When executed correctly, a social media campaign grabs the interest of people with similar attitudes or demographic profiles. It essentially sells itself. The right audience is invested in your brand and willing to share your content with others in their social circle. If they like what you have to say, they’ll tell their family, friends, and co-workers about it. They’ll help your campaign rocket to viral status.
The time investment spent on marketing has a high rate of return. Successful marketers create and curate fresh content to websites and social media platforms while responding to customer questions, complaints, and requests. Restaurant owners cannot avoid hiring a talented staff member, manager or outside consultant to manage social media accounts and handle customer service issues that come up as customers engage with the brand.
Keeping up with social media accounts takes time. In fact, restaurants wanting to appeal to the right people do so through the content they share. To stay in the game and stand out from the competition, you must strategically post content that the public wants to see. This media includes photos, videos, blogs, newsletters, text messages, Tweets, email, and other print and audio material.
Managing several social media accounts at once becomes daunting if you don’t have a plan. Programs like Hootsuite streamline the process of social media management by allowing you to create, schedule, and respond to posts automatically. Restaurants are able to see how well content is being received by customers and whether social marketing efforts are spot on or need work.
Hootsuite offers the following tools in a user-friendly, dashboard-style format:
Strategic social media management for restaurants takes manpower. That’s why it’s important to plan accordingly and staff according to your business needs. Some areas of focus include choosing the right networks to place messages, sharing content that others respond to, and reaching key influencers with your restaurant social campaigns.
Restaurants have their pick of social media networks. Along with Facebook, which remains the most popular platform offered, is Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Foursquare, a mobile application that allows restaurants to share promotions, links to media, games, and other incentives to customers that ‘check in’.
Yelp is a popular option because consumers are able to leave honest reviews of their experience at a restaurant. By properly using the online review site and app by filling in important profile information correctly, you increase visibility and make it easy for others to find your restaurant location, hours of operation, and menu.
To rank high on Google’s search engine, you must have a specific number of reviews, be rated well on Yelp, and pay for advertising. This helps customers find you in a sea of competitors in the same city, the same industry, and offering the same type of cuisine. People take online reviews seriously and there have been many stories of restaurants losing businesses because of poor ratings and reviews on Yelp.
Facebook offers better visibility than most social networking sites for a reason. It caters to businesses specifically and allows restaurants to create and maintain their own Facebook page. Handling customer service issues, taking carryout or delivery orders, and promoting specials are just a few of the ways that Facebook helps your business.
As with any other social networking website, there are things you need to do to make sure that people are following your page and engaging with the content that you post. Among the best strategy for Facebook Pages is to provide interesting content and images and encourage others to share them.
Fresh content, posted regularly, gets customers interested in what you have to offer as a business. For example, daily dining specials, seasonal menu changes, behind-the-scenes looks at operations, and heartfelt stories do a remarkable job of piquing a person’s interest and getting them into your restaurant as a regular customer.
Here is some ‘food for thought’ where Facebook marketing best practices are concerned:
Twitter is among the most challenging platform for marketers because messages are limited to 140 characters. You do have the ability to message followers and add photos to posts to strengthen your marketing. Some of the ways to reach your target demographic is by using Twitter directories to search for relevant subject matter, sending short daily special Tweets or news about upcoming events, and restaurant menu items.
Some pointers that help with Twitter marketing include:
Cross promoting on other platforms is key. The idea is to increase visibility by being present wherever your customer goes online. Making sure that marketing efforts are mobile-friendly is also important as many people view content on smartphones and tablets.
One of the most underutilized social media platforms for restaurants is LinkedIn because many people view it as a place for employers to find employees. That isn’t necessarily the case. LinkedIn focuses on the business aspect of running a restaurant. It’s a great place to share virtual tours of your building, write about industry standards, and gain insight about what current restaurant trends are.
LinkedIn is now a visual site that emphasizes sharing. Try advertising job openings or posting news about your restaurant and seeing how people respond. If you haven’t put much thought into using LinkedIn to promote your business, now is the time to change your approach.
Some other ideas include:
Social media offers restaurants a direct line to the customer. When used properly, it’s a means for sharing ideas and information. It encourages engagement with your brand, promotes your restaurant to new customers, and gives you the exposure and business that you need to run a successful business.