Social Media Marketing Best Practices for Restaurants

Updated September 9th 2013

Marketing your restaurant on social media is highly effective in attracting new and repeat business. Most of the tools are free online and “only” need attention and dedication, which both take a considerable amount of time. But you need to consider and incorporate new and creative strategies to enhance its impact.

There are four areas that you need to focus on if you intend to benefit from the current trend in social media marketing; that is influence, personalization, loyalty, and transparency. Social media marketing has been evolving, as more and more new features are developed. Restaurants can take advantage of the wide coverage of social media and ensure their presence is felt all over it. But you need to employ all the latest social media marketing tactics if you intend to benefit from its advantages.

The first area that you need to focus on is influence. For your social media marketing campaign to be successful and effective you have to identify all the influencers who will help spread a powerful and positive message about your restaurant. You can identify influencers by actively interacting with your customers or simply looking for such individuals via social media sites like Facebook and twitter. Other influential individuals include local food bloggers and food lovers. Once you have successfully identified influencers you need to engage with them positively. Here are a few tips:

• Find food amateurs on various blogs, forums or through article writing in your favourite magazine. Remember our report on Neighbourhood Marketing! It is not very effective to try to change you restaurant revenues by putting too much time and effort too far outside of your perimeter.
• Get in touch with popular writers and invite the influential food bloggers that are most positive about your business to your restaurant for food testing and a tour around your establishment. Social media is not all about money so it would benefit you to remember that 3 features of partner qualities can provide you help on these sites. This also counts for food critics or bloggers as they need something to drive them or make it worthwhile for you to work with them: Motivation – Discipline – Fame
• Engage even small influencers as they can have a very big impact on your marketing strategy and help boost your sales and profits. The busiest hunter is the hungry hunter. Small influencers must be defined by their life cycle positioning. Young influencers are developing and it is up to you to estimate where the influencer will be in 2 years. Some others that were always small and stick to it show discipline and routine which cannot hurt your ambitions on social media.
• Utilize social review websites by checking all the reviews about your restaurant, especially those by top influencers if you do not have time to react to all. Answering all messages demonstrates new industry etiquette, discipline and motivation to face issues and aim to improve it.

 

The second strategy you need to focus on is personalization. To achieve this in social media you need to earn and keep the trust of your customers. This means that you have to deliver very good services and fulfil your part when it comes to promotions. You also need to personalize your social media interaction with your customers by focusing on the most popular local trend, desire, or concern. This makes it easier to relate with your customers as it shows that you offer more than just food and that you also care about what occurs around you. There are many strategies you can employ to ensure effective personalization. Here are just but a few.

• Integrate humour into your marketing strategy. For instance you can post a funny story that is related to your restaurant on social media. It is even recommended that if you are in general a funny or entertaining character, share it with your followers in a personal way. You aim at differentiating yourself and nothing is more annoying then only regular menu updates as postings.
• Offer limited time specials to specific groups of customers. This can be food bloggers, loyal customers, families, and more. Remember or re-read our article on LTOs for inspiration.
• Improve your relationship with your customers by sharing positive and personal information about your establishment. They will feel more engaged and part of it. This is how you build up and maintain a loyal customer base.

 

Another area you need to focus on is enhancing loyalty. A current strategy being used in social media to encourage loyalty and enhance brand awareness is through gaming.  Mainly considerable by chain restaurants, we also do not recommend it for small independent restaurants. The considerable investment and sharing potential does not make always sense for small brands unless it is connected to another brand like a local football or baseball team. This is where you reward customers for interacting with your brand. This seeks to create a loyal community of supporters on social media and also encourage them to invite their friends. Just ensure that the game is interesting enough and the rewards are worth it. There are various strategies you can use to implement gaming in your social media marketing campaign.

• You can start an interesting game on your restaurants Social media account with a clearly detailed rewarding system. Who has not heard of the amazing success of FarmVille and its effect on Facebook.
• Introduce levels of measurement for your games to differentiate new participants from old more established participants so you see if your toy is as interesting as expected. There is a risk though that your brand might fall with the decreasing popularity of your game.
• Introduce specialty games focusing on new promotions or a popular menu item. These so called flexible or promo games underline what it is all about and let’s two worlds work for you: Entertainment and Marketing
• Display the achievement of top players to inspire and encourage competition among participants. Providing some prize money or other valuable advantage is of course recommended but should also include the core business idea or offering of the related brand.

 

Finally you also need to focus on transparency. Customers nowadays are more interested in the food from your establishment. They want to know where it is prepared and who prepares it. You can easily allow them access to such information without revealing any of your business secrets. This strategy is very effective and is the current social media marketing trend for many establishments. First you need to identify the most loyal customers. These basically include those who visit frequently, spend a lot, and influencers. After identifying these groups you can also invite them for special events or reserve places for them during special holidays or events. Apart from this you also need to allow them to interact with important employees in your restaurant. For instance you can always bring the head chef to interact with customers at a personal level and thank them for coming to your establishment. Here are a few strategies for successful transparency:

• Open a blog or social media account for your chief chef and encourage him/her to interact and contact loyal customers occasionally.
• Keep in contact with your customers by sending email suggestions on the menu items. You can also ask them for feedbacks and suggestions.
• Encourage your chef to interact with guests and ask for feedback about given meals. They can also offer business cards that have the restaurants social media account or website. This will act as personal invitations to interact online.

 

When implemented correctly, social media marketing is sure to attract new business and boost your profits as well as brand awareness on a large scale. It brings your business to a social level but the potential relationship needs to be fed and maintained accordingly. As mentioned in the beginning, it is cost effective but requires a considerable time investment.

Written by Daniel Grossmann