March 17, 2016
Social Media Marketing for Restuarants
Are you a restaurant owner? Do you know how to use social media to drive new business to your restaurant?
In order to be successful, restaurant owners need to connect with their customers. One of the ways to drive more customers through their doors is by utilizing social tools. The problem is the know-how; and that is where GreatLike Media comes in.
Adding social media to your marketing plan is a great way to target the customers that you want while increasing their awareness of your restaurant. This will get people interested in your food, and consequently, sitting at your tables.
Social Media Marketing for Restaurants #1:
Think Like Your Customer
One of the most important aspects of driving business to your restaurant is linkage; a connection or relationship between two or more things. In today’s socially driven business environment, the best way to do this is by using a social media marketing platform.
If you want your place to known as the neighborhood hangout – create the character that you’ll consistently use across all of your social media platforms. Post in a friendly, neighborly tone. You could, for example, have a frequently requested long-term server or bartender be the face of your social media.
If you want to be known for your great food – create your social media postings which showcase your most delecious looking appetizers, entres or desserts.
Put yourself in your customers shoes. What do they love? What brings them in? Most importantly, what brings them back?Think about your customer as you plan out your restaurant social media strategy.
Social Media Marketing for Restaurants #2:Facebook Marketing
Facebook provides an incredible opportunity for restaurants to connect with their clientele. You’d be hard pressed to find a patron of yours who is not on Facebook – and most of them are checking their updates at least a few times a day.
Facebook is a place where people go to ‘hangout’ with friends. That’s why they go out to eat too, right? Here are seven tips to use Facebook in your marketing:
1. Cover image – Make sure you take full advantage of your cover image. You have 851×351 pixels to market your business, for free. Include delicious photos of your food or people having a good time while eating with friends. You could change your cover image whenever you have a menu change, and market those new items or specials daily.
Include a brief description of your tasty morsels, as in the example below, from Bahama Breeze Island Grille
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2. Facebook Page Tabs – Use tabs on your Facebook Page to entice people to visit your eatery. The first four tabs in particular are key – these are the tabs that show up on your front page (without clicking to open them all). You can see how effectively Bahama Breeze Island Grille uses these. Their first four tabs are: photos of food, locations, food deals, and featured menu items.
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They are thinking like their customer, and providing imagery of their most demanded items, specials and information.
3. Use lots of photos of your food – The most shared posts on Facebook are images. You’re in the business of food, and aside from the taste, the most important thing about an entree is how it looks. Food can be very emotional, and emotion is the greatest driver to action; so be sure to include lots of images of your food in your regular Facebook updates. You could even create a lookbook of your current menu items.
Here’s an example of some tasty-looking tuna tataki from Milestones:
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4. Exclusive offers and group deals – Post exclusive offers on your Facebook Page. Give deals to patrons if they “like” your Page. Give group deals (using a third party app, as per Facebook rules), to entice your Fans to share your deal with their friends – and get those friends to become Fans of your Page too.
A group deal can significantly bolster your response rate!
5. Contests and sweepstakes – Use social sweepstakes and contests on your Facebook Page. These social promotions add excitement, and act as a great reason to get your customers coming back to both your Facebook Page and your restaurant.
Here’s an example from a client using our sweepstakes app. Wayne Gretzky’s Toronto ran a geo-targeted sweepstakes campaign through Facebook to successfully generate awareness of their newly renovated digs, and their brand new menu.
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(Check out more examples of how Wishpond clients have used social promotions; and learn how to run a Facebook contest.)
6. Geo-target your ads – Facebook ads lets you do all kinds of very specific, niche targeting. For restaurants and diners, this is ideal. You can target your ads to be seen only by Facebookers in your particular neighborhood, city, or county. You can also target your ads to be seen by those with specific likes, and by those who like certain pages.
In the Wayne Gretzky example above, this could be used to target the downtown Toronto area; to people who like hockey, sports and dining out; and who like the Toronto Blue Jays Page (okay, and maybe the Toronto Maple Leafs too).
Note: You can also geo-tag your posts. If you have a chain of restaurants, for example, use this feature to show images or updates from your various locations.
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7. Embed videos – Videos are very cool when embedded directly into an update, or in a tab. If you have videos about how your food is made, or you have an interview with your chef / food suppliers / happy customers – include them in an update.
Learn more tips about Facebook marketing:
8 Sure-Fire Facebook Post Formulas That Drive Engagement
The 5 Most Common Facebook Post Mistakes
5 Sure-Fire Facebook Contest Idea Formulas
Social Media Marketing for Restaurants #3:Instagram Marketing
Instagram is a hugely popular photo sharing site. With its seamless integration with Facebook, it’s used about 95% of the time when your patrons are posting images to their Facebook friends. You can use Instagram in conjunction with your Facebook tactics, or you can use the site on its own. Here are seven tips for using Instagram marketing, on its own:
Use hashtags: Hashtags are huge on Instagram. They’re so prevalent and relevant, I’ll outline three main tactics to employ when using hashtags on Instagram (or any social site).
1. Use trending hashtags – To increase awareness about both your Instagram profile, and your restaurant, include relevant trending hashtags. For example, if it happens to be #nationalcheesecakeday, and your culinary delights include cheesecake, post a scrumptious photo of it.
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2. Use niche hashtags – Get found more easily by your niche market by using specific hashtags. For example, if you’re a bakery in New York, and are located in Soho, use geographic specific tags, like #sohoeats. Instagram is a mobile social site that you use on your phone. Including a specific location in your tags can get you found by foot traffic looking to eat. Who knows, they may be just outside your door.
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3. Use campaign specific hashtags – When you’re running a particular marketing campaign (such as a contest or group offer), create a tag just for that promotion. This lets your followers – and anyone else – engage with your campaign by using your hashtag in their posts, too.
4. Photos of your menu – Instagram is a site of photos. Use this opportunity to post delicious photos of your menu items.
5. Engage with menu items – Take photos of you menu one step further – get your customers to upload their favorite items to help build your menu of images on the site.
This type of user generated content not only gets your customers involved with you socially, it creates a stronger bond and customer loyalty. Appreciate your patrons enough to invite them to be a part of your menu decision making process. They will want to eat at your place, and bring their friends to show off their winning contributions!
This is what Catch 122 did, using #Catch122Menu as a common tag.
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It’s kind of an amazing way to get your customers talking about and showing your amazing food to their friends on the site too. That’s word of mouth marketing gone viral!
6. Employee Appreciation – Take a photo of your staff working with your product or menu items. It could be a chef, a waitress, or even a busboy. Post them to your company Instagram feed, with a short description.
You can use these types of photos to shows that you’re an establishment that values the people that work for you. At the same time, you’ll likely create a cool working environment for your staff too! It also shows that you’re a fun place to be, and likely have great customer service…
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7. Photo Contests – If you want to gain a lot of user generated content (UGC), set up a photo contest – on Instagram. A photo contest can motivate your customers to engage with you, your menu items, and your restaurant. Photo contests can generate a lot of customer loyalty, as someone who takes a photo and submits it in your contest will care if they win or not. They will likely think about that photo, your menu item and your place for a least a little bit of time.
Here’s an example of how a local gourmet cafe used a photo contest and a $15 gift card to get UGC from their dedicated customers:
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Read more about Instagram Marketing:
5 Best Types of Instagram Photos to Drive Engagement
[INFOGRAPHIC] How Much Engagement Are Top Brands Getting on Instagram?
Complete Guide to Instagram Marketing for Bars & Nightclubs
Social Media Marketing for Restaurants #4:
Twitter Marketing
Twitter is a very successful marketing tool for restaurants, both large and small and from high end to fast food (including street trucks). With only 140 characters per update, tweets get read,and shared at a phenomenal, immediate rate. Twitter is also used a lot through mobile based platforms.
How can you best promote your culinary delights on this site? Here are seven tips for your restaurant’s Twitter marketing.
1. Include a link to your menu – Include links in your tweets. This gives your followers further action to take, and lets them interact with your more. Include a link to your menus, so your Followers can make an easy choice of dining with you. Tip: This is especially great if you deliver!
Here’s an example from Instagram Domino’s Pizza
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2. Include images of your food – Although Twitter is a text based site, updates with photos get shared too. This can get you more followers on Twitter, and can drive traffic to your restaurant. Here is an example of a delicious looking sorbetti from La Dolce Vita:
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3. Group offers – Promoting your establishment through coupons and discounts has long been a part of successful marketing. Add in the social element, and make it a group deal – and you could have a viral campaign on your hands. You could, for example, run a group offer for a free appetizer. This will encourage your patrons to share your group offer tweet to their friends – and it will drive people into your eatery.
4. Hashtags – Hashtags are very popular on Twitter too. Include them in your updates. Use similar tactics to the ones mentioned above with Intstagram. Tip: You don’t want too many (given the character constraints on this platform – and you want to leave room in your tweets to get RT’s and shares with @mentions – so a friend can send your tweet to a friend).
5. Time your tweets – Send out tweets close to breakfast, lunch and dinner times. Unlike Facebook, your tweets will show up in Followers’ feeds immediately as you send them. Invite your followers to join you for your special deal for Twitter followers. And use hashtags for the meal times, like #lunch or #dinner. It makes it even easier to find you on a Twitter search. Remember: think like your customer!
6. Use Promoted tweets – Choose your best tweets, and pay to promote them to a targeted audience. This is particularly effective for your timed updates being sent out around meal times. Check out how Merridees cleverly uses this tactic to promote their daily lunch specials.
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7. Geo-target your ads – Do you see a problem with the above Merridees tweet? Maybe not… Well, they are located in Tennessee, and this add shows up in Nebraska. It is incredibly important to geo-target your ads on Twitter. If your place of dining is located in Seattle – make sure you check off the geo-targeting location of Seattle when you are paying for your promoted tweets.
Getting your message to the right patrons in the right location is particularly important for your mobile users. You might just reach your customers as they are walking by your door.
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