With customers relying less-and-less on traditional advertising and more on social media channels for information about restaurants, having a regularly updated profile is crucial. But this can take your time away from running your restaurant. That’s why we’ve put together these quick and easy tips to making the most of your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts…
Facebook marketing for restaurants
Facebook provides a great opportunity for you to connect directly with your restaurant’s customers. After all, you’re patrons are more than likely to be on this site – perhaps even checking their updates multiple times per day!
Quick tips:
- Make the most of your cover image; it’s 851×351 pixels worth of space to include mouth-watering photos of your food in order to market your business for free!
- It should go without saying – use as many photos of food as possible. Images are the most shared posts on Facebook, after all.
- Contests and competitions really work on Facebook; they increase engagement and give your customers a reason to keep coming back.
- Facebook allows you to target your advertising very specifically; you can – for example – target your ads to be seen by people in your particular location.
Instagram marketing for restaurants
Instagram is crucial for your restuarant because people love to take pictures of food when they’re dining. And you can use this to your advantage, encouraging customers to share their photos of your restaurant in order to promote it to their friends, family and followers.
Quick tips:
- Keep abreast of trending hashtags; these can help to increase awareness about your business.
- Because instagram is such a mobile social app, it can be hugely beneficial to include geo-specific hashtags, helping to drive footfall.
- Try getting your customers to upload photos of their favourite menu items; user generated content can help to create customer loyalty.
- Show that your restaurant is a great place to work by taking and sharing photos of your employees, whether they are front of house or in the kitchen.
Twitter marketing for your restaurant
Twitter is a great social media platform for mobile users, which means that it gives restaurants an opportunity to target specific audiences at specific times of the day. With tweets limited to just 140 characters, tweets get read, shared and distributed immediatedly, increasing the exposure of your restaurant.
Quick tips:
- Include links back to your menu in your tweets. This gives your followers a clear action to take.
- Twitter is becoming ever more image-based, meaning that photos of your menu items can work really well here too.
- Use social media management software like Buffer which allows you to schedule tweets for particular times; this means that you can send out tweets around Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner hours.
While these quick-and-easy tips can start you off on the right foot, managing your restaurant’s social media profiles can take time and resources. If you need support with your online marketing efforts, you can find out more about outsourcing your social media marketing (and get a free consultation while you’re at it!)…
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