Today we’re going to go over four ways to market your restaurant on social media in 2021. Many of you have already jumped on the social media bandwagon, and I applaud you for that, because many people don’t see the value in it.
Just in the last two or three years, people don’t see the value in posting on social media because there’s no direct return on investment. There’s no direct association with spending a dollar on advertising. You put a dollar on investing in your brand on social media and how much you brand on social media and how much you get back.
You don’t know, and that’s why many people don’t do it, but today people are waking up. People understand the importance of social media. That’s why people are spending thousands of dollars to hire social media specialists to take pictures for them, write captions, interact with their customers. But in today’s age, that’s not enough.
It’s not enough to post beautiful photos. It’s not enough to engage, because the market is so saturated. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, are saturated with beautiful photos. You need the right strategies to stand out from the crowd, and that’s why I want to share with you the four different ways to market your restaurant on social media.
The first way to market on social media is to use ads. Now, I am 100% against using ads if you are not aware and understand the goals and if you don’t already have a solid base and foundation for your business.
However, if you already have a solid foundation, if you already have people interacting with your brand, then running ads is a necessity. Running ads on Facebook and Instagram is still relatively cheap compared to native ads, print ads, bus ads, video ads, etc.
Also, running ads on social media like Facebook and Instagram is very effective if coupled with the right strategy. So, for example, when we run ads, we don’t do it just to sell people, “Hey, you know what? Come to my restaurant, 20% off. No, we don’t want to do that. We want to run ads strategically to show people that,
“Hey, YOU KNOW WHAT?”. This is the behind-the-scenes of how our food is made. This is the type of food we offer. This is the type of people we serve. It’s what they think of our food after coming and eating at our restaurant. This is behind the scenes. This is how everything is done.
And then when the time comes, when you want to promote a certain campaign, you want to offer them something in return. You tell them that; YOU KNOW what, there’s 10% off. Or hey, YOU KNOW what? Come in this weekend for this specific promotion.
So managing promotions is very strategic. You can’t just send out an offer and expect your customers to come back right away. Be able to warm them up. Be able to show them behind the scenes;Tell them a story. Be able to show them there behind the scenes of your work. That way, when the time comes, you will become the priority of your clients.
And another powerful thing and another powerful way to deliver ads is to re-target. What that means, and that’s actually where the genuine power is when you’re advertising, is when you can re-target people. And what that means is that you’ve never experienced something that YOU KNEW you wanted to buy a certain item. Let’s say, for example, a jacket. You want to buy this jacket, you click on “add to cart”.
You want to buy that jacket; you click add to the cart and at that point, someone calls you, you close your computer and go out to dinner, something like that. And an hour later, you come back, open your laptop and forget about the jacket. So yes, you had intended to buy that jacket, but as life takes over, you completely forgot about it. And suddenly, the next day, you get an email reminding you that, hey; YOU KNOW what? You have that jacket in your cart. I just want to remind you that if you want to check out, you get 10% off, something like that. That’s what we call re targeting. It’s showing up in your inbox, showing up in your feed, telling you that, Hey, YOU KNOW what? You forgot about me, but I’m here. That’s the power of advertising. And then on the same note, you can actually do the same thing with food and drink as well. So, for example, when people interact with your advertising, they’re like, Hey, YOU KNOW what? I really like this product. I really like your menu. I really like your recipe. It’s outstanding. And the next time you have a promotion, you show it in front of me, now, because I like your brand, because I already like and want to try your product, I’m much more likely to come to your restaurant and try your products. And that’s the power of re-targeting. That’s the power of being timely with ads so that you’re not just running ads because everybody else is. Have a strategy, have goals and you have to re-target in a timely manner.
The second way to market social media for your restaurant is through review sites. Yes, review sites are also social media because it is a platform where people can search for your restaurant and brand. Believe it or not, over 80% of people who are going to eat at a new place are looking at review sites like Yelp, Google, all these different review sites and you need to make sure that you have a presence on these different sites.
And I’ll give you another statistic. Did you know that a half star rating increase, okay, is over 30% of the traffic increase. And what that means is if you have three and a half stars versus someone who has four stars, and you’re serving the same thing, 30% of the time, people are going to prefer the place with that extra half star, that four-star restaurant, they’re going to prefer that and they’re going to have 30% more sales than that business, and that brand, that restaurant, that only has three and a half stars, that’s why you have to pay a lot of attention to review sites.
Right? A lot of times you ask yourself, Hey, but, I don’t have many reviews, or, Hey, YOU KNOW what, my restaurant just started, I don’t know how to get reviews. Well, you need to make sure that you have a strategy for getting reviews, excellent reviews, critical reviews. It doesn’t matter, just honest reviews, okay?
You can always work to make sure that your product satisfies your customer. But in the same way, if your product sucks, then it doesn’t matter if your reviews don’t, because you shouldn’t even be in the restaurant business.
I’m saying if you have an excellent product that you can improve, that you can serve to customers, that customers like it. Now, some ways to get reviews is to encourage your customers and reward them, for example, by offering them a drink every time they come in and show that they left a review or maybe have a sign on your door that says, “Hey, please leave us a review on Yelp” or something like that. Because many times, if you don’t ask, you will never receive, and that’s why you must always, always ask. Just like at the end of the article, I will always ask you. I will always ask you to hit the “Share” button because it helps us in our YouTube journey and because if I don’t ask, I will never receive that “Like” button. So please, hit that button. But back to this, encourage your customers to leave a review on Yelp.
Whenever you have a review, make sure you respond to them and engage with your customers. Let the review be a troll review where people are just complaining about you because YOU KNOW what? They’re getting bad service because the guy looks like he’s always bored at work, but if you’re not that bored and it’s just the way you look and unfortunately that criticism isn’t warranted, then you can respond, Hey, YOU KNOW what? And put some character into it. Make it fun. For example, you can be like, “Hey, this is how I look. How dare you? Or something like that. Have fun with them. Show your character because the people reading these reviews are human beings too.
They understand what real criticism is, and what criticism that isn’t really warranted is. For example, if it’s a justified criticism that’s negative, then own it, own it, and tell people that, unfortunately, this happened to you. I’m really sorry. Let me make it right and get better. And people are much more forgiving if you are honest and admit it. And there you have it. Review sites don’t take this lightly because it can make or break your business.
The third way to market your restaurant on social media is through influencer marketing. And what this means is that influencers are basically the cool kids in the class. They’re the people that people look up to. They’re the outspoken people who are the most popular. They’re like the kings of the prom and the queens of the prom. Okay, so these are the people you want to bring into your restaurant. These are the people that you want to reach out to, and actually find their profile and offer them to come to your restaurant to get a free meal, to actually, YOU KNOW what? Not pressure them to write an article, not pressure them to share, but more simply to come and experience what you offer. And if you’re sincere about it, and you’re not a boring person, often these influencers will be more than happy to post on your behalf, more than happy to post their experience in your establishment and that speaks volumes about you compared to food critics or anything else.
Influencers are the biggest players in town and have a major influence on your restaurant because many times you can leverage their customer base. These are the people who follow them and a lot of times these influencers have 10, 20, or 100,000 followers and subscribers who watch what they post. So if they had a significant experience at your location, most of the time they can influence their followers as well. For example, when we launched 720 Sweets, the first day we opened, a food blogger came in and posted about us. The next day, three more of her friends came in and tried our ice cream, our smoke ice cream, and thought it was an enjoyable experience. They actually asked if they could post for us and it was five years ago, okay. I didn’t know what influencer marketing was, but I just said, Hey, you know what? I just want to serve you. I just want to bring the best dessert to the market. And because of that attitude that we had, we could get them to post for us and talk about their experience on social media. On social media. And we got super busy by day three and within the first year we expanded to three stores, all because of influencer marketing.
So it’s not something you want to take lightly these days. This whole industry has transformed, grown, and matured, which makes influencer marketing even more important. If you really want to market your brand and get it out to the world, don’t overlook the importance of social media and the importance of influencer marketing. And very often, that’s where they’re going to share through word of mouth.
When people see your message online, they’re going to tell their friends about it. So if you provide a positive experience, a wonderful experience to your consumers, an enjoyable experience to your food bloggers and your influencers, they’re going to talk about it even offline and that brings a lot of weight through marketing for your restaurants. I know we’ve talked a lot about influencers, social media, influencers and things like that. However, you didn’t want to overlook the importance of dealing with influencers that are offline as well.
We’re talking about people who don’t really have a social media presence but have a lot of followers and networks. For example, people who are in real estate or banking, who love your product, come in and try it out and are like, “Hey, YOU KNOW what? I can take this back to my branch. Or the real estate agent, hey, you know what? I really liked this. I want to buy a bunch of this stuff or buy a bunch of gift cards and give them to my association. Those are things you don’t want to oversee, either. Even if they’re not on social media, they have a lot of influence too. They also have a lot of clout through word-of-mouth marketing.
If you can really combine the effect of social media and influencer marketing with word-of-mouth marketing, it becomes a really strong synergy and a great combo that can help your restaurant market in this day and age.
The fourth and final way to market your restaurant on social media is to create a community. This is something that I’m personally an advocate of. Right. I don’t do any advertising. I don’t do any paid promotion until I’ve built a solid base, a foundation of fans that love our product and our service and love us because it’s super, super important. You can’t, if for example, there’s no loyalty, there’s no way to charge a premium if people don’t see you as a brand.
If they don’t like you, they just treat you like a commodity. And when you are treated like a commodity, how do people value you? They value you by price. If you’re not the cheapest in town, if you’re not the cheapest, most profitable, people won’t come to you because they see you as a commodity. If they see you as a brand they like, they’re willing to support your approach and then pay a premium and then they’re loyal to your brand. So it doesn’t matter if you have competitors opening around the corner, if you have competitors opening right next door to you, they will still come to you because they want to support your approach and because they are loyal fans of your brand and they will pay that little extra for your product because they are loyal fans. With that said, how do you build a loyal fan base? Often, it comes from personal engagement. These are things that are not scalable. These are things that require one-on-one interaction that you have to consider, that you have to show them you appreciate them. Simple things like addressing them by their first name, building up fans one by one, and knowing that your first thousand fans are very important to the success of your restaurant.
Address them by their first name, give them a little gift. That way they feel like, Oh, I’m a VIP. Ooh, I kind of like that. Ooh, I’m special. And slowly but surely, they become regulars and loyal fans of you, sharing your story. Why are you building this brand? Why are you building your restaurant, what are you working on, for what purpose? And if they know a lot more about you, if they understand your journey, your story, then they’re going to be much more likely to want to support you on your journey to your restaurant. And that’s how you can build your loyal fan base, one fan at a time. It’s something that’s not scalable, but it’s critical to the success of your restaurant. The fourth point is being able to build that community of loyal fans. And that’s what’s going to make the difference between a business that fails and a business that thrives. So those are the four ways to market your restaurant on social media.
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The first is to use ads, with a purpose, with a strategy. Don’t just run ads with 20% off, because people don’t really connect with those kinds of ads. Be able to tell them a story, show them the product you serve, show them what it’s like to enjoy your product behind the scenes, and tell a story before you run an ad to get them to come in. The second way to market your restaurant is through review sites. Review sites like Yelp, Google, all these different sites. Don’t take this lightly and create a way. An automatic way to get those reviews because it’s super important, because 80% of the people who decide where to eat, look at review sites. Great, super important and never seem like this. The third way to market your restaurant on social media is through influencers. Influencers are the cool kids on the block. They are the prom kings, the prom queens, and you need to make sure you bribe them. Okay, bribe them with a free meal, treat them exceptionally well, give them a pleasurable experience, but don’t ask for anything in return because if you ask for something in return, it will feel like overkill. It wouldn’t be natural. It would be like a bribe. Bribe them in a way that they don’t feel like they are being bribed. Okay? That’s the whole art of it. And finally, number 4, create a community. Create a community of loyal fans, so you can stand out from the crowd and not be compared to a commodity that is only competitive in price. You want to create a community so you can be loyal and demand a premium for your menu and products. I hope this has helped you build an exceptional restaurant. I really hope this has helped you.
