The Power of Social Media Marketing: Transforming the Restaurant Industry

Social media marketing has become a powerful marketing tool in recent times. Particularly, social media's ability to boost your brand’s reputation through social proof, fostering customer engagement through genuine emotions and feedback. 

We see the importance of social media marketing most prominently in businesses that prioritize customer experiences, such as those within the restaurant industry. In fact, 45% of diners have tried a restaurant because of social media marketing. 

With social media marketing positioned at the forefront of customer engagement, customer demands of the restaurant industry continue to evolve. Here, we'll look at how digital marketing can help you create a winning online presence for optimizing brand awareness. Also, we’ll visit the best practices and what to expect in upcoming times.     

The Advantages of Social Media Marketing For Restaurants

Social media marketing enables your restaurant to conveniently connect with diners through a personal and user-friendly communication channel, resulting in benefits that include:

• Improving brand visibility and reach: Social media platforms offer check-in features that users can share throughout their network, raising brand awareness for your restaurant. A high number of check-ins can help your restaurant rank higher on platforms like Facebook, attracting new customers to your business. 
• Making menus more accessible: The intuitive and dynamic interface of social media makes it easier for your restaurant to share the latest menu promotions and packages via built-in chat windows with links that direct them to your official site for more information. 
• Encouraging brand loyalty: Social media marketing offers a personalized touchpoint that enables your restaurant to respond to diner queries and feedback without delay. The communication process can help you build a close-knit community with lasting brand loyalty. 

Effective Examples of Successful Social Media Campaigns For Restaurants 

The following restaurants have kept lively customer engagements through a combination of social media strategies, including user-generated content, video content, and consistent posts. 

Sweetgreen

The LA based "chic salad" chain has expanded into 13 plus cities. Much of this success can be attributed to the company's wildly successful social media accounts. Sweetgreen has a whopping 356K followers on instagram alone. When you look at their profile, it's colorful, cohesive, and it simply looks DELICIOUS! Not only this, but their captions are witty, attracting tons of engagement on their posts. It's obvious that their following is hooked.

Chipotle

While Chipotle has been around since long before social media strategies were an important part of a business plan, Chipotle has done an incredible job of adapting with the times and getting their audience engaged. Chipotle's social media platforms are known for featuring the humor of their team through the use of trending TikToks and quick-witted tweets that feature their products and promotions. With over 3,100 storefronts globally, its clear that whatever strategy their team is taking is absolutely effective.

Best Practices in Applying Social Media Strategies for Restaurants

Quality social media marketing for restaurants relies on stellar and consistent content creation, along with analytics. Market research shows that 77% of customers will choose a brand over its competitors after a positive social media experience. The following measures can help your restaurant create the most positive impact.

Leverage Influencer Marketing

Collaborating with an influencer specialized in food content can help you build social credibility while tapping into their immediate network of subscribers (who are likely to be food lovers), and convince them to visit your restaurant. 

Optimize Your Menus

Quality videos, images, and food reviews can help increase the appeal of your restaurant offerings. While video and image captions provide a great opportunity to entice diners with mouthwatering descriptions, it is equally important to include trending keywords based on the search intent of your target audience. For example, terms like “vegan”, “low-fat”, and “fresh seafood” can help promote menus based on dietary preferences and requirements.   

Encourage User-generated Content

User-generated content can help promote customer engagement by creating a sense of authenticity. For example, you could hold social media competitions for the most attractive photos of their meals or creative captions for a post. These audience-centric interactions enable diners to actively participate in branding strategies while forming a stronger bond with your business. 

Fine-Tuning Your Social Media Marketing with Fifth & Cor

Social media marketing can help your restaurant business adapt to the latest diner trends and keep your customers engaged with your offerings. Partnering with an experienced company like Fifth & Cor will present you with expert insights and advanced marketing tools to provide your community of diners top value every time, driving optimal outcomes.

Contact Fifth & Cor to discover the most impactful marketing tactics for your restaurant.