Pretty much, we all agree that having a strong social media presence for a business is a critical step to increasing sales. But does that include restaurants? Can restaurants really benefit from social media? Well, the answer is yes.
So, the real question should not be whether restaurants can benefit from social media, but rather how they can benefit from social media to increase their sales.
But first, why don’t we start by analyzing why restaurants need to invest in social media?
Why Should Restaurants Invest In Social Media?
Some businesses are reluctant to keep their online presence active. Such businesses are missing big time, social media is tricky, but if you have the right strategy, you can reap huge benefits. Here are three reasons why you should start investing in your social presence today:
1. To Win More Customers
Unlike in the past, social media has created an opportunity for customers to honestly express their experience with your restaurant and share it with their friends and followers.
Here is how it works; a customer comes to your restaurant. Before taking the meal, she takes a photo of it, posts it on his/her Instagram page, tags your restaurant, and comments on how sweet the meal was.
If that customer has around 30,000 Instagram followers, don’t you think the followers will become interested in visiting your restaurant to get a taste of that recipe?
Additionally, the followers will also take a picture of the same meal and post it on their social media pages. At the end of the day, something that started as just a single post by one customer will end up bringing more people to your restaurant.
2. To Promote A Positive Image
You will rarely if ever find customers complaining in the restaurants. Which kind of makes it difficult for you as a manager to understand their concerns.
But since people have become comfortable expressing themselves on social media, they can easily post their concerns or compliments on your restaurant’s social media page. You can easily follow up with them or clarify issues.
Such a move would create a positive image to other people who might eventually want to visit your restaurant.
3. To Build A Community
Social media is all about socialising and building communities. Without social media, customers can only become loyal because of the food, atmosphere or prices. Apparently, these are not convincing-enough reasons to make them remain loyal in the long-term.
However, social media creates an opportunity for building a relationship with your customers. You get a chance to reach out to them, engage with them, gather reviews, and even convince them to return to your restaurant.
Convinced that you should start investing in social media for your restaurant? Let’s talk about the strategies you can use to increase sales through social media.
How to Increase Sales Through Social Media?
Sales: who would not love them? Here are four tips to drive more customers to your restaurant.
1. Influential Marketing
Influential marketing is a big thing in social media marketing. Everything is now about referrals and tags.
Basically, influencers are people who have amassed massive followings on social media platforms such as Instagram; either based on a single niche or general topics. For your case, the focus should be on influencers that publish content that is related to recipes, diets, and restaurants.
Check this image for example retrieved from Medium.com.
This single post by Chicagofoodauthority generated 2,932 likes and hundreds of comments from people who expressed an interest in visiting the restaurant. How many customers do you think the restaurant got from just this single post?
Talking of influencers, you should understand that they charge a fee for the referrals. It often varies depending on the influencer, the size of following he/she has, and how well you are at bargaining.
For a small or medium restaurant, I would suggest going for micro-influencers as their charges are quite favourable and easy to negotiate with. However, if you can manage to pay the big influencer, by all means, go for it.
Before deciding on which influencer to use, I would advise you to do background research of how active the influencer’s followers. I mean in terms of the number of views, likes, and comments the influencer gets from his/her posts. Again, the platform does not matter as long as the influencer has active followers.
2. Build Active Social Media Pages
Having social media pages is a necessity for all businesses. And I don’t mean just having an account, it is actively posting content on your social media pages, responding to customer comments, and following people including your competitors.
Being active on social media not only enables you to engage with your customers, but it also creates an opportunity for you to attract more people through the posts that you make. The more active you are, the more followers you get.
For example, let’s say you create an exciting video of something like a meal or a recipe and it goes viral, by the time it gets to 10k views, you will have attracted more than 100 followers some of which might convert into real customers.
Well, I’m not saying you will have a viral post, it’s hard to make one. However, updating your social media pages regularly with new content gradually attracts new organic followers who might also convert into real customers.
I understand you might not get the time to do the social media thing on a daily basis. To solve this, you can consider hiring a social media marketing team for your restaurant.
3. Social Media Advertising
It is quite hard to advertise a restaurant on social media. But not impossible. By playing with different advertisement options, you can easily create a location-targeted advertisement on social media and even change the objectives you intend to achieve.
What do you advertise? Well, think of anything you could use to lure new customers into visiting your restaurant. Something like a pizza or dinner offer. Or even better, advertise a free tasting opportunity for a new recipe you are launching. But you have to make it really tasty to have people want to come back and buy it.
The one thing that makes social media advertising, and in particular Facebook/ Instagram advertising so powerful is the ability to change the advertisement objectives. When developing the ad, you can select different goals that you want your ad campaign to achieve and even adjust your daily ad budget.
4. Share Your Common Menus And Ask For Feedback
Before you object to this, hear me out. I understand your restaurant has the secret signature menus that you wouldn’t share with anyone. I’m not asking you to share those ones. What I mean is sharing of the common menus that you feel anyone can come up with or access on the internet.
By sharing some of your menu items, you create an environment of trust on your social media followers that you care about them and you would want them to try such recipes on their own. It is a risky step though.
On the negative, some of these followers might stop having such meals in your restaurant since they can prepare it on their own. But on the plus side, don’t you think they would be interested in tasting other recipes that you have that they can’t prepare on their own?
Or even better, the followers that have never tasted your recipe will want to visit your restaurant to compare your meal with what they prepared. Once they are in the restaurant, you can introduce them to your signature meals and convert them into daily customers.
On the other hand, asking for feedback gives you a chance to engage with your followers. It also creates a feeling of trust while also giving you an opportunity to find interesting content to post.
Conclusion
Social media holds an unlimited opportunity for restaurants. If you have not yet started investing in it, you are missing out on tons of sales. Also, try launching Facebook ads and reaching out to influencers. You can start by offering them a free dining opportunity in exchange for referrals.
The team at EasySocio can help you maintain your restaurant social media pages at an affordable price, that is if you lack time to do it yourself.