Social media and has infiltrated every part of our lives and everyone in our society is active on at least one social media platform; usually 2 or 3. Social media gives people freedom, and it also gives restaurants the freedom to (freely!) promote their business, gain more fans, and keep in touch with their most loyal patrons. Whilst social media is an incredible tool to market your business not all social media marketing is well thought out or turns out as planned. So how should you use social media to successfully promote your business?
Content
Until recently, commenting on political matters using business accounts was a BIG no no, and those who did it received huge backlashes. Recently, over the past few years, such posting has increased. Whilst there has been an increase in business commenting on political matters this is still a BIG no no! It causes divisions between your customers, will often lose you more customers than it’ll bring you, equates to bad press, and is just unprofessional; why does a restaurant have to weigh in anyway?
Personal accounts are used for opinion, restaurant accounts are used for promotion. Use photos, videos, montages, posters and other visuals to capture attention and ensure that those who you reach will be enticed to come and visit your restaurant. Most importantly make sure all your posts align with your brand and your brands message.
Goal
There’re two main goals you can have when you post and you should pick one of them for each post:
- Press: This is you putting yourself out there just as a reminder to your followers that your restaurant is still there. These posts often show your followers what a great time they can have with you.
- Promotion: This is you promoting events or offers that are designed to draw guests to your location.
Whilst these two goals are intricately entwined -you can’t post for press without self-promoting and you can’t post a promotion without giving yourself press- they both represent different views of marketing and different people will react to these posts. So always know which is your overall goal with each and every post.
Frequency of Posts
Don’t bombard your followers with the content or you might find yourself unfollowed or, even worse, blocked! The frequency of posts is unique to each brand and working this out can be quite difficult. If in doubt, keep your posting rate lower and monitor your engagement.
The above are unspoken, but basic, guidelines for when it comes to successfully using social media to promote your restaurant. Follow these and you’ll find your followers to be receptive, deviate and you may find that your social media marketing is having a negative impact on your business. Another great tip is to watch your own social media feed and see how you react to posts from locations similar to yours; this is a great insight that’s easy for everyone to obtain!