We all know how important social media are to a restaurant marketing strategy.

Connecting with patron’s and potential guests through social media is the second most important and effective digital marketing technique you can use to increase your business. If you’ve been following our blog, then you already know that we consider your website to be your most valuable marketing asset ;)

Today we discuss 5 tips to help you improve your restaurant’s social media marketing strategy.

1: Know your objectives

Spend time understanding exactly what you want to achieve.

Do you know what you want to gain from the investment you make in social media marketing? Do you want to increase your restaurant’s visibility; reach new clients; build your brand; get the word out about promotions & specials; or??? If you don’t establish clear goals, you won’t achieve the full ROI. Let’s explore some goals you can set for social media success. We’ll look at Facebook and Twitter because they are the most familiar, but remember that these objectives translate well to most social media platforms.

2: Increase Likes and Follows

Set a weekly goal to increase your restaurant’s Likes and Follows by 5 or 10.

“Likes” on Facebook and “Follows” on Twitter will boost the number of people that see the information you share. The more Likes and Followers you have the larger the audience for your marketing efforts. Here’s how it works; if 10 people that connect with your restaurant through social media each has 10 people following them you can reach 100 potential customers through those 10 connections. You won’t reach 100 people by sending 10 people a flyer through snail mail…

3: Keep them Engaged

Establish a schedule for your social media engagement.

Engaging your audience is crucial. In our social media driven, always connected culture you need to create interesting pieces of information to share about your restaurant on a regular schedule. When you’re busy, it’s easy to forget or set aside your social media marketing, but effective social media that drives business through your door deserves to be on the priority list.

It’s not as hard as it sounds. For example: When Chef creates a new menu item take a picture of the completed plate and share it to all of your social media platforms (you can do this right from your smartphone). Better yet, have one of your staff create a homemade video of Chef cooking the new dish with their smartphone! Just be sure your kitchen is presentable ;)

Which leads right into my next tip; how handy is that??

4: Get Visual

Add photos and video to keep them engaged.

There’s a reason cute baby videos and cat memes go viral in social media; people are visual by nature and our eyes are drawn to color, pictures and motion. We also love to laugh! Use interesting photos and video that include audience appropriate humor to boost your social media audience engagement.

5: Measure Results

Measure, test, repeat.

Measuring the results of your restaurant’s social media efforts is a critical step. Fortunately, most of the social media platforms provide reports containing analysis of your social media engagement. Reviewing these reports can provide significant insight into the type of information your audience appreciates and shares. Repeat the things that work and throw out the ones that don’t.

WebDiner offers affordable social media management, so hit us up for a free consultation!