10 Apr How to Go about Social Media For your Restaurant
Social media is a great source of traffic and information which helps customers to know about you. Currently, restaurants are more likely to add social media in their marketing strategy, as it is the finest way to get the exposure.
If you have just dive into the social media marketing campaign like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and you want to optimize the results, then this post is going to do wonders for you.
1. DETERMINE THE VISUAL IDENTITY OF YOUR RESTAURANT
To determine the visual identity of your restaurant, you must figure out the following things:
- Where you have to focus? On food, decoration, or cocktails to post on Instagram or Facebook!
- What can represent my brand the best?
- What makes my restaurant different from others?
- What colours should my posts contain?
These answers will help you to find your visual identity and get you move potentially through the path of a social media marketing plan.
Moreover, when you hire professionals for your social media marketing, whether a designer or photographer, then you must see if their work reflects your vision or not. It will protect you from future consequences.
2. FIND YOUR VOICE AND MESSAGE THAT SLAY:
Once you find your visual identity, the next crucial step is to convey your message to your audience. A brand voice is a style, theme, and message of your brand, which makes you stand out in the competition.
For this, you must find what type of restaurant brand you are; for example, relaxed, classy, aspiring, relatable, snarky, or lively!
Remember that the tone you choose must reflect in your EVERY post consistently on all social media platforms, including the menu and theme of your restaurant.
It is essential to know who is your target audience because you have to create content for that category of audience.
3. Target Audience:
One of the essential factors of any successful restaurant is to know its target audience. For example, you have Bar, then you must know the male and female demographics, like which gender is the most frequent customer? Also, you should know that if your bar is welcoming for 18-24 age group people or 25+.
Well, social media has also made it a lot easy because now you can check the demographics of which type of audience and age group people are interested in your brand. So, this can be a game-change for your restaurant success.
Moreover, make sure to measure the achievements of each of your social media marketing campaigns. Tab those contents which carried out best results, so it can be useful when next time you covey your brand message.
4. KNOW YOUR COMPETITORS:
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You must know the presence of your competitor on social media. For example, if you are running a Chinese Restaurant, and there is already a famous Chinese Restaurant in your city, then you have to see what type of content they are posting. At the same time, think about the logistics which can make your restaurant stand apart from your restaurant.
Following are the factors you should consider to look at the social media presence of your competitor:
- Contents getting the most engagement.
- Type of content they are posting.
- How often do they post per month or regularly?
- The number of followers they have.
- To whom your competitors follow and share their content.
These factors can help you to understand the success formula of your competitor. Ultimately, you will get a clear picture to come up with an idea to bring something which your competitor has not thought about. And that will play a part to make a difference.
Important Tip:
Follow your competitors. It is a great way to build your audience. If you pay attention, learn from the competition and evolve your strategies- then the chances are you’ll grow your audience too.
- What to Post on Social Media for Audience Engagement?
Remember these three rules of posting before you start social media marketing of your restaurant:
- SALES POST: If you want to increase the business of your restaurant, then you have to post for selling Event tickets, offers, and making more reservations to get more customers.
- GUEST PERSONAL EXPERIENCES: Sharing the posts of your guests when they are having fun on a birthday party at your restaurant, or sharing their views about your restaurant can help to bring more audience attention and building loyalty.
- Brand Posts: Brand posts help to generate awareness about your business. These posts can be about kitchen shoots, behind the scenes activities, employees’ shots, or any special day post.
- Audience Engagement:
Audience engagement is key to build trust between the restaurant and the customers. You can do this by responding all the queries your customers have, either related t menu or reservation, or any problem they may be facing in terms of staff or other services. Moreover, you can also use emojis for an instant reply to your customer. It will forward a signal of friendliness to your followers.
The engagement with your customers or followers will help you to build a strong client-chain. Therefore, it is vital from every aspect to engage with your customers because it is the only way to win your clients hearts and win their trust.
“The highest-volume days for the online platforms were Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, when 74 percent of orders were placed.”
5. Respond to Your Reviews:
According to the recent survey, over 71% of people say we love to recommend a company which respond quickly to the reviews on Social Media.
Therefore, review has great importance in terms of building a restaurant reputation. A single unchecked negative review can damage the restaurant reputation, and let people think about whether they should visit you or not.
Try to answer negative review instantly, it will allow you to resolve matter rapidly, and chances are that a customer can take down its review.
Well, negative or positive reviews can be helpful in many ways. It allows you to figure out the areas of improvement and take action accordingly.
- Create Contests on Social Media:
Creating contests on social media develop loyalty, trust, and strong bond between the restaurant and its customers.
Around 79% of people prefer to use Facebook page only for availing discounts and offers. So, it is good idea to use Facebook page to do contests; it will get you more followers’ engagements, likes, and comments on your FB page.
Which type of contests can you do on social media?
- Offer Free dinner
- Free Gifts
- Free party ticket
6. Resharing Customer Content:
Resharing your customer content is one of the tools you can use to win your customer trust.
How it can be done?
Well, that’s simple. When any of your customers share anything related to their experience in your restaurant, then you just reshare it on your restaurant social media platforms. It will help to build trust among other followers, and they will plan to visit your restaurant. Also, a positive image of any place brings a desire to visit it. The same goes for a restaurant, so take advantage of it, and grow your restaurant business.
“6 in 10 YouTube subscribers would follow advice on what to buy from their favorite creator over their favorite TV or movie personality”
Conclusion:
The social media marketing is one of the great sources to flourish any business in 21st century. Using well-known social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter can put ingredients in your restaurant success. Use these platforms effectively, and post beautiful bright images of your restaurant, which appeals to your audience. Post the pictures of delicious foods which bring craving in your audience to eat them.
Interaction with your customer is critically important to build a positive brand reputation. So, always try to interact with them. Ask questions, play quizzes by asking the name of any dish, tell food facts, and upload behind the scenes videos, answer to their reviews.
Lastly, success comes with patience. Therefore, it is crucial to stay focused and consistent with your strategies and goals. Restaurant success takes time, but once you build your brand trust upon your target audience, then your business will become successful.
Head to our piece on Social Media for Restaurants 101 or The Importance of branding to learn more