Social Media Marketing for Restaurants:
Do you own a restaurant, or operate within the marketing sphere of the restaurant industry? Do you know how to use social media to market your restaurant? Or do you fall into the all too common category of ‘Sure anyone can do that’ or ‘I’ll get my children to look after it — they’re always on Social Media’.
It’s a very common problem, and if overlooked, can leave your restaurant lagging behind your competition . As a restaurant, you need be placing your brand in front of your potential clientele; You need to use all the available social tools and skills to get more patrons walking through your doors — but the all too prevalent attitude of neglect towards social media will place you at the bottom of the pile. Did you know that 80% of people will look at a restaurant online prior to going there for the first time, and with 79% of all Internet users using Facebook, it’s easy to see why you need a social media presence.
What this means for you and your restaurant : In case you had any lingering doubts, statistically, Facebook is too big to ignore.
Adding social media to your marketing mix can hugely increase awareness about your restaurant, generate motivated engagement with your food, and get you more customers in your door.
Here are a few nuggets of advice from the gang at Sauce.ie for using Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to drive more customers to your restaurant.

Social Media Marketing for Restaurants #1: Think Like Your Customer
If you’ve been marketing your restaurant for a while, this should be pretty obvious. One of the first steps in successful marketing is to know who you’re communicating with. This is particularly true in the world of social media. You need to think like your customer, and about why they would want to visit you. Create a tone for your social media based on this.
Your first port of call should be people based in your immediate locality. Create a consistent tone that place you in the position of being the first-stop for all your ‘locals’. Post in a friendly, neighbourly tone. You could, for example, have a long-term manager, waitress or indeed the Chef be the face of your social media. Of course, they may not have the skills required to operate your social media, but this is only a minor speed-bump.
Think about your immediate customer base as you plan out your restaurant social media strategy.

Social Media Marketing for Restaurants #2: Facebook Marketing
Facebook provides an incredible opportunity for dining establishments to connect with their clientele. You’d be hard pressed to find a patron of yours who is not on this site — and most of them are checking their updates a few times a day. Facebook continues to be the most widely used social media platform. This has increased 17% year on year.
Facebook is a place where people go to ‘hangout’ with friends. That’s why they go out to eat too, right? Here are a few tips to use Facebook in your marketing:
1. Cover image — Make sure you take full advantage of your cover image. You have 851x315 on Desktop and 640x360 pixels on mobile to market your business for free. Include delicious photos of your food, or people having a good time enjoying a meal with friends. You could change your cover image whenever you have a menu change, and market new items or specials. Always include your logo and keep your branding consistent.
2. Facebook Page Tabs and Buttons — Use tabs and buttons on your Facebook Page to entice people to visit your restaurant. The first four tabs in particular are key — these are the tabs that show up on your front page (without clicking to open them all). Ideal tabs would be: Photos of food, Reviews (If you’re confident), About (Details pertaining to your operations hours, prices, location etc) and Offers.
Think like your customer, and give them the images and information they need and want to see.
3. Use lots of photos of your food — The most shared posts on Facebook are images. You’re in the business of food, and food is extremely visual. Be sure to include lots of images of your food in your regular Facebook updates. Nobody want to see a text-only facebook post — Remember, you need to stand out in your customers newsfeed, and what better way to noticed than with a beautiful food image. From a technical viewpoint, Facebook rewards original content and your post will have a higher organic reach.
4. Exclusive offers and group deals — Post exclusive offers on your Facebook Page. Give deals to people if they ‘like’ your Page. Give exclusive group offers or vouchers to entice your Fans to share your deal with their friends — and get those friends to become Fans of your Page too.
5. Competitions — Use competitions and giveaways on your Facebook Page. These social promotions add excitement, and a great reason to get your customers coming back to both your Facebook Page, and your restaurant. These are hugely successful if run in the correct manner and can help the reach and growth of your page.
6. Geo target your ads and posts — Facebook ads let you do all kinds of very specific, niche targeting. For restaurants, this is ideal. You can target your ads to be seen only by people in your particular geographic location. You can also target your ads to be seen by those with specific interests, and by those who like certain pages. You can also geotag your posts. If you have a chain of restaurants, for example, use this feature to show images or updates from your various locations.

Social Media Marketing for Restaurants #3: Instagram Marketing
Instagram is a hugely popular photo sharing platform and is only growing in size. With its seamless integration with Facebook, More than 225 million posts contain the hashtags #food and #drink, so food and beverage photos rank as the most popular type of content on Instagram.
It is highly likely that your customers are posting about your business, with our without your involvement.You can use Instagram in conjunction with your Facebook, or you can use the site on its own. Here are a few tips for Instagram marketing on its own:
Use hashtags: Hashtags are huge on Instagram. They’re very prevalent and relevant.
1. Use trending hashtags — To increase awareness about both your Instagram profile and your restaurant, include relevant trending hashtags. For example, if your culinary delights include wings, post a scrumptious photo of that dish with the #wings
2. Use niche hashtags — Get found more easily by your niche market by using specific hashtags. For example, if you’re a restaurant in dublin, and are use geographic specific tags, like #dublinfood for example. Instagram is a mobile social site — you use it on your phone. Including a specific location in your tags can get you found by foot traffic looking to eat — and they may be just outside your door.
3. Use campaign specific hashtags — When you’re running a particular marketing campaign (such as a giveaway, create a tag just for that promotion. This lets your followers — and anyone else — engage with your campaign by using your hashtag in their posts, increasing reach.
4. Photos of menu items — Instagram is a photo sharing platform. Use this opportunity to showcase your menu items with quality photos.
5. User Generated Content — Entice your customers to upload photos that they have taken of your food. This type of user generated content not only gets your customers involved with you socially, it creates a stronger bond and customer loyalty. From a strictly business point of view, each ‘fan’ or ‘like’ is another marketing tool
7. Photo Competitions — If you want to gain a lot of user generated content (UGC), set up competition on Instagram. A photo competition can motivate your customers to engage with you, your menu items, and your restaurant. They can generate a lot of customer loyalty, as someone who takes a photo and submits it in your contest will care if they win or not. They will likely think about that photo, your menu item and your restaurant for at least a little bit of time.

Social Media Marketing for Restaurants #4: Twitter Marketing
While Twitter used to be regarded as a very successful marketing tool for restaurants, both large and small and from high end to fast food, its influence has begun to slow down in this particular industry. With only 140 characters per update, tweets get read, and shared at a phenomenal, immediate rate. However, Twitter has found itself falling into the instant news sector and celebrity back-patting. With the continued growth of Instagram and Facebook, Twitter has found itself falling behind in terms of meaningful restaurant marketing longevity.
However, I would still argue that a presence on Twitter needs to be maintained, and can be linked to supplement your existing campaigns on other mediums. How can you best promote your culinary delights on this site? Here are a few tips for your restaurant marketing on Twitter.
1. Include a link to your menu — Include links in your tweets. This gives your followers further action to take, and lets them interact with your more. Include a link to your menu, your booking applications or forms, your website, so your Followers can make an easy choice of dining with you.
2. Include images of your food — Although Twitter has always been considered a text based site, updates with photos and now GIFS get shared, can increase your following, and can drive traffic into your establishment.
3. Social Vouchers — This is a tricky one. On one hand, vouchers have been found to immediately increase your revenue streams but the huge risk is that your customers will be accustomed to paying less for their meals, and only dine with you when an offer is in place. Promoting your establishment through vouchers and discounts has long been a part of successful marketing, albeit in the short term. Add in a social element, and make it a social offer or voucher — and you could have a viral campaign on your hands. You could, for example, run a group offer for a free appetiser for instance. This will encourage your people to share your group offer tweet to their friends — and it will drive people into your venue.
4. Hashtags — Hashtags are very popular on Twitter too. Include them in your updates. Use similar tactics to the ones mentioned above with Instagram. Try and limit your Twitter hashtags to two for maximum effect. When you use more than two hashtags, your engagement actually drops by an average of 17%
5. Time your tweets — Send out tweets close to breakfast, lunch and dinner hours. Unlike Facebook, your tweets will show up in Followers’ feeds immediately as you send them. Invite your followers to join you for your special deal for Twitter followers. And use hashtags for the meal times, like #lunch or #dinner. It makes it even easier to find you on a Twitter search. Remember: think like your customer!
6. Use Promoted tweets — Choose your best tweets, and pay to promote them to a targeted audience. This is particularly effective for your timed updates being sent out around meal times.
7. Geo-target your ads — It is incredibly important to geo-target your ads on Twitter. If your place of dining is located in Dublin — make sure you tick the geo-targeting location of Dublin when you are paying for your promoted tweets. Getting your message to the right people in the right location is particularly true for your mobile users. You might just reach your customers as they are walking by your door!

