How to Create a Winning Social Media Strategy for Your Restaurant

Did you know according to the best social media marketing training institutes that Millennials and Generation Z are 99% more likely than any other generation to choose a restaurant based on social media and reviews?

It can be a little scary, yes.

However, it’s also a fantastic chance for your company!

You can raise the number of reservations, attract new customers (foodies), and expand brand recognition with the aid of best digital marketing training.

But you might be wondering how you can stand out given that there are more than 660,000 restaurants operating in the United States alone. We are aware that promoting restaurants on social media with digital marketing is a difficult endeavour. You shouldn’t give up though since we’ve got your back.

We’ll go over everything you need to know to get started in our guide to social media marketing for restaurants.

1. What constitutes a great restaurant social media post?
2. Why should restaurants use social media?
3. Which social media platform should you use for your restaurant?
4. Six recommendations for using social media to sell your restaurant
5. What constitutes a great restaurant social media post?

Before we get in headfirst and plan your most recent tweet, let’s go over the fundamentals and grasp why social media should be a part of your restaurant marketing strategy:

1. Makes it possible for visitors to find your restaurant online
2. Adds professionalism and information
3. Allows two-way dialogue with customers
4. Aims to attract both locals and tourists
5. Free advertising
6. Makes it possible for visitors to find your restaurant online

Creating a social media presence is advantageous for several reasons. One of them is the obvious truth that web searches can lead potential guests to you.

What makes having a website or Google Maps location insufficient?

According to social media Today, 59% of millennial eaters say they frequently check out menus online, and 30% of millennial customers intentionally avoid restaurants with a lacklustre Instagram presence.

Without best digital marketing training today, your restaurant will be invisible to the customers who would advertise it for free. We’ll address this eventually, though.

• Adds professionalism and information

It takes more than just include attractive images when planning your restaurant’s social media content calendar. Your opportunity to market pertinent information through content on these platforms includes:

• A booking contact number;
• A location;
• New menu items;
• Events;
• Special holiday specials;
• Awards and recognitions.

This enhances the overall impression of professionalism and concern for the greatest possible experience for your visitors. And in today’s culture, your social media channel—not your restaurant—is where this experience begins.

Plan your unique deals using our dynamic, free seasonal calendar.

• Allows two-way dialogue with customers

Your services both inside and outside of your business have a big impact on customer loyalty. And your social media profile is one of the best venues to foster this loyalty.

In order to build a relationship with your potential and new guests, community management is crucial. Use the comment area and direct messaging to start dialogues, respond to their inquiries, and show them you care about their appreciation for your distinctive cuisine. By doing this, you’ll be able to draw in more customers and learn more about the foods and offerings that thrill them the most.

• Aims to attract both locals and tourists

Consider this: How many social media sites do you utilise to research nearby restaurants? Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are included on that list for me. I won’t look for a brand or go to a restaurant if they aren’t there on either of them.

It’s possible that your local target market is the same. Therefore, be sure to provide your location in the bio and social media posts with the help of best social media marketing training.

Don’t stop there though. Set aside some money to start some tourism-focused Facebook advertising campaigns!

Social media is a source of vacation inspiration for one-third of American vacationers. Why not make an effort to attract these people and invite them inside?

• Free advertising

Online advertising via social media is less expensive. It’s totally free most of the time! While the expenditures of radio, TV, and billboard advertisements can add up quickly, you’re more likely to get a good return on your time spent using social media.

Relevant hashtags and including the location in your articles and tales are quite important. Additionally, both of these are free!

Not to mention, 69% of millennials photograph their meals before they consume them. And the majority of those pictures wind up on social media sites in different formats. Be sure to pay great attention to them and act upon them knowing the digital marketing.

• What makes a successful restaurant social media post?

The first thing you should keep in mind is that there is no such thing as the ideal social media post.

However, you can create a really good one!

Your visual content must be of the highest quality when it comes to promoting foods.

Ensure that each of your postings includes:

• Clearly defined branding
• compelling writing
• pertinent hashtags
• a call to action

Interested in learning how to accomplish all of this while perfecting restaurant social media marketing from the best digital marketing training? We’re going to get into six ideas for nailing your social media presence, so keep reading to learn more!

• 6 tips for using social media to sell your restaurant

Do you want a piece of the pie now that we know social networking for restaurants can be profitable and affordable?

Here are six ideas to keep in mind as you put your plan together:

1. Develop your photo and video skills
2. Include keywords relating to food in your posts 
3. Promote Facebook postings to both locals and visitors
4. Hold contests and polls to engage your audience. 
5. Make it simple to check your menu and reserve a table.
6. Provide incentives to site visitors who provide reviews
7. Develop your photo and video skills

Have you ever heard the saying, “We eat with our eyes?”

In the social media sphere, it is true, which explains why Instagram accounts like @BuzzfeedTasty are so well-liked.

People enjoy seeing food-related photographs and films because we do, in fact, eat with our eyes. We won’t consume something if it doesn’t appear appetising, as studies like the one from Science Daily have shown.

Teddy Robinson, the creative director of the London pub Grind, actually went above and beyond by spending five years making an “Instagrammable” restaurant. The most intriguing aspect, in his opinion, is that consumers are more cognizant than ever of how food is presented.

Before Instagram, the only way to see what a restaurant’s food looked like was to look at their own images or, in the extreme, if they had them printed on menus. But now, Instagram is frequently how people learn about new restaurants.

It’s a welcome change to see the food prioritised in this way, and it’s undoubtedly one of the factors that has given small businesses an advantage over chains on Instagram.

You don’t have to change the look of your restaurant entirely, but you do need to incorporate the requirement for powerful, branded imagery into your social media approach. Using premium photos and videos together with something distinctive for your company can help you stand out and draw in new customers.

If you’re having trouble coming up with original material, consider:

• Filming your chefs making your most popular dish
• creating quick instructional for homemade drinks
• taking a photo of your busy restaurant to inspire FOMO in your fans.
• Share UGC (user-generated material), as it provides excellent social proof and motivates others to take pictures of your delectable meals.
• Include the distinctive hues and elements of your brand.
• Introduce your audience to your regional vendors (today’s audience is very interested in supporting regional businesses and causes)
• Plan a social media takeover with an influencer
• Share carousels of reviews, adoring remarks, and the backstory to your most popular dishes

Your social media posts are meant to transfer the restaurant’s distinctive ambiance and experience to a universally accessible digital platform using the best social media marketing training.

Here is an example of how Sweet Green advertises both its local dishes and suppliers in one post:

Want to go one step farther with this? Encourage diners to take a photo of their meal and publish it on social media so that you can repost it to increase the amount of user-generated content (UGC) in the mix.

Additionally, to helping prospective visitors see your products objectively, this relieves the burden of having to produce the pictures internally.

When posting user-generated content, remember to tag the originating person. Additionally, keep in mind that not all photos will work well with your feed. Publish the image as a post if it adheres to your brand’s criteria. In that case, Instagram Story might be a better option.

• Include keywords relating to food in your posts

Hashtags assist in increasing the visibility of your material on social media. Recall what I said about how many eateries you have to compete with?

This is due to the fact that hashtags make your content available to users who otherwise would not see it. On Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, users can browse hashtags, so if you’re not using them in your content, you might be missing out and the best social media marketing training.

This is particularly true on Instagram, where users can follow hashtags, which means that your amazing photos might appear in their feed even if they aren’t following you.

It doesn’t take long to put this into practise either. You won’t go wrong if you stick to these rules:

• Instagram postings may contain up to 11 hashtags, preferably in the comments section.
• Use 1-2 hashtags while tweeting
• 1-2 hashtags when posting on Facebook

On LinkedIn, you may experiment with hashtags, but it would depend on your target audience. For instance, a posh lounge might use the hashtag #LunchMeeting to target hiring managers looking for a place to hold a lunch meeting, whereas fast-food businesses might not like LinkedIn as their platform of choice.

See how Pieology’s Instagram post makes use of captions to increase its audience:

Similarly, Nando’s promotes its food using trending hashtags on their Twitter feed:

Not sure where to begin in the realm of hashtags? To get you started, check out these food-related hashtags:

• #Foodie
• #EatingfortheInsta
• #Foodgasm
• #ForkYeah
• #FoodLover
• #TasteThisNext
• #Yum
• #FoodPhotography
• Promote Facebook postings to both locals and visitors

It’s difficult to expand organically, and it’s difficult to draw customers to your business with a single Instagram post. Additionally, it could take some time for your social media plan to be successful because of sites like Facebook’s “pay to play” ethos.

But why not challenge them to a match if you can’t wait that long?

I previously talked about how businesses might target local customers using social media and begin running Facebook ads for just a few bucks per day.

Let’s say you have the resources (and desire) to combine the two. In that situation, you might use the social material you’ve already developed to target individuals in your neighbourhood and boost your Facebook postings, which is a terrific approach to increase the benefits you get from a single piece of content.

Post a regular post to your Facebook Page to accomplish this. The “Boost Post” button will then appear and look like this:

On the following page, you’ll be directed to a section of Facebook’s Ad Manager where you may customise your ad’s targeting to reach the ideal target market.

It’s a good idea to cast a wide net and choose anyone who lives within a 25-mile radius of your business and has an interest in food:

This method was employed by Dine out, an online catering restaurant, to enhance their social media campaign.

The outcome? a 3x return on their advertising investment, a 6x rise in reservations, and a 5x expansion of their customer base overall.

Papa Murphy’s used Facebook advertisements to distribute a coupon to their intended demographic. They saw a return on investment of over 3.5 times and 50% of ad clicks resulted in sign-ups for their mailing list for future advertising.

Not bad for some extra money and some experimentation time.

• Hold contests and polls to engage your audience.

The holy grail of social media is a high level of engagement.

Studies suggest that engagement has an effect on conversions. Likes, shares, retweets, and comments all demonstrate that your audience is interested enough to take an action.

The use of interactive content, such as quizzes or polls, can increase engagement and, according to 79% of marketers, provides reusable value that encourages repeat traffic and many exposures.

You may, for instance:

• Post a Twitter poll asking people to choose your next meal.
• Hold a cooking contest and invite participants to design their own dish. The winning dish will be included on your menu.
• Use your Instagram Stories to poll your followers on which dessert topping they would prefer.

Look at how Applebee’s engages its fans through Twitter polls:

Right, almost 430 votes aren’t terrible. Additionally, you are already more likely to catch your audience’s attention in a packed feed because Twitter polls let your audience participate by simply pushing a button to express their view.

Piada Italian Street Food challenged their audience to consume hot chicken carbonara, the spiciest dish on their menu, to take their content to the next level:

The contest concept is great, but the restaurant’s attempt to join the engagement trend is even better. They may also win the limited-edition Hot Chicken Carbonara T-shirt and two complimentary entrées by following their page and tagging a friend. It appears to be a decent offer for a brand-new potential client, right?

That’s an excellent strategy to guarantee that your restaurant’s social media accounts profit from your contest!

Running competitions can increase your audience and overall engagement rates, but you should be cautious about how many you post with learning from best social media marketing training. Stick to a small number of competitions each year to avoid coming off as desperate and detracting from the fun of your competition.

• Make it simple to check your menu and reserve a table.

People will want to visit your restaurant if they like what they see on its social media pages.

However, if they can’t easily understand the steps they need to do before making a reservation (such seeing your menu), you can be excluding them without even recognising it.

By incorporating a link to your menu or table reservation from your social media profiles, you may make this simple for prospective guests. For instance, check out Red Lobster’s Facebook page for an example:

Additionally, make sure the following fields on your profiles are complete: 

• Contact information
• Addresses for locations 
• Emails

Why?

There is an easy solution.

You’ll target customers who are actively trying to get in touch with a restaurant or book a reservation on their most recent search, in addition to making your profiles appear more unified.

Yes, that is the aim.

• Provide incentives to site visitors who provide reviews

I noted earlier that individuals typically eat with their eyes.

Although it’s also true that we eat with our ears. By ears, I mean hearing what other customers have to say about your food and basing my decision to visit your restaurant on what they think.

It goes without saying that in order to persuade them, you’ll need to gather a tonne of favourable customer evaluations. To accomplish that, your Google My Business and directory entries should be bursting at the seams with excellent reviews!

Here is a listing for Wendy’s in Chicago:

You can schedule updates to your Google My Business page inviting previous clients to give reviews to save time. You might even offer rewards for doing so, like coupon coupons, money off future meals, or complimentary desserts.

However, considering that Instagram has surpassed TripAdvisor in terms of restaurant reviews, copying and pasting your client testimonials into your social media pages may be a useful strategy to maximise their impact.

I always look up online restaurant reviews before going there.

In fact, the only reason I went to Pizzatopia in Krakow, Poland, lately was due of the excellent recommendations posted on their Facebook page; I wouldn’t have gone there otherwise.

Additionally, I’ll wager that you might be losing out on diners like me for your restaurant.

The gathering of reviews on restaurant review websites like TripAdvisor, Zomato, and Zagat should also be a priority. These sites are frequented by both locals and visitors, providing you an extra boost of visibility if you can appear on the list of the best restaurants in your city:

• Which social media channel should your restaurant use?

The correct social media platform selection is never a simple process. However, you must choose the appropriate channel to concentrate your efforts if you want your digital marketing to be successful.

Think about the following:

• Where does my target market spend its time? Perhaps they are too young to use Facebook and choose to use Instagram and TikTok instead.
• Which channel best represents my brand? Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest should be at the top of your list if your restaurant is upscale. If it supports social concerns, you might want to use Twitter more frequently. Finally, TikTok should be your go-to channel if you love to experiment and start new trends.
• Can I better showcase my restaurant with photographs or videos? Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are excellent for images once more. But if you want to experiment with short-format videos, TikTok and Instagram should be your top choices.

You’ll be able to choose your main social networking platform once you’ve answered these three questions.

Final views on restaurants using social media

It’s time to get to work now that you are completely informed about how to use social media for your restaurant business.

Don’t forget to showcase your delectable meals, capitalise on the material your customers are currently producing, and make it simple for visitors to book a seat (whether through your online booking system or by calling your restaurant).

Although social networking is a tough nut to crack, the long-term benefits are worthwhile having the best social media marketing training.

particularly when you’re overrun by happy diners!