Images, text, hashtag, characters, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter… Is too much information about Social Networks for Restaurants if you don’t know how to use them well! What to choose? How to start? Go ahead and read! 🤓

One can not deny the boom that Social Networks are these days; thousands of data and content that are shared per hour; reactions, scandals, celebrities, so much information! Even the food industry is not left behind in these matters.

It has nowadays achieved great heights, thanks to the many dishes photographs that turn an unknown restaurant into five Micheline stars one, everyone’s dream.

This is how, even though we are in the north part of the continent, we follow restaurants in the south of it, in other countries and even other continents, due to their visual content which is so attractive that it makes you hungry! Their communication or sales concept is so interesting, that one can stop to read every post. Thus, a community of fans is created where probably a very high percentage has not even eaten there.

Do you know about the “Food Porn” concept? There are hashtags with millions of images showing delicious food that anybody will love to stop and look at.

But, how do they do it? How do they manage to attract customers to their “virtual restaurant”? Moreover, how can someone attract strangers and make them “fall in love” with his or her brand?

In this guide, I will explain to you what is all about!

First of all, what are Social Networks?

They are your opportunity to get closer to your potential consumer! It’s that simple.

Why? Because they are a channel through which you can get to know your target audience better, interact, share, talk and obtain data that will help any business manager establish strategies to turn readers into their regular consumer just by dedicating a few hours to them and making a few touches on their smartphone.

Why are they so important?

Social Networks are platform spaces where people socialize with friends, family, and strangers, all of them united by common tastes or related people, also looking for information, entertainment or recommendations. Social Networks for Restaurants? This is the place where your restaurant needs to be!

Here is a classic interaction of networks

A person is looking for restaurants close to their work area, enters Google “Arabian Food” and several nearby references appear.

To get an idea, they decide to search the restaurant’s names in their Instagram; however, since your business doesn’t have a network presence, the person simply prefers not to search further, because they would have to leave aside what interested them to research more about you in other platforms as a consequence the potential interest is lost when your business is not in the usual communication channels in which your consumer is found.

In conclusion, your restaurant lost a potential customer.

This does not mean that you should have an online presence on every Social Network! You must have a presence on the platform where your target audience is.

You must know that each platform has its own personality, age, content to share, and other characteristics of a particular group or market segment.

Also, you must have a presence on those platforms that you can manage and update constantly, only then you can have a good return on investment.

Ok Great!, I have my Social Network… Now what?👀

Now you have to arm yourself with a good photo pack, discover the functions of your chosen social network (filters, editions, videos, etc), and get organized.

1-Get inspired, get informed, and take notes. Search for restaurant accounts, determine what you like, what you don’t like, so you can start plotting a direction in your strategy.

2-Prepare a good repertoire of images and videos, dedicate yourself to do it for a few days and try to obtain material that shows how delicious your product is.

3- Test yourself. Once you have the material, publish it at different times, on different days, and see what combination offers the best results.

The statistics that the networks offer you

about the times/days that your followers are most active

can help you.

4- Use the hashtags in the most efficient way while you grow your business up. Focus your content on global, medium, and specific hashtags, this way you will be able to classify your publications and be found easily.

5- Interact, start the conversation, be friendly and direct, offer a solution.

6- Be spontaneous! Share live, make small videos of what is happening in your kitchen, a good relationship with your team, or daily situations that can bring your brand closer to potential customers. Make them feel part of you!

And now, something very important, tools!

7- Make your life easier and use programs that from your smartphone, will be able to program and allow you to make publications or alert you about your social networks. Some examples that have a free version to start are:

• Hootsuite:
  • Manage 3 social profiles.
  • Schedule 30 posts.
  • Generate leads with social contests.

  The free plan also includes basic analytics for tracking followers and various growth and statistics content and two RSS feed integrations. Not too shabby! Take a Look

• Buffer: allows you to manage multiple social profiles with ease. With many superior features to Hootsuite, some of my favorites features are that it includes the ability to schedule content while browsing the web with their Chrome extensions. It also suggests the perfect times to post based on followers’ activity. It’s pretty cool!

Buffer’s free plan also includes the management of three social profiles, schedule up to ten posts, utilize their browser extensions and mobile apps, create content using their image creator and GIF/video uploader and shorten and track links. Check here.

Don’t want to distance from Facebook Inc.? You can use Business Suite, Facebook’s own free tool that allows scheduling and publishing on Facebook and Instagram at the same time.

Also, on this platform, you will be able to review messages, comments, and notifications from both social networks in one place. See here all the free tools they have.

Once you feel comfortable, consider investing in online advertising, this way, with your target audience well segmented, you can have a greater reach and the possibility of capturing customers is higher.

Now, let’s do it!

And of course, always try to keep up to date! The online world is very changeable and as for the food industry, quite demanding! So you must be aware of the movements, news, discovering trends, topics, feelings, this will be very important, do not miss opportunities!

Finally, don’t get discouraged! The online world requires work, sometimes it is slow, sometimes very fast, the important thing is that your community from 10 or 20,000 followers’ feel that you are happy to talk and share with them.

Good luck!

Estefanía Barbieri

I’m a Publicist passionate about letters, bibliophile par excellence, and happily dedicated to being an amateur cook in my spare time. Not much free time and not many good recipes, but I try;)