9 Tips for Creating a Winning Restaurant Social Media Strategy

Are you still trying to get the hang of the restaurant social media game? We get it. Social media can be tough. If you’re a restaurant or bar owner, though, social media is too valuable to ignore.

Why is it so important? Because 74% of consumers use social media to make purchasing decisions, and 72% of people admit to using Facebook to make a restaurant or retail decision.

With a few tried-and-true tips, you can develop a restaurant social media strategy that actually works. Here are nine of our favorites.

Our 9 Restaurant Social Media Strategy Tips

1. Take Time Setting Up Your Profiles: Make sure your social profiles look great! Use high-quality profile pictures and cover banners, and put time and thought into developing a great brand bio.

Be consistent throughout all platforms, using the same profile picture, name, handle, and bio on each profile. Make sure to include links to your website, location details, and easy ways to contact you on all your platforms.

2. Leverage All of Facebook’s Helpful Features: Facebook has a slew of helpful features for social media for restaurants, like a “book now” button for reservations. You can add your menu, explain your services, allow reviews, and more.

Plus, Facebook’s advertising platform is cost-effective and great for geo-targeting.

3. Take Full Advantage of Instagram’s Features: People love pictures of food and cocktails, making Instagram a fantastic platform for social media for bars and restaurants. Use hashtags, share stories, and encourage your patrons to tag your establishment in their photos.

Also, don’t be afraid to use stories – they’re incredibly popular with users. (Bonus Tip: hide hashtags behind stickers in your stories to expand your reach without seeming spammy.)

4. Schedule Your Posts Ahead of Time: You already have a lot on your plate, and adding a bunch of restaurant social media accounts can be overwhelming. Take some of the pressure off by scheduling your posts in advance with our Social Post Composer and Scheduler.

Instead of having to come up with posts and tweets on the fly (when you remember to), schedule your social media content for a few weeks into the future. This restaurant social media strategy allows you to focus on social media when you have time, and let it run itself when you don’t.

5. Manage All Your Content in One Place: It’s also important to manage your social media in one place. Find a social media monitoring tool, like our social inbox, that allows you to view all your comments, mentions, hashtags, and reviews in one place.

This way, you can avoid signing into multiple accounts to interact. Instead, manage all your social media accounts from one central location.

6. Aim to Engage, Not to Promote: Your goal should be to get your customers to engage with you on social media. Focus on creating meaningful interactions rather than nonstop promotional material.

Ask questions, share interesting facts, post inspiring photos, ask for opinions, run contests, and more. When you do promotional posts, be genuine and try not to be too pushy (users don’t like that).

7. Learn the Optimal Times to Post: Figuring out post times is straightforward sometimes. For instance, don’t post about your 4pm happy hour at 6am! But often, it’s about testing to find the right times to reach your customers.

Test different post times on each platform and figure out which times get the most engagement. Then, only post during your “magic times.”

8. Post Often: Keep customers updated with what’s going on inside your restaurant – and make sure to keep the content interesting. Sometimes it’s hard to find inspiration, but here are some easy post ideas:

• Menu Changes
• Specials
• Announcements
• Behind-The-Scenes
• Staff Highlights
• Customer Highlights
• User-Generated Content (re-sharing things users posted about you)
• Holiday Greetings
• Recommendations on Menu Items to Try
• Cross-Promotions (for other local businesses)

9. Incorporate Video: Videos are an incredibly powerful medium on social media. In fact, 93% of marketers have landed new customers by sharing videos on social media. Videos can be day-to-day behind the scenes, taste-testing new menu items, announcements, and more.

Plan ahead and incorporate video into your restaurant social media strategy to make it a regular thing. You can share stories, go live, or share pre-recorded videos.

Improve Your Restaurant Social Media Game

Use these nine simple tips and you’ll be a master of social media for restaurants and bars in no time. We’re proud to offer a social post composer and a social inbox catered to restaurant and bar owners so you can easily schedule and manage social media all from one place.

Learn more about our social media and reputation management tools with a free demo here!