5 Effective Social Media Marketing Sites For Restaurants
Techniques restaurant owners and marketers can apply to efficiently have a strong online presence
Social Media Marketing for restaurants is one of the most important ways for a venue to be spotted. With limited budget, most owners don’t usually have the funds to hire a professional to market their restaurant and those who do, have recognized the effectiveness and advantage a strong marketing plan can have on their success. Marketing for restaurants requires a certain key approach, that if well applied can help with the discovery of a venue, which in the long run, will lead to conversion of customers(foot traffic, followers, diners.)
According to the National Restaurant Associations, there has been a steady increase of consumers dining out in the United States. October 2014 has been a record sale high in the Restaurant industry. Over 48 billions worth of revenue has been made eating and drinking in October alone. With low gas cost, rising job availability and customer confidence in the economy, more American families are able to have discretionary income, therefore we can expect restaurant sale growth to continue increasing.
Now more than ever, it is important for restaurateurs to find ways to efficiently market themselves in order to maximize revenue. Restaurant marketers and innovative restaurant owners now have a few foolproof ways of potentially make more on newfound opportunity.
How do people find restaurants?
How does a customer decide where to eat? According to research made in 2011 by the Pew Research Internet Research,
“People looking for information about local restaurants and other businesses say they rely on the Internet, especially search engines, ahead of any other source.”
The same research specifically gives us a detailed breakdown of the process a potential customer takes in looking for a restaurant.
A) 51% turn to the Internet, including:
· Search engines – 38% rely on them
· Specialty websites – 17% rely on them
· Social media – 3% rely on social networking sites or Twitter
B) 31% rely on newspapers, including
· Printed copies – 26% rely on them
· Newspaper websites – 5% rely on them
C) 23% rely on word of mouth
D) 8% rely on local TV, either broadcasts or websites
Finding a restaurant is heavily based on searching online for a potential venue. The search process for most diners is usually triggered by a desire to eat something in particular. Most customers would use the popular web browser, Google. It’s not frequent that a diner would want a general type of cuisine. A customer, for example would search “French restaurant” or “African restaurant” then suggestions would be made based on their location and unique taste. Once they’re presented with listings, they look for ratings and reviews made by past diners. It’s based on those findings that they’ll decide which one to go to.
In addition, the discovery of a restaurant finding is based on geo-targeting. A new research made by the National Restaurant Association claims that tech use, particularly smartphone use, is on the rise.
What does this mean? Restaurant marketing is based heavily on discoverability and credibility. A good venue that can’t be found when a customer is searching for them is outside the pool of those diners with intent on finding them. In addition, it’s not sufficient to be present on a digital platform. It’s very important to have a good reputation, as it will increase a venue’s credibility.
Five Best Social Media Marketing For Restaurant
Dinners prefer to go to a spot that has a reputation as well as good ratings.
Customers nowadays are also very savvy and unafraid to share their comments online. It’s important for restaurants that want a strong presence online, share good ratings and comments they have received. Social Media Marketing plans for restaurants also help gain feedbacks and insight on service, events, new product offerings, menu items and most importantly, have a direct dialogue with your current and potentially new customers.
Lastly, restaurant marketers must understand the power smartphones have in finding their location and information about them.
Social Media also plays a strong role for both dinners and restaurants. For dinners, Social Media is used to explore or find information about a restaurant. For Restaurant owners, Social Media marketing is one of the best ways to be discovered, increase traffic and ultimately make profit.
There are five digital tools that can help effectively market a restaurant. They are:
Yelp
Yelp, one of the most popular online review sites in the United States, allows restaurant owners to create and manage their venue. It can also be linked with Opentable, the most recognized online restaurant reservation site in the United States as well as external food delivery services such as Seamless or Delivery.
The best part about Yelp is that, if the profile and category are well created, a person searching for restaurants will be able to find you in the results. The position in which your restaurant is placed is based on the amount of reviews, paid sponsored placement and key category attributes.
Restaurant owners can also consider Yelp a mini storefront to their venue. Keep in mind that Yelp’s model of featuring a restaurant is based on what you pay them. Yelp charges a fee to feature your venue. What that means is when a user searches your restaurant, you are more likely able to be seen within the first 2 pages of the search. This is a form of premium paid advertising that is useful to effectively market a new restaurant.
Most importantly, Yelp will allow you to be more visible when a customer is searching for you through the most used search engine company, Google. Within seconds a prospective client can get all necessary details about your restaurant, see your star ratings, read reviews and be quickly led to you.
With millions of users, Facebook is probably one of the most important social media site a restaurant should be present. Not only a restaurant can self-market in real time, they are also able to gage the efficacy of each online restaurant marketing campaign created.
Facebook is great to publicize a restaurant as well as stay in touch with followers. An administrator has great control over the content and can customize it to meet his/her needs. In addition, Facebook has great analytic tools to specifically target a prospective demography. For example, with the help of Facebook Ad Manager, a restaurant owner can choose attributes such as age, location, and interest and so on to target the diner’s group that is most likely to enjoy their venue. In addition, several different campaigns can be made to reach a specific goal whether it is to increase followers, promote a menu or item, share news, geo-targeting or to simply direct followers to the restaurant site.
Just as one of the feature’s that Yelp offers, Facebook users can comment and leave ratings which is an important aspect for future dinners to pick you over a competitor.
Foursquare
Restaurants who base their marketing on location targeting and last minute decision making should utilize Foursquare, a mobile application that allows restaurants to best market themselves and position themselves in the palm of their future customer. With Foursquare, a restaurant business can market themselves in a way that they desire, as well as pay for ad’s to be found more often. Restaurants can share media and promotions being offered to the consumer. The best part about foursquare is promotions are gamified. It means that restaurant owner’s can offer incentives by checking-in the location to receive a treat (Usually in a form of a discount, complimentary food or drink.)
All restaurant owners and chefs know that we eat with our eyes first. Food is very visual and we love sharing what looks good, fun or interesting. Instagram is an image centered Social Media sharing application that can quickly grab foodies’ attention. When marketing for restaurants, Instagram can help capture food and drink lovers’ attention as well be utilized to share any fun aspects of the restaurant life worth sharing. In addition, Instagram is heavy on hash tags. With hash tags, a restaurant can find every mention made of them (i.e.: #NameofRestaurant) as well as target a specific audience with a particular interest (#Foodie or #FoodPorn)
Instagram is great to target a younger, vibrant and adventurous audience. It is also easy to use and a great way to be seen via a very popular social media platform.
Twitter is a very specific social media platform that is beneficial for restaurant marketers to use especially if, they are trying to grab the attention of key influential individuals in the restaurant industry as well as share short bits of info. Twitter is where hash tag usage originated from, the usage of the hash tag symbol is now customary on many other social media sites . In addition, restaurants can follow food aficionados and influential individuals in the food industry and food bloggers to stay abreast of trends and contests. Many news editorials tend to run contests a few times a year. A savvy restaurant owner should be knowledgeable of them as they may have a popular item on their menu worthy mentioning or entering into contest.
In addition, Twitter gives an alternative option for followers using this particular social media site to connect with your restaurant.
Most Important Restaurant Marketing Tool
The most important online site all restaurants must strive to have is their own website.
Owning your own website is the best way to market yourself at all times. You have the ultimate control and if nurtured should be the most direct, legitimate and reliable source of information for your business. All Social Sites tend to change their rules or at the worst case scenario, can become unavailable for a period of time. Therefore, owning your own website is the most reliable way to ensure that your online presence is visible and the best way to market your restaurant.
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In addition, restaurant owners must make sure all sites are optimized to different devices. In order to retain the attention of your future dinners, ensure that the most important information are provided within the first glance or few seconds after accesing your site. That would include name, address, company backiground and a photo of your best selling item.
Source Cited
[1] /News-Research/News/Restaurant-sales-continued-to-rise-in-October
[3] http://www.pewinternet.org/files/old-media/Files/Reports/2011/PIP-Local-business.pdf
[4] http://www.restaurantnews.com/new-research-shows-tech-use-in-restaurants-is-up/
This post is part of Inbound Marketing Clinic, a research project at NYU SPS
