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No matter how scrumptious your food is, your efforts will go unnoticed if you’re not driving traffic to your restaurant. This is why having a social media presence is crucial to the success of any business. Just think about it— your potential customers are spending the majority of their time on socials.
If you haven’t implemented social media in your restaurant's digital marketing strategy— Here are 5 tips that may help you get started.
Videos
Trends are changing by the month and it’s important to keep up. The new generation has the attention span of a goldfish thanks to the very platforms you will be promoting your business on.
And since everyone’s attention span has been reduced to a 15-second cat video on TikTok, social media algorithms have started prioritising short-form (vertical) video content to keep their viewers entertained.
However, we know that it’s not the easiest task to consistently post videos. BUT, there are ways to make it manageable:
Re-purpose old content!
If you’ve ever taken any videos for your website, Google ads, your business’s YouTube channel or even have content in the very depths of your Instagram grid feed— re-purpose them. A secret that not a lot of social media managers think about is that you can literally recycle old content.
Take your old content, crop them vertically and post them as a Reel. Reel Templates make this process so much easier too! Instagram continually optimises for Reels and will prioritise your video content over normal static posts, therefore, you need to absolutely take advantage of this if you’re trying to grow your page.
Side note: vertical videos aren't going anywhere (unfortunately)— the younger generations are growing up with vertical videos… so you’ll need to get used to it.
Here’s an industry secret— Canva is to social media marketers what a toolbox is to a mechanic.
Canva has a variety of stock footage you can use to create engaging video content. Select the stock footage relevant to your business and, basically, fake it til’ you make it (until you have the time and resources to produce original content).
See what your competitors are doing
If you’re having a tough time figuring out the type of content that works best for your business, there’s no harm in having a cheeky peek at what your competition is getting up to. Take some inspiration from your competitors— see which video content is thriving on their page and try emulating them.
TikTok
There are so many awesome (and sometimes cringey) TikTok trends that make their way to Instagram. Participate in these trends/challenges and watch your engagement rates skyrocket. See what trends are popping off on TikTok and get involved! Usually “Sounds” are attached to these trends, when using popular sounds on your Instagram Reels, the chances of that Reel going viral increase (popularity is usually prioritised in the Instagram algorithm).
Influencer Marketing
These days, its virtually impossible to scroll through your feed without seeing products and services being promoted by seemingly normal people. This is the phenomenon of influencer marketing (done the right way might I add). Content creators have worked to grow their following and become an authority within their respective niches.
Simply put, instead of marketing directly to your target audience, influencer marketing is the use of influencers to market your brand’s key message for you. Influencers are essentially a brand of their own, with their own audiences and communities.
Side note: not all influencers need many millions of followers. The merge of TikTok sparked a new kind of influencer—nano-influencers, the more authentic, down-to-earth influencers with a following of less than 10 000. To everyone’s surprise, these influencers have a massive impact with respect to driving brand awareness and sales (they have the highest engagement rate amongst other types of influencers) and are well worth investing in.
Influencers come from a wide range of pockets throughout the internet. Many individuals, groups, brands or even places have the potential to be influencers.
According to Forbes, influencer marketing is growing faster than digital advertising. With influencer marketing, you’re able to leverage the followers of industry leaders to foster growth within your own business. In fact, influencer marketing should be an active tactic in your social media marketing strategy to increase brand awareness, get your content in front of fresh eyes and generate new leads for your business's sale funnel.
The benefits of IM?
Trust: Influencers have built relationships trust and credibility with their online communities. Therefore, people respect their opinions, insights and recommendations.
Improve brand awareness: Influencer marketing can greatly expand your reach and positioning online
Cost-effective marketing: Compared to other forms of advertising, IM is not costly, with an average cost of £10/ 1000 followers. Paying an influencer to promote your services/products can reap massive ROI.
IM saves time!: You can shorten the process of building your fan base since you’ll be collaborating with existing players in the industry.
Influencer marketing is a no-brainer. The benefits speak for themselves and you should be included in your marketing strategy like yesterday already.
Marketing Agencies
Did you know there are currently over 25 000 marketing agencies in the UK?
These marketing agencies range from small niche marketing agencies that focus on very specific industries to large-full service marketing companies.
With so many options, picking one that best suits your business needs may seem a bit overwhelming.
Don’t worry— we got you. Check out our best picks:
Side Dish is a Digital Marketing agency that focuses on helping restaurants, bars, hotels & businesses alike reach their full potential. They create strong brands that connect with guests, build visually stunning websites and develop an online presence that will make your business more discoverable.
CEEK Marketing Consultants use a unique marketing methodology to ensure businesses are seen by their target customers online & via social media. Their team of Marketing Consultants have an unrivalled passion for Digital Marketing and partner with amazing brands to tell their story online & amplify their message across social media whilst utilising other marketing channels such as Search Engine Optimisation, Influencer Marketing and Paid Targeting campaigns.
Bundle Digital is a Hubspot-certified Agency Partner with a focus on inbound marketing and a highly capable team.
Lovers of all things digital, Bundle Digital are all about transparency, responsiveness, measurable results and building strong relationships
They offer regular face-to-face and online meetings to clients to make sure they are never left in the dark and are always aware of the status of the work that’s being done. –Bundle Digital even creates bespoke marketing dashboards that allow a business to track results against targets and goals in real-time.
Customer-generated content
Recycle your customer’s content. To be honest, your audience will probably get sick of your content if you keep posting business-made stuff (no offence). Switch it up every now and then— post a customer’s review video, screenshot their cute comments about how “amazing the pudding was tonight” and pop it on your feed. Your audiences trust customer recommendations more than they do your ads—so be sure to include some customer-generated content in your social media strategy. The plus side— it takes up less time and the content is often engaging and fun.
Join the convo
Don’t be afraid to get involved in conversations happening in the online community. Remember: "Content is King, but Community is the Kingdom" So—get involved in the conversation around you rather than it being a one-way street. Twitter and TikTok comments have exceptional reach potential if done well and may even be another avenue to increase brand awareness.
Duo Lingo, for example, has had its comments on TikTok videos reach tens of thousands maybe even millions of impressions, a minimum of 20K likes per comment and thousands of response comments. Their utilisation of commenting to increase brand awareness is simply remarkable, adapting to newer generation Lingo, humour styles and trends.
Fin.
Your business’s social media pages won’t grow overnight (unless you’re lucky), trust the process, include the above tips in your social media strategy and you will quickly build a loyal, curated (to your niche) follower base on any platform you use to promote your brand. To summarise, start creating short-form videos, include influencer marketing in your strategy, and hire marketing agencies to take the pressure off of you, CUSTOMER-GENERATED content is a lifehack, and getting involved in the conversion has the potential to increase brand awareness in the best ways! Good luck.
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