When raising awareness of your restaurant, it can be hard to make your brand stand out. This is especially true with 83,634 other restaurants and mobile food services active in the UK. That’s where excellent social media marketing and effective digital campaigns comes in!
Our restaurant social media marketing team work with hospitality brands daily. We promote them using social media targeting and campaign delivery methods.
So, what can your brand do to keep up?
Regularly Use Customer-Generated Content.
Who isn’t tempted to take a quick snap of their dinner before they eat? Social media has become the place for sharing food photos and you can take advantage of this. Encourage customers to share pictures of the dishes on their social media channels – you can offer incentives such as a discount for everyone who does. When you acknowledge these posts, you are creating valuable brand ambassadors who are likely to share again, which is essentially free marketing to all their followers.
Start a #TeamPicks.
If you’re boutique hotel, you may ask yourself ‘how do I get my name out there on social media with all the other big chains around?’ How about getting your staff involved in a fun social media activity! Ask them to share ‘local recommendations’ for your followers i.e. where to eat, what to do and must-sees. Not only is this interactive for your staff but followers are likely to engage with this content!
One-off Discounts and Offers for Social Media Users.
For coffee shops going up against giants like Starbucks and Costa, it’s all about making your social media presence as friendly and welcoming as possible. Why not encourage followers to pop-down with exclusive offers and discounts for anyone who follows you? This will help you reach lots of new customers as well as bagging you some regulars!
Go Behind The Scenes.
There’s nothing more important to a customer than trust, and this is especially true when it comes to restaurants. Give customers a sneak peek into the inner-workings of your restaurant with ‘behind the scenes’ photos. This could be photos of you meeting with your local produce suppliers, your staff outings and the preparation behind one of your dishes.
When you first begin with a marketing company, they should devise a complete marketing strategy which outlines how they’re going to help make your business grow. We believe every good marketing strategy should contain social media.
Restaurant social media marketing works very well on Instagram, so here are some tips and tricks on how to make the most out of it.
Create a theme
Instagram is an image based platform, therefore it’s vital that you choose your images wisely. If you have a new menu, this is a chance to showcase some of your best dishes. People love an aesthetically pleasing account to look at, so try a theme. Some classic theme ideas could include:
The classic theme is rule of three where you post 3 pictures which are all related. Another popular way to keep your feed aesthetic is by sticking with the same filter and tint.
The colour splash effect transforms your pictures into a monotone and you select what items of colour you want to keep. This can be a great idea if you’re restaurant who serves a lot of colourful food!
Geotagging
When it comes to restaurant social media marketing people often don’t consider making use of geotags. However, geotagging can be one of the most effective ways to attract new clientele to your business. Geotagging allows Instagram users in your area to find your restaurant or hotel via the location feature. Customers can also share their own posts via geotagging which gives you the perfect opportunity for engagement.
Post Regularly
To keep engagement high and retain followers, you need to make sure that you’re posting on a regular basis so they’ll keep coming back for more. However, it’s important to change up your content regularly so it doesn’t become stale.
As experts in restaurant social media marketing, we would advise against posting lots of content in one go then not posting for a while because the Instagram algorithm will not work in your favour. Instead, post once a day or several times throughout the week.
If you would like to find out more information about Restaurant social media marketing contact us for a no obligation chat or meeting.