Spice Up Your Social Media: The 7 Secret Ingredients for Restaurants to Attract More Hungry Customers
Cooking up mouthwatering social media content is a craft—one requiring special care, quality ingredients, and a pinch of personality. At Social Bite Marketing, we’ve found the secret recipe to engage foodies online and in real life. Want the special sauce? Read on to discover the 7 essential elements restaurants need to incorporate on social platforms in order to attract more hungry customers. Trust us, they all add serious flavor!
1. Use High – Resolution Photos
They say we eat with our eyes first, so stunning visuals are key. According to Hubspot, posts with images receive 94% more views than non-image posts. On Instagram especially, upload ultra close-up, vibrant shots highlighting your signature dishes, drinks, and ambiance. No blurry mobile pics allowed in this kitchen! Brand consistency is also crucial—make sure your images align with your restaurant’s style. Fancy white tablecloths? Skip the filters. Quirky cafe? Get playful with food styling.
2. Add some BTS!
We all love an insider’s look! Give your audience VIP access by featuring BTS videos of your culinary team preparing freshly-made pasta, blending new cocktails, designing upcoming menus…you get the gist. This raw footage tells a compelling story and builds hype. Pro tip: shorter videos under 2 minutes perform best on social.
3. Spotlight your Staff
The people cooking up the magic deserve recognition! Regularly highlight your talented chefs, stellar servers, and loyal regulars. Everyone loves some time in the limelight. Share funny interview outtakes and even promote staff anniversaries or birthdays. This human touch fosters more personal connections with your brand.
4. Share authentic Customer Testimonials
Peer reviews seriously influence decisions, especially for discretionary spending like dining out. In fact, 92% of people trust recommendations from others over branded content, per Nielsen. Repurpose your best Google and Yelp rave reviews by creatively featuring them on social. Don’t hold back on the cheese; this type of word-of-mouth praise works wonders!
92% of people trust recommendations from others over branded content
Nielson
5. Tasty Limited-Time Offers
FOMO drives reservations—take advantage! Promote time-sensitive daily specials, secret menu additions, ticketed tasting events, special performances and any other exclusive experiences available for just a short stint. Create urgency around these limited offers tapped into human psychology. Once they expire, fans will anxiously await your next tempting promo.
6. Adopt Trends
Latch onto viral hashtags and trending food conversations whenever possible. Partaking makes your brand seem current, plus expands your audience. For holidays and events, craft themed posts tied to audiences’ timely interests—from heart-shaped raviolis on Valentine’s Day to green milkshakes on St. Patrick’s Day. They’ll eat it up…literally!
7. Paid Amplification
Want to reach even more potential patrons? Sprinkle some paid advertising into your recipe! Thoughtfully invest behind your best-performing organic social content using each platform’s advertising tools. Target based on geography, interests like “food and dining out”, or competitor brand followers hungry for a new hot spot. Monitor regularly as you scale spend based on your reservation goals and ROI.
While these social media tips may seem straightforward, executing them consistently and effectively takes serious time and skill. That’s where working with a dedicated restaurant social media agency pays dividends. Leave it to the experts so you can focus on what you do best—culinary creation!
Hire a Restaurant Social Media Marketing Agency
Here’s how a Restaurant Social Media Marketing agency supercharges your social success:
- Saving You Time: They handle all strategy, content creation, community management and reporting so you can focus fully on delighting diners IRL instead of burning out trying to master marketing
- Expanding Your Reach: Their tailored paid ad campaigns target highly qualified foodies in your geography using advanced techniques you lack access to
- Providing Objective Insights: As outsiders, they evaluate performance without bias bringing data-backed recommendations to optimize efforts
- Staying On-Trend: With their fingers on the pulse of the latest platforms, features and best practices, they keep your social channels up-to-date and relevant
- Adding Creativity: Their team brainstorms innovative content ideas you would never think of to showcase your brand’s uniqueness
- Offering Technical Expertise: They ensure your profiles and menus are optimized for conversions with calls-to-action, easy online reservations, updated hours and locations
60% of Restaurants fail within their 1st year of opening, often because Marketing gets deprioritized by busy owners
CNBC
Still not convinced about delegating your restaurant’s social media? Consider this: 60% of restaurants fail within their first year of opening, often because marketing gets deprioritized by busy owners. Don’t be another statistic! Partnering with restaurant social media experts provides the fuel to keep your digital marketing engine running. This frees you up to focus on providing 5-star service so patrons keep coming back.
Let The Social Bite Company’s master chefs concoct the ultimate social media strategy for your establishment. We promise you’ll gain a mass of hungry fans salivating over your brand when we take over your digital menu. Contact us to start spicing up your online presence today!
