Learn the Best Social Media Marketing Strategy for Restaurants & Cafes

Today, it appears that businesses cannot progress without excelling on social media platforms for marketing. This can be intimidating for traditional businesses. Nevertheless, cafes and restaurants need not fret. Social media marketing (SMM) strategies can be highly effective when customised for the hospitality industry, particularly cafes and restaurants.

Given the inherently people-centric nature of this industry, cafes and restaurants have an advantage in devising social media marketing strategies that resonate with their customers and online followers. However, it is crucial to grasp the workings of social media platforms for marketing, along with staying updated on the evolving algorithms and trends.

Here are some strategies for you as food for thought (get it?!).

Best Ideas for Social Media Marketing for Restaurants and Cafes

It’s All About the Aesthetic

Today, customers don’t go to cafes and restaurants just for the food. In today’s digital age, where looks on Instagram are more important than the taste on the tongue, it is necessary for cafes and restaurants to incorporate aesthetic photos of their eateries in their social media marketing strategy.

However, make sure that you show your cafe as is. Falsified photos can lead to online viewers turning into disappointed customers. It then becomes very difficult to develop a loyal customer base.

Food Photography and Blogging

Equally, or more important, is the food photography and videography that you post. Social media, especially Instagram and Youtube, today, is full of food-related reels and static posts. Digital marketing for restaurants provides immense scope for high reach through such content.

Try out trendy audios in their relevant time, opt for a varied editing style till you find your own signature style, and use the filters and hashtags that serve you best given the algorithm. Intersperse these videos with consistent photos of the different items on your menu. Try a special photo post whenever you introduce a new dish. Ensure good lighting and sharpness in these photos and videos. A good social media strategy also entails a lot of constant research and updating. Don’t miss out on that for your business and keep moulding your content accordingly!

Partnerships and Collaborations

Social media marketing for restaurants and cafes is thankfully not a lonely business. Make friends with food bloggers and influencers and invite them over to your cafe/restaurant. Click photos and take videos of them enjoying your food and ambiance (with their permission of course!) and tell the world on social media about their experience. Make sure that you encourage them to post or repost you and tag you. This way, the traffic on their social media can be directed to yours.

User-Generated Content

It need not be just the celebrities and influencers who can help your social media marketing game. Make sure you encourage your regular customers to post about your cafe/restaurant. And this encouragement isn’t always verbal. Create your physical space such that people feel like taking pictures and posting them on their personal accounts. Mostly, they will tag your cafe or location. Even if they don’t, word of mouth creates a lot of buzz on a smaller scale first, and then on a larger scale. People often trust user-generated content more as well. This way, your customers are promoting you.

Online Engagement

Once you are regular in your posting and gain some followers, start interacting with them, as well as with newer, potential followers. Put up questions, polls and votes on your stories. Create posts and videos where you can ask for your followers’ inputs in the comments as well.

Push the posts that you believe the most number of people can relate with or like and make sure to add some interaction in those. This engagement goes a long way in increasing your reach further. It also keeps your followers regular.

Special Offers and Discounts

Promote the special offers and discounts you have at your cafe/restaurant through your social media. Create attention-grabbing graphics and reels and promote them a while before your offer starts. Create content that your followers can save for future use. This could be something as simple as a post about free coffee on one’s birthday. It should be something that your follower saves and keeps coming back to your page for more.

Conclusion

Social media platforms for marketing make it quite easy on the one hand to show off your business. But on the other hand, with increasing competition today, businesses find it difficult to keep gaining more followers consistently. Restaurants and cafes require a social media marketing strategy that is catered especially for them. There is no one-fit-all rule when it comes to digital marketing for restaurants and cafes.

This is where a social media marketing agency like BrightBrain comes into the picture. Reach out to us to make your cafe/restaurant more popular through social media marketing.

BrightBrain Tech is a Digital Marketing and Advertising Agency with a focus on building digital solutions for Branding and Increased Sales efficiency. Our expertise includes Digital Advertising Campaigns, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Web Development and Online Branding. Our Google Partnership brings a unique opportunity to work with the internal team at Google, adding even more value to our team & clients.