Create demand with social media marketing for restaurants

Skip the article and turn takeaways into action by scheduling a call with our team.

Anyone who’s running a modern restaurant knows how important it is to have a presence on social media platforms. Used correctly, social media marketing for restaurants can propel an establishment to success, drawing in new and repeat customers by building an online presence that grabs attention.

Social media can be a powerful advertising and marketing tool to augment brand awareness and identity. So, whether you’re further developing your digital marketing strategy or just starting your restaurant social media plan, we’re here with ideas to help you grow in the right direction.

This article will cover social media account basics and how the most popular platforms can benefit your business. You’ll even get suggestions for what to post and where to post it.

Social media strategy basics: The big 4

There are four social media platforms a restaurant must include in their marketing plan: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Yelp. The first three appeal to different audiences, especially across age demographics. Generally, older people use Facebook, while a younger crowd relies on Instagram and TikTok. Yelp is the only platform where the entire user base is focused around one industry: restaurants!

1. Your Facebook page

Creating a Facebook page for your business is simple and free, and with 2.89 billion users, there is no reason to avoid an online presence in the metaverse. At the most basic level, your business page will give those users your location, hours, menu, and contact information like your phone number and website address. Many restaurants enable delivery ordering and other direct contact via Facebook’s Messenger app. That’s a good start, but there’s much more beneath the surface.

For example, with the Facebook Events feature, you can set up a dedicated page to promote events at your restaurant, like hosting live music or having a wine tasting. The pages are free, simple to create, and connect to your business page. You can invite people, but your Facebook Event is searchable and shareable to all Facebook users providing excellent visibility for your restaurant.

Your Facebook page can amplify the free user-generated content that followers share of meals, events, and photo ops at your restaurant. Be sure to monitor your engagement regularly to reshare posts that tag your business or comment on posts to your page. People tend to trust user-generated content, so the more content followers share, the better.

You can also build brand awareness with Facebook ads displayed to a targeted audience in your vicinity. Facebook ads have long been a staple of social media management and a cost-effective way to get your name out there and run promotions. A Facebook page combined with ads is a solid start to a social media marketing campaign.

2. Your Instagram account

An Instagram account is the place where the visual side of your business can truly shine. If you’re looking for a place to post beautiful food photography, this is the spot. Millennials and Gen Z alike use Instagram at high levels. Create “Instagrammable” moments with your decor to attract this crowd of potential customers.

Posts can get more traction if you learn to navigate trending hashtags. Check out what’s hot in food, restaurants, or more specific marketing niches like sustainability or food genres to boost your social media presence on the platform. Keeping current with these trends and using hashtags can help you plan content for your account.

Unique features like Instagram Stories and Reels build your social media presence without overwhelming users’ newsfeeds. Stories appear as photos that blend into a slideshow, whereas Reels are short videos. Regularly using these features in combination with Instagram paid ads can grow your following quickly.

DMs (direct messages) from customers are becoming more common via Instagram, so reply as quickly as possible. The more responsive you are, the better.

3. Your TikTok account

Like it or not, TikTok is the fastest-growing social media platform in the country, and that trend isn’t likely to change anytime soon. More and more, people are using TikTok as a search tool. Whether it’s learning a skill or finding a new restaurant, this platform isn’t just dance videos anymore.

Fortunately, creating social media content for TikTok doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Short snippets of your kitchen at work, serving a delicious-looking plate of food, or a video of a live event can all attract a following on the social network.

Create content based on what your customer base searches for. TikTok pages grow by being useful and searchable. Restaurants have a leg up with content like explaining the background of their cuisine or how to make a favorite dish at home.

TikTok Business Accounts support your brand for a lot of the same reasons Facebook and Instagram do. Notably, TikTok’s algorithm features local content as much as possible, so your videos reach nearby potential customers.

Restaurants haven’t yet saturated this particular social media market, so there are plenty of opportunities to create a social media profile on TikTok to reach your target audience. Consider teaming up with local influencers with just a few thousand viewers to hit the ground running.

4. Your Yelp page using Yelp Connect

Using Yelp Connect on your Yelp page is an excellent way to find new customers by tapping into the enormous amount of diners already on the well-known platform. Yelp Connect leverages this community with social media-like features that help grow your audience, reach diners with posts that appear on their Yelp homepages, and create custom call-to-actions.

Yelp Connect is designed to highlight your business’s appeal and what makes you unique. You can build rapport with new and existing customers by creating stories that show on the feeds of local Yelp users. Posts are also shared in email digests that reach over 5 million users per week.

You can glean valuable data from Yelp Connect by seeing who engages with your posts. You can improve your marketing efforts because you have more insight into which demographics you resonate with. You can also devise campaigns to entice those who may not yet patronize your establishment.

If you don’t yet have a Yelp page, Yelp Connect is a fantastic reason to sign up. Get the word out there to a huge captured audience and let customers who are searching for places to eat know what’s going on. You may just be surprised at the response.

Social media marketing strategy tips

No matter what social media channels you use, similar strategies can be valuable across the board to drive traffic to your page—and your seats.

Keep on posting

The most important thing you can do to strengthen your social media presence and attract social media users is to post regularly. Aim for one social media post a week per platform at a minimum to maintain presence and build your restaurant brand.

Even if you’re not getting a lot of user interaction yet, keep posting promotions or social media contests, buying ads, or composing simple reminders about your establishment. Encourage friends and customers to like and follow your accounts (and ask them to ask their friends to do the same).

And don’t forget to interact with your community when they comment on your posts. Not only will these actions draw in new customers, but they’ll also tip off the algorithms that you’re an active user. Interaction with the platform and your followers ensures that you show up in your customer base’s feeds.

Many businesses hire a social media manager to maintain this marketing channel. If you find it tedious or don’t have enough time to handle it, you can contract out or delegate this demanding task to a socially savvy staff member.

Work with local influencers

Teaming up with local influencers can significantly boost social media marketing for restaurants. As many as 49% of diners rely on influencers for tips about new restaurants, so creating solid relationships can work in your favor.

To find these influencers, you’ll need to spend some time on social media apps and find out who’s popular in your area. Look for influencers with more than 10,000 followers if you’re in a large city since they’ll have a significant amount of reach. If you get lucky, you may catch the eye of internationally famous foodies with millions of followers. For many restaurants, being featured on one of their social media posts is a huge step forward in business.

The relationship between a restaurant and an influencer should be a two-way street. They provide a useful service by showcasing unfamiliar restaurants to new customers. So, negotiate with them with an open mind regarding what they’d like in return, and make sure it works for you.

Create social media buzz

Restaurant owners can generate social media buzz with the same promotions they’ve run before—just better advertised. Whether you’re promoting a giveaway, special menu items, unique entertainment like live music, or any special event, you must post what’s happening on your social media accounts. Restaurant social media marketing thrives on a combination of novelty and consistency, just like the industry as a whole.

If you notice you have slow days, offer coupons or discounts to get customers in the door. Or run a social media contest that requires featuring your restaurant somehow in user-generated content. The best thing is that social media is flexible enough to accommodate any type of promotion and any type of restaurant, from high-end to fast food and everything in between.

Increase your reach with Yelp

Using social media to drive business to your restaurant is a must these days. An engaging presence on the most widely used platforms, including Yelp Connect, ensures you reach more customers than ever before.

Every day, millions of restaurant searches happen on Yelp. Restaurants that start using Yelp Guest Manager, a front-of-house platform, experience up to 2x the traffic on their Yelp Business Page.* And restaurants that start using Guest Manager paired with Yelp Ads experience up to 2.3X the traffic.**

If you’d like to see how this suite of Yelp products can work for you in tandem with your new social media strategy, contact us, and we’ll give you a free demo. We’ve been supporting social media marketing for restaurants for a while, and we’d love to share what we know.