So, your customers will get used to your brand color, which will eventually help you establish your brand quickly. Your brand will get easily recognized.
• Don't ignore filling up all the information on profiles of your social media business accounts. Your profile should contain bio, website, location, menu, contacts, opening and closing times. All this information helps to get a more visible online presence.
• You can add other attributes like a 'Book Now' button for the Facebook page if you have a reservation option. You can also upload your menu book and add the cuisine types you offer.
• Don't keep your accounts empty—post content regularly. The contents should be not only for sale but also for building the brand.

Though it completely depends on how often you want to post content on your social media accounts, try to post content at least three times per week to get good insights.

If you do not consistently post content on your social media accounts, you will risk losing engagement with your followers.

Keep in mind that you need to create posts that are engaging to your audience. You can hire a social media manager to manage your business accounts. Professional managers manage accounts efficiently with sound knowledge on managing social media accounts.

You can also hire a digital marketing team to run campaigns on your behalf and research competitors' strategies to make your social media marketing campaigns unique and successful. With efficient digital marketing and social media management team, you can win the social media marketing game by getting huge traffic to your page.

Here are some effective tips that can lead to good results in your restaurant business's social media marketing.

Demonstrate What's Behind the Scene

Your social media accounts should contain your traditional food delicacies photography. Share the delicious food's high-quality photos.

It would help if you also shared regularly behind the scene and shoots. Like what is going on in your kitchen, your customers need to know. They will feel more attached to your kitchen and foods if you regularly share behind the scene of traditional delicacies cooking.

Restaurant lovers love to eat and get in touch with the story behind your kitchen. You will get highlighted even if you start making vlogs on YouTube with your day-to-day stories behind cooking delicacies for your restaurant.

YouTube videos get good engagement if your vlogs are interesting enough to attract viewers. Make videos on your signature dish to promote it.

Leave some offers on it on special occasions which makes your dish more attractive. Film your chefs and stuff how they drive and serve the food to your satisfied customers.    

But before shooting videos or doing photography or your foods, make sure that your kitchen is neat and clean.

Your video can be short or long. You can put only the attributes in the video to make it fast or shoot the whole process as a long video. Most of all, make your clip attractive to your customers.

Generate a Compatible Brand Voice

Building an iconic brand voice is another trick to get stuck inside the mind of your customer. Your brand should be centered on the attributes of your food.

Consistent brand voice places a clear step on customers' minds. Use the same color pallet and photography style for branding. So, your client gets the same vibe whether they see you on Facebook, mobile app, or website.

Make consistent content for every platform.  Remember, social media is fun. Do not use much formal tone here. Rather use some funny and casual style to connect with your regular customers.

Make your brand recognizable even without a logo. Expand your restaurant business beyond your location through the digitalization of your marketing strategy.

Acknowledge Your Customer's Review

Your business page will get both positive and negative reviews. You need to accept and acknowledge all the negative reviews with a positive mind and go ahead. And you appreciate all the positive reviews by thanking your customers.

Responding to each review is a good practice to make your business more trustworthy. Your response to all the reviews makes your business transparent and honest. Rather you can take care of the negative reviews and improve your business.

When you focus on customer review, your customer will feel attached to your restaurant and regard themselves as brand advocates. This way, you can turn the relationship into good with those customers too.

Make Use of Social Media to Get Email Signups

It would be best if you read your customer's mind. Restaurant lovers love to have BOGO offers or discounts on food. You can use that psychology to get Email Signups. Make some offer that they will get some BOGO offer on your signature dish if they sign up.

You can start Email marketing if you can collect your customer's email address. The easiest way is to collect the talk with some discount offer. Email newsletters are very efficient marketing strategies to share your regular deal offers. And to collect email addresses, use social media.

User-Generated Content

The most efficient and effective social media marketing strategy for a restaurant business is User-Generated Content. When your customers and guests make content for you as a review and post it in the community, your restaurant will come into the limelight.

You can use the platform UGC on every social media platform. Say you got a good review photo on Twitter, use it on Facebook or Instagram as many times as you want to show off. Give credit to the guest so that they feel honored.

If your customers are happy, they will do most of the marketing on behalf of you. Especially, check-ins and photos do the maximum marketing from customers. When you repost their content on your page and community, customers feel connected too with your business.

Nowadays, food vloggers give positive reviews if restaurant food and environment are good and if the food is less expensive.

People always search for good food, cozy environment with less price. Combine this three and get UGC from your regular customers. Your restaurant will turn into one of the most dedicated food halls in terms of UGC.

Make sure all the UGC is connected with your brand tone.

Focus Attention On Your Employees

Highlighting your employees and chefs is one of the finest strategies you can take for social media marketing campaigns. It shows that you care for your employees, which makes a positive impression on you on social media.

You can make videos of your employees and post them to your channel. This video shows your team's strength and unity.

Your "behind the scenes" episodes can include funny moments of your employees so your customers can have a glimpse of your team relation. You can also make birthday announcements of your employees through posts, so it implies that your food business has family bonding with employees.

Question to Follower Engagement

Post engagement content in your business profile so that your followers are engaged with your page and channel. Asking fun questions, making polls, creating contests can amazingly engage your followers.

Followers remember the contests, and they also invite their friends and family to the contests. So, your business gets more engagement from your followers.

Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have question and poll functions that you can use to engage your followers by asking them funny questions. The more your followers engage with you through different reactions; the higher your page insights are likely to be.

If your page posts offer and photos and videos, your customers will just come and scroll down and go back to another page. Contests also hold customers for a longer time on your page.

Focus on Trends

Start campaigns with trending hashtags. When your business page interacts with trending topics on social media, you will get more engagement.

Sharing funny posts with popular trending topics is easy to grab and get more engagement from followers. People like to follow trends. So try to make offers and contests regarding trends that help to be noticed more by followers.   

Start Social Media Contest

Start campaigns with trending hashtags. When your business page interacts with trending topics on social media, you will get more engagement.

Sharing funny posts with popular trending topics is easy to grab and get more engagement from followers. People like to follow trends. So try to make offers and contests regarding trends that help to be noticed more by followers.   

Showcase Your Vendors

Highlighting your vendors can be a good way to show how your words are being done and how careful you are about everybody who helps make your restaurant successful. Your customers also get to know the behind story of each food.

You share stories of your vendors who help the food ingredients create a fanbase for your restaurant. You can get more collaborations from different vendors with the help of the vendor stories you share in your channel.

And, your customers also get to know from where you buy all their favorite ingredients. These things attract new clients.

This direct connection means a lot in social media. In the virtual space, people cannot directly be connected with you. So, make them think that you are always with your clients to provide the best food.

Be the Support of Your Customer

Be the best support for your customer. Use your social media accounts to share your thoughts on social inequalities. Talk about safety regarding Covid-19.

Make sure that you provide safe food online so that your customers do not need to go out. Talk to your customers through video to support your business.

Asking empathy and showing appreciation will make your business more humanitarian.

Though there are efficient tips you can use to make your social presence more vibrant, advanced steps will take your page and channel to the next level.

Let's take a tour of some advanced strategies that you can follow:

Collaborate with Other Chefs

Recently, collaborations with others have been hype. You can collaborate with other chefs or restaurants and post it online. Your customers will enjoy collaborations as this brings a new experience for restaurant lovers.

Collaborate with Social Media Influencers

Now, social media influencers have millions of followers who follow the trends created by the influencers. Invite and offer influencers your exclusive delicacies. When they post their experiences with you, the follower group will also be attracted to your restaurant.

You can also create collaborative content with social media influencers which the influencer will publish as a vlog.

Go Live from Your Page or Channel

Start talking about your new menu and deals on live. Streaming is a great option to share your promotions with your customers. Besides, your customers will get a glimpse of the cozy environment of your restaurant.

Your customers are eager to know about your journey and the stories behind the food. Q&A sessions can be a great strategy to grab your customer's attention and meet up their thirst.

Highlight Your Uniqueness

Thousands of restaurants are doing the same business as you. Why will your customers give their attention to you? What uniqueness do you provide to your customers?

Yes, it would help if you made your service unique. It can be regarding cuisines, or maybe the environment or perhaps the decorations. Make your spot a destination for influencers or restaurant lovers. Make individual promotional campaigns to attract customers.

Building community in social media is important for the online presence of your restaurant. For digital marketing, social media platform is a crucial part not only for client engagement but also for trustworthiness. When your client interacts more with you, your restaurant business will develop more than before.

• What Social Media is Best for Restaurants?

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest are the best for restaurants as social media. You can also choose other platforms such as TikTok for a social media campaign.

• How Do I Promote My Restaurant on Social Media?

There are lots of ways and strategies you can use to promote your restaurant. You can create engaging posts, videos, contests with promotional offers to advertise your restaurant.

• Why is Social Media Marketing Important for Restaurants?

Social media marketing is important for a consistent online presence and sustainable identity for restaurant lovers' engagement.

• What Do Restaurants Post on Social Media?

Restaurants post photos of their food, their environment, their special offers, daily delicacies deals, and a lot more. Besides, you can post videos on stories behind the food and their journey.

• What is the Best Marketing Strategy for Restaurants?

The best marketing strategy for restaurants is social media marketing as there are more users and a medium of reaching people easily.