The same best social media marketing practices that apply to small and large businesses apply to restaurants as well. The key is to change those practices to fit the context of your business. Below we’ll summarize a few core principles of social media marketing and explain how they pertain to restaurants.
Find your target audience
Finding your target audience is half the battle when it comes to social media marketing for restaurants. Once you have a solid follower base, you can increase your activity and start to see some results.
You should note that quality is more important than quantity in regard to your followers. This recent Small Business Trends article explains why it’s better to have a small group of engaged followers than a mass of irrelevant ones:
“There is a difference between traffic and quality traffic. Your website can have thousands of visitors daily, but if they aren’t interacting with your content in the right ways, they’re actually driving your SEO rankings down. When it comes to social media, quality traffic comes from the sites that engage the most unique visitors. In other words, 6,000 views from 6,000 different people are better than 60,000 from a small core group.”
In relation to restaurants, this means you should try to find people who would likely visit for lunch or dinner. This can come down to demographics or preferences based on the type of cuisine you cook.
Focus on content creation
Content creation is a cornerstone of social media marketing. Once you have a large enough audience, you can engage them by posting original content. The goal is to get them to share your content with their own followers, which creates a chain effect. To do this, you need to create high-quality blogs and articles.
Restaurants sometimes have trouble creating their own original content. Just remember that each article doesn’t need to focus on your business in a vacuum. You can also comment on current events, recipes, local news, and other relevant stories.
Post visual content
Most newsfeeds today are filled with written content. An easy way to stand out is to share visual content with followers. According to a recent Small Business Computing article, visual content is typically more engaging than a simple blog or article:
“People scroll through social feeds quickly, but you can attract attention by using creative and colorful images in your social media marketing messages. You can add visual appeal to your social media presence in a variety of ways: create and share interesting images, engage with fans and ask them to create images and share with you, or post photos of any events or promotions your business participates in.”
Visual content is especially effective when it comes to crafting engaging social media marketing for restaurants. You can post pictures of your specials, your menus, or the interior of your building. In addition to getting your followers to notice you, this also works as a form of advertisement. Try posting a picture of your best dish at 5:00 PM on a Friday and see if it brings in more people than usual.
Interact with followers
It’s your job to start the conversation with followers by posting content, but you also have to react to their activity. For example, if someone asks a question about one of your posts, you should answer it promptly.
This also applies to customer reviews. Whether you welcome them or not, followers are going to comment on their experiences. It’s always good to reply to these posts and thank customers for their business. This is also an opportunity to manage your brand reputation and fix any unpleasant experiences.
Restaurants should follow the same social media marketing principles as anyone else, but apply them to a local audience. To talk more about social media marketing for restaurants, or anything else, contact us today.
