Social media marketing for restaurants

Gone are the days when print advertising, food quality, and in-store ambiance were the only touch points of your restaurant’s brand. In 2022, how people perceive your restaurant’s brand relies on, yes, food quality, advertising & in-store ambiance, but also reviews, delivery speed, and your social media presence. We know that as a busy restaurant operator, tasks like inventory management, staffing, scheduling, and balancing books likely take precedence over social media, but done right, social media marketing for restaurants can boost your brand perception, sales, and customer loyalty. Hard to believe? Let’s take a look at the data. 

• 90% of guests check out a restaurant online before dining—more than any other business type
• 74% of people say they’re more likely to visit and order food from restaurants who they actively follow & engage with on social media
• 71% of restaurant customers say they’re more likely to recommend a restaurant to a friend if that restaurant responds to them quickly on social media
• Nearly half of diners say they’ve visited a restaurant for the first time because of a post seen on social media, and 22% said a restaurant’s social post enticed them to return.
• 74% of people say they are more likely to visit or order food from those restaurants they actively follow & engage with on social media
  

Based on the above, it’s critical that your restaurant maintains an active presence on social channels, creates engaging content that users want to interact with, and manages communication with your followers (or potential customers) regularly. Today, we’ll cover how you can create engaging content for your restaurant’s social media channels. 

How to take advantage of social media marketing for restaurants to boost your bottom line

1. Develop (and stick to!) a look & feel that reflects your food philosophy

Different cuisine types, geolocations, and target audiences call for different types of content. If you’re a trendy pizza place in a college town, the look and feel of your photos might lean into trending colors, textures, and styles. If you’re a high-end steak restaurant in a suburban midwest locale, your look and feel may be void of bright colors, timeless, and straightforward. Whether you choose timeless or trendy, luminous or subdued, ensuring that your look & feel is in line with your food philosophy will help you keep your social presence genuine and unique. If you're looking for some inspiration to get you going, download our restaurant social post templates here (hint: go file>make a copy>entire presentation to edit!)

2. Create a consistent color palette across promos, stories, highlights, and more 

Think of your color palette as a set of useful, loose guidelines that help you create consistent, recognizable social media marketing for your restaurant.  The team at Otter uses a relatively consistent color palette based on our logo and website. Still, you can use your logo, top-selling menu item, or current feed as the inspiration for your palette (through tools that pull out your key colors based on what you’ve posted in the past). Regardless of where you pull the inspiration from, just be sure that your color palette of choice is based on something true to your restaurant that differentiates you from the competition. When it comes to using a consistent color palette, we think Otter client Pizzaclik takes the cake, or well, pie. Adorned in bright yellow, pop-centric pink, black & white, this palette and feed is different, memorable, and unique to Pizzaclik. But if you’re not sure you can commit to something as standardized, consider creating “mini palettes” that you stick to throughout different times of the year. Take Otter client, Black Rock Coffee Bar, for example. They create and post in different color palettes based on the season – for fall: oranges, tans, and navy, for winter: dark greens, bright reds, and black & white. 

3. Always use high-quality imagery; photos are an essential part of restaurant marketing

When it comes to social media marketing for restaurants, one of the main areas to take advantage of is imagery. Great food makes for great photos; now, just ensure the photo quality is up to par, and you’re well on your way to social media success.  The fact that “food” is one of the hottest topics on social media, with more than 371 MILLION posts under the hashtag #food, can either be an advantage or a disadvantage to restaurants like yours. Why? Because your food-centric content is competing with them professional food photographers, paid influencers, “foodie” accounts, and more. Image quality is one surefire way to distinguish your restaurant from the competition. There are many ways to achieve high-quality food imagery—from professional photoshoots to freelance photographers—but if you’re more of the DIY type, you can check out this article we wrote that includes 5 simple ways you can shoot excellent food photography yourself. No expensive camera or light reflecting silver thing required! 

4. Keep it real! Showcase the faces behind your business

You’re already well aware that your people are one of your restaurant’s most important assets. They work hard to keep your customers happy, all while maintaining a smile. Using your social media as a look behind the curtain, or counter, is one way to ensure you come across as authentic, human, and relatable. Consider showcasing how your best-selling menu item is made & prepared in the kitchen, what the lunch rush looks like in your back of house, or how grateful you are to have a committed team who makes it all possible. Having a “prompt” or “theme” can keep your content fresh and inspired when creating staff-centric content. For example, what if you asked each one of your chefs what their favorite item on the menu is, or what modifiers make one of their favorite dishes even better? What if you asked your bartender what cocktail tastes best during which season? Keeping it real is a breath of fresh air that your potential customers appreciate in today’s filtered and edited world.

5.Create content that has something for users to do: a prompt to respond to, a contest/sweepstakes to enter, a promo to screenshot 

Social media marketing for restaurants presents an excellent opportunity to let your customers/potential customers interact with your restaurant digitally. Making engaging content is a perfect way to extend the experience of your restaurant beyond your brick and mortar, and the best way to foster engagement on social media is to, well, give your followers something to engage with! You can execute this through promos– for instance, posting about a limited-time offer & prompting users to like, comment and screenshot to redeem the promotion. You can also create a sweepstake that encourages users to follow, like, comment, and share a post to be entered to win a year of free fries, a side of chips, or something equally enticing. If you’re looking to foster social engagement without a giveaway or promo, consider gamifying your content.

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6. Incentivize the sharing of user-generated content (UGC) 

Social media marketing for restaurants can take advantage of something restaurants have that many other industries don’t: happy customers. People love to feel recognized and appreciated. And when it comes to social media, this can happen through comments & likes, but also through sharing & reposts. Encourage customers to take pictures of their food and share their experience by giving them special discounts and promotions when they use a specific hashtag, add the location, or even tag your restaurant.This not only gives your restaurant authentic, diversified content to post, it also opens up a potential new audience to your restaurant! If the food looks great, the customer who posted it may create a sense of FOMO amongst their following – resulting in that person’s friend trying your restaurant! 

7. Consider partnering with influential voices in your community to increase awareness of your restaurant 

More and more people are turning to food influencers and social media for advice on where to eat, especially on social media. When it comes to trying the new restaurant next door, we tend to trust reviews and recommendations blindly. In fact, 92% of consumers say they trust the advice from their friends, relatives, and influencers more than any other form of advertising. Instagram created a strong foodie community due to its visual nature, and TikTok is becoming an influential source to let consumers experience your restaurant through short video content. However, we all know that it isn’t as simple as it sounds, and going “viral” feels more like a shot in the dark. So as more social media platforms emerge, it's becoming increasingly important that social media marketing for restaurants involves partnering with influential people in your community to reach a larger audience quickly and effectively. These may be TikTokers, YouTube creators, food bloggers, Instagrammers, Facebook users, or Twitter users. Don’t know where to start? The first step is to create a budget and determine which platform your target audience uses the most. Now focus on finding a local that enjoys eating the food you serve with the correct following you are looking to reach.  

8. Make sure to stay up to date with social media strategies like alt text, hashtags, and the algorithm

Here is where things get tricky, and as intimidating as the algorithms sound, you CAN beat them and benefit from them. So allow us to demystify the confusing world of social media algorithms. It’s as simple as providing specific information to the platform, so it is easier for users to find your restaurant and engage with your content. A simple strategy to boost your social media presence is to make sure your images have been described in the alternative text boxes on all channels, ensuring that videos have readable subtitles, and doing detailed research on hashtags. Another practice to start implementing consistent posting. Erratic posting may sometimes lead to engagement drop, so focusing on persistence will help you build a more substantial follower base. 

9. Celebrate holidays, internet holidays and cultural moments on your restaurant’s social channels to incentivize engagement 

When it comes to social media marketing for restaurants, it’s crucial to build a content calendar that includes all essential dates and provide relevant information. There are infinite days your restaurant can celebrate, as today, there’s pretty much a holiday for any food or anything you can think of. Don’t believe us? Well, considering that national zipper day and hug your cat day exist, there are truly infinite reasons to celebrate. Beyond scheduling holiday-centric content in advance, make sure you’re engaging and connecting with your customers rather than just using a strange holiday to make random content. Some people tend to steer away from this type of content because if executed incorrectly, it doesn’t drive much value. However, it’s a huge opportunity to create valuable content as these special dates usually have a strong emotional connection to most users. So instead of sticking to the usual “Happy National Pizza Day!” post, use the holiday as a prompt to spark new ideas and create fun, unique, and dynamic content. Think about promos or specials your restaurant can offer that day, and create content to increase awareness of that offer. Here is a food holiday calendar so you'll never miss a day worth celebrating!

10. Share updates, new menu items, and other restaurant news to your social stories

Real time-marketing has become more exciting over the years, especially when it comes to social media marketing for restaurants. In the age of Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram stories, we want to be up-to-date with everything and be notified when anything changes. Sharing updates around new menu items and special events is a great way to incentivize people to order from your restaurant or even schedule a reservation immediately. You could even market a new item release in a way that will increase engagement across all platforms. For example, making your audience guess the new item before it releases, sharing the story of what inspired the new dish, and documenting the process are all fun ways to promote your restaurant and excite older clients.

Time to put your mastery of social media marketing for restaurants to use!

If you’ve made it this far, we’re pumped to see your restaurant’s social media strategies come to life! Remember, you don’t have to be a marketing executive to capture the essence of your restaurant on social channels to attract more diners. The team at Otter is also always here to help superpower your delivery business—so if you’re interested in becoming a partner, fill out the form below!