Social media is an essential tool for restaurants today. From making your customers aware of sales, deals, and new menu items, to spreading the word about special restaurant events, there’s so much that can be done with social media by your side. But after a while, your usual, routine social media content may start to feel a bit stale. Luckily, there are a ton of ways you can switch up your social media posts. Social media marketing for restaurants centers on getting in touch with your restaurant’s fans and future fans–so why not feature them on your account?
Why Feature Fans on Social Media?
You may be wondering why it’s such a good move to feature your fans on your social media accounts. The fact of the matter is, no matter how much great marketing you do, there’s no substitute for real testimonials and reviews. That’s why word-of-mouth marketing has always been so effective. But with social media, you can gain some control over the image of your restaurant. By picking out the best images from your fans, you can give diners a great first impression of your business before they even step through the doors.
How to Find Fans To Feature
Finding fans to feature isn’t as difficult as you might expect. Through photo and location tags, you can likely discover tons of images captured of meals, events, and guests just generally having a great time in your restaurant or bar. The key is to ask permission before using any photo posted by a customer. You can create a copy-and-paste comment to make this easy. Something simple such as “Hey! We love this image and would love to share it on our page–if that’s okay, please reply with ‘yes’!” works well. Just make sure that you have the poster’s express permission before sharing any images. This also holds true for photos that you take of customers during events.
Social Media Marketing for Restaurants: Contests
Contests are a great way to gather social media content from your customers. They also double as a great marketing initiative in and of themselves. Hosting a photo contest–for example, asking followers to post a picture of them enjoying your restaurant’s food to a specific hashtag–helps to gather attention on your restaurant. Every week, or even every other week, you can browse the hashtag and choose a new winner. Offer them a small gift card or discount as a prize.
Social Media Marketing for Restaurants: Photo Tags
We’ve already mentioned that searching through photo tags can be a fantastic way to find images for your restaurant. Therefore, making sure that your page is available to be tagged in photos posted by your customers is important! Not only will this help you find material to post, but it also helps with your social media engagement.
We hope that these tips for social media marketing for restaurants were helpful to you. Featuring your guests is a great way to show potential customers all the fun that they could be having at your restaurant! Best of luck!
