Open a restaurant and the customers will come, right?
In some cases, it can be just that easy. However, no matter how many customers you have who faithfully patron your restaurant, it is always nice to have more. If you are the owner of a restaurant, you wear many hats. This is especially true in smaller restaurants. One of the most important hats to wear often is your marketing hat. Some savvy marketing skills can turn your restaurant around in no time. The trick is knowing how and where to utilize your marketing efforts most effectively.
Marketing with social media is important no matter what business you work in. It is a great way to keep your customers engaged with your business and informed about any new happenings. Social media can be especially effective within the restaurant industry, but many owners simply do not know the best ways to utilize it.
Here are some of the most effective methods to use popular social media giants to constantly attract new customers to your restaurant.
Facebook should be your main target
Do you know which city in the World has the most Facebook users? Correct, it is Bangkok!
According to social media analytics company – Socialbakers, Bangkok has some 8.6 million active Facebook users which make the city absolute winner beating out global megapolises like London, New York, Saulo Paulo.
Without any doubts Facebook is the social platform you should put more efforts on,
To make your restaurant stand out to your Facebook readers, be sure to take lots of fabulous and beautiful pictures of your food and post on your Facebook page. People tend to be visual in nature, and nothing can make them hungrier than seeing a colorful and delicious-looking plate of food. Additionally Facebook tolerate photo type posts and give them naturally more exposure.
Advertise specials on your Facebook page. If you have a lunch special everyday, or if you have a new dish that you want to showcase, be sure to put a picture with a full, scrumptious description on Facebook. Many people tend to check their Facebook page before work. If you can catch them before they make plans for lunch, you just might be able to sway them to come into your place for lunch.
Encouraging “Likes” and “Check-Ins” on Facebook from your customers is also another great way to gain some exposure. You could provide discounts to customers who like your restaurant on Facebook or for those who check-in on Facebook while they are in your restaurant.
Don’t underestimate the power of Twitter
If you are not cashing in on the Twitter phenomenon, you are really missing out. Twitter users tweet about 400 million messages a day. With statistics like that, you could say that Twitter has a loyal following.
To use Twitter effectively for your restaurant, the first thing you should do is to tweet pictures of your food. You also need to include any discounts offered for that particular dish.
We love fresh, so we slice our tomatoes right in the restaurant before we put them on your New Chicken Caesar Melt. pic.twitter.com/SFKaxG6Rr1
— SUBWAY® (@SUBWAY) August 3, 2016
Be sure to use links in all of your Twitter posts. If you are posting something that is general, always include a link to your restaurant’s menu. If you are tweeting something more specific, such as a discount, include a link to a picture of that dish or a link to the coupon.
Hashtags are a staple on Twitter, and they help your followers share information about your restaurant more easily. Use hashtags often, but do not over use them as they can crowd your message. You only have 140 characters per tweet, so you have to make them count.
In order to gain new followers, and to keep the ones you have, you need to tweet often. Boring Twitter accounts that don’t have a lot of activity will never be able to keep followers interested. The more followers you have, the more followers you will attract. When someone chooses to follow your restaurant on Twitter, it is as though they are endorsing your restaurant and encouraging others to try it out. The more follows, or endorsements, you have, the more people will think that your restaurant is the place to be.
Let’s not forget Pinterest
Pinterest could be one of the best tools for social media marketing in Bangkok with restaurants. Because Pinterest is completely about visual elements, it is a great place to showcase pictures of your food, pictures of your menu, and links for discounts.
Pinterest is also quickly growing in popularity within the social media realm. Because of the layout of Pinterest, users can quickly look at their accounts and check out things that visually grab their attention. Posts that users like can be “pinned” to their boards so that they can refer back to them whenever they want. Uses can follow other users on Pinterest, and they can also view anything that the user they are following has pinned.
If a user pins something from your restaurant, this is another great endorsement for your business. However, anything that you post on Pinterest needs to be visually attractive. So, be sure you always use great pictures with valuable information.
Design Awesome Graphics For Social Media With Canva
Canva is a free, cloud-based graphic design tool for marketers and brand managers. With Canva, you can easily create a beautifully-designed graphics for your daily Facebook restaurant header, posts or a visually-appealing header for your Twitter business page, all in just a few clicks of a button. They even has restaurant menus and resumes now!
There are a few things you should always keep in mind when you are using social media marketing in Bangkok for your restaurant. The first thing is to make sure that you keep your business social media accounts separate from your personal ones. It is unprofessional to comingle the two, and your followers are really interested in your business, not your personal life.
Make sure that you don’t post the exact same post on Facebook that you posted on Twitter. Because all of these social media sites have vastly different formats, a post from Facebook might not have the same effect on Twitter. Make sure all posts are individually formatted for the proper platform.
Any postings that you place on social media should offer interesting and useful content. Don’t post something just for the sake of posting. Be sure your content has value in order to keep your followers engaged.
If you would like help in the area of social media marketing in Bangkok from experts who know how to grow your business, our social media marketing course is just what you need to make your social media marketing finally help your business grow. This course will show you step by step how to implement an effective social media campaign that can change your business forever, and turn new customers into loyal customers.