Creative Digital has had the pleasure of working with numerous restaurants offering a variety of cuisine from Brazilian and Indonesian to Lebanese and American. From our experience we can say confidently that using social media is an extremely effective way to get your restaurant noticed.

Restaurants can use the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to generate a fan base and online crowd that will be advocates of their food spreading its good news amongst their circle. Here are some a bit of insight into social media marketing for restaurants and a few tips and tricks to get you started!

Use of images

Being a restaurant, the majority of your content is based on images: pictures of your food and drink! Of course, blindly posting picture after picture won’t get you very far, however if you post these pictures at the right time and within the right context using a little creativity, you can reap numerous rewards. For example, on Facebook you have a cover image (for those who are not aware a cover image is a large image that can be placed above the traditional profile picture). The cover image is a great opportunity to get consumers attention thus a picture of the most enticing and delicious dish you have to offer would not go amiss here!

Furthermore, with regards to daily image postings, one is able to use their imagination and add captions to the posts that invite a user to engage with your Facebook/Twitter page. For example, a picture of your best soup can be accompanied by the caption “tag a hungry friend!” or you could put up your limited edition milkshake and write “tag someone with a sweet tooth”. You may be wondering how this helps your business grow, simply put, this is an ideal method to invite people to follow or like your page. Still don’t get it? Your existing fans will tag their friends in your picture, friends who may not be a fan of or aware of your business and, as a result, if they like what they see, they’ll click that “like” or “follow” button and pay a visit to you on their next free evening!

Other unique ways of using pictures is to caption with a question or incite some form of interaction, for example, “describe this dish in one word” or “how many would love to have a bite out of our famous cheesecake”.

The major advantage restaurants have is that when people see images of food and drink, it immediately awakens the hunger receptors in the brain and can cause cravings. Similarly, potential customers will start to relate a particular food item to your restaurant despite competitors providing the same and thus you’re able to gain a huge competitive advantage. No other type of business can boast an effect to this level just from a picture!

Content

Taking a step away from images, restaurants have many opportunities to utilise content and one thing in their favour is that the content does not always have to be generate by the restaurant themselves. It is quite simple to post a digital copy of the full and complete menu on a regular basis keeping fans in the know of your offerings. Additionally, in order to not make your social pages all about trying to sell to customers, mixing up types of posts with links to food blogs and recipes can also help increase your fan base. It is necessary to make your social pages a sort of information portal because posts about just me, me and me do not acquire repeat visits! The culture of the page has to be developed in a way that people re-visit to acquire more knowledge (in this case different recipes and so forth), add in a few business related posts which in between and you have got yourself a fine balance!

Listen to customers

Developing a two-way relationship with customers means you have to listen to them. After posting all these unique and creative posts, take a peek at how customers are responding to them, have a dialogue with them and essentially become their friends and not a mere merchant. Look out for any positive and negative feedback and respond as appropriate. Alternatively there are many ways to invite feedback, for example, a reward for posting a review.

I know all this and I like all this but I don’t have the time!

Organisations, especially SMEs, can find it particularly difficult to manage their social media presence alongside all other business processes and that’s where we come in. Entrust your social media responsibilities with a team of experts who possess vast amounts of experience and expertise in increasing website visitors and user engagement. Get in touch!